In Memory of the Great Randall Robinson
Hazel Ross-Robinson, Randall Robinson, Khalea Ross Robinson – Photo Credit: Charles Ezra Ferrell (July 18, 2018)
Written by Charles Ezra Ferrell (Kariuki)
Randall Robinson (July 6, 1941 – March 24, 2023) was one of the most principled, distinguished, and dedicated human rights activists in world history. As founder and president of TransAfrica Forum (the organization that influenced US policies toward Africa and the Caribbean), he spearheaded the US anti-apartheid movement which led to the liberation of Nelson Mandela from the 27-year imprisonment in the US-supported apartheid South Africa. It was Randall Robinson who morphed into the lightning bolt that galvanized US Congresswoman Maxine Walters and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now to join him on a chartered jet to the French-controlled Central African Republic where the freedom of the captured Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and First Lady Madame Mildred Trouillot-Aristide was negotiated and effectuated. In Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President (2007), Randall provides riveting historical accounts of Haiti and, in particular, the nefarious destruction of European and US intervention in Haiti – the first free black nation in the western hemisphere.
It was Randall Robinson whose resounding clarion voice advanced the modern US reparations movement which can be heard in his tour de force, The Debt: What America Owes Blacks (2001). Robinson also valiantly championed the defense of those millions of black and brown souls “enslaved” in the labyrinth of the US carceral “injustice” system in his subsequent work, What Blacks Owe to Each Other (2002).
It is impossible to condense the monumental achievements of this giant with a shell of a few words or an obituary or volumes of books. One can only begin to scratch the surface by studying an early autobiographical work, Defending the Spirit, A Black Life in America, where his brilliance and valiant warriorship is revealed.
This life and works of Randall Robinson are of profound importance. Like all of our warrior-ancestors, we will always remember him. We will call his name throughout the annals of time. He was the type of revolutionary that Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth (1961) beckoned to come into existence: “We need to create a New Man.” Robinson was the manifestation of the New Man - the unselfish one, the giver, the freedom fighter, the smooth uncompromised orator. He embodied the spirit of the Haitian Revolution, a place and event so deeply endeared to him.
In the forward to Walter Rodney’s Groundings with My Brothers (2019), Robinson praises Rodney by acknowledging that his work evokes the Haitian proverb: “‘Tout moun se moun’ - Every human being is a human being.” He also connects Rodney to the African cultural-philosophical concept of Ubuntu: “the belief that we discover our true humanity not in lives of isolation, but via our relations with other human beings.” The complexity and simplicity of these truisms are also the essence of what Randall Robinson himself, the revolutionary, who sought to bring these archetypal concepts into existence throughout his 81-year life-journey.
Even though Robinson left the morally bankrupt US for good reasons to move to the beautiful Caribbean Island, St. Kitts-Nevis, as you will discover in Quitting America, The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land (2004), he never left us, his global African family. Yet what we will miss is the beautiful tenor of his voice in live conversation, the richness of his spontaneous full laughter, the intensity of his gaze, the effective use of his synchronized hand gestures, the absolute warmth of his living spirit, and his effective strategic guidance. But we can take comfort in recognizing his eternal love for our global African family. His love for his faithful and brilliant wife, Hazel Ross-Robinson, and their amazing daughter, Khalea Ross Robinson, is encoded in his final literary gift to us, Makeda: A Novel (2011). It is in this important work that he reminds us, like the great Kenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, that historical memory is of immense sacred importance for our survival. Let us assemble before his alter and commit to always remember this giant of liberation … Randall Robinson, the great Randall Robinson.
The following poem was written and voice-recorded by Charles Ezra Ferrell. It was shared with Randall by his wife, Hazel,
as they sat on their verandah in St. Kitts with the rhythm of the ocean waves echoing in the background.
Tall
A Love Poem for Randall Robinson
A towering African Redwood
Sacrosanct
Sprung from Richmond
7, 6, 4, 1 braided roots
Soaked in Jim Crow oppression
Embraced by loving parents
Rising, Growing, Rising, Growing
Using their law
Against them
for us
A dignified Human Rights
Champion
with long arms
Embracing the earth’s
African Family
Piercing panther eyes
Steady gaze - deeply serious
And swirling inside
Deep Compassion
A warm heart, soft, loving, giving
Deep-bellied laughter that
Reverberates through us
And circles around and then upwards
Eloquence magnified
A master of strategic struggle
Manifest words and bold actions
Coldly Fearless
Willing to starve,
Willing to experience the excruciating pain of ripping hunger
Willing to die for his beliefs
to keep the
Haitian Spirit
of Toussaint and Dessalines
1804 present in our future
Pushing against the unforgivable winds
of US Clinton’s inhumane policies
It is HIM
This magnificent giant
This African Redwood
Tree
Standing tall
among us humble in our forest
A perfect example of Leadership
A master of the global Chess
That unlocked the shackles of
Man
Dela
And saved Aristide and Mildred’s lives
Free South Africa!
Free South Africa!
Free Haiti!
Free Haiti!
TransAfrica, Mandela, Aristide
We shall never forget
Your valor and your
Crystallizing modern call
For Repair
For Repair ration
For Reparations
The Debt and The Reckoning
Defending the Spirit
Of An Unbroken Agony
Necessitated Quitting America
A place that will never change
On its own
Randall Robinson,
our Griot…
A Quiet Important Voice
that is amplified
Among freedom fighters
Who dearly loves Hazel and Khalea
He safeguards our Makeda memories
of who we were
These sacred memories he counsels us
is what we must give
to our children
For what they can become
This tall tree’s sacred memory
Of who we
were
are
To be is ours
All praises to Randall Robinson
All praises to Randall Robinson
Tall, Towering
Towering Tall
Heavenly
Heavenly Tall
Heavenly Tall
Charles Ezra Ferrell © 2022