Randall M. Robinson

Armstrong High, Richmond (1959) 
Human Rights Activist

At Armstrong High, Randall Robinson was an exemplary student who participated in many school activities. He played basketball four years for his father, Coach Maxie Robinson, Sr. He was a sportswriter for the school newspaper and participated in the Fine Arts Guild. He graduated from Virginia Union University in 1965 and the Harvard School of Law in 1970. In 1977 he founded the TransAfrica Forum to promote enlightened U.S policies toward Africa and the Caribbean and served as President for twenty-four years. In 1984 Robinson and others founded the Free South Africa Movement, which led to the arrest of more than five thousand people at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. This action contributed to the Congressional vote to overturn President Reagan’s veto of the Anti -Apartheid Act in 1986.  Mr. Robinson has been honored by many institutions including the United Nations, Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP and the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change. In 2008 he was named a Distinguished Scholar in residence by the Pennsylvania State University Dickenson School of Law where he taught human rights law until 2016. He has authored several books including The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe Each Other and The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks. In recognition of his work as an advocate for social justice, he has received more than fifteen honorary degrees.