What Happens When Someone Makes Waves: The Life and Death of Frank J. Robinson (Part 1 - Nov 5, 2023)
by Scott Sosebee
This will be the first of a multi-part look at the remarkable life and controversial death of East Texas civil rights activist Frank J. Robinson
It is often difficult for many in today’s era to aptly understand the vehemence, tension, and outright hatred that gripped the American South—including Texas—during what is referred to as the “Civil Rights Era.” The push by African Americans, aided by a small number of White supporters, to achieve social, cultural, economic, and political equality ran right up against a movement just as impassioned and just as committed to maintaining the southern social system of segregation, racial oppression, and racism. That epoch was filled with protests, violence, and, in many cases, outright murder, all in the name of making sure that White supremacy remained the accepted social organization of the Jim Crow South. The region was at the same time filled with individuals who, despite the personal danger they may have faced, pressed for campaigns to gain the equality they sought. For some of them, their quest literally cost them their life. One of those was East Texas native Frank J. Robinson.
While it should never be, it seems that it has become almost a cliché to say that someone has risked their life to affect change. However, during the Civil Rights Era, in the South, it definitely was no platitude as a number of African American activists literally paid with their lives for their involvement. The documentation of lynchings and other means of murdering those who dared to challenge the “southern system” is pervasive and also sobering. One of the most curious—and shocking—tales of life and death is associated with Robinson, an educator as well as activist whose death is still today shrouded in an aura of controversy and mystery. Officially—which means according to an inquest and other investigations—Frank Robinson committed suicide. However, according to a number of contemporary acquaintances and friends of Robinson, as well as investigative reports by journalists such as E.R. Bills, the Texas Observer, and the Texas Tribune, there is no mystery. Frank J. Robinson, they conclude, was murdered by those connected with the Anderson County White “establishment” because they wanted him silenced.
Frank James Robinson was born in rural Smith County in 1902. His father and mother, Charlie and Oleva, farmed a small plot in the countryside, a life that barely sustained Frank and his nine siblings. Life for Frank Robinson grew much more precarious when his mother died of an infection in 1914, which meant that Frank’s labor on the farm grew even more intense, which also delayed him from completing the primary grades until he was over twenty years old. Robinson’s advanced age before he finished elementary school was not due to a lack of intelligence; by all accounts, he was a studious young man. He simply had to work to help his family for as much as nine months out of the year. And, Frank Robinson, despite being twenty-one-years old, was passionate about receiving as much education as he possibly could. That led him to enroll in high school equivalency courses available at Texas College, a historically black college in Tyler. He finally was able to complete those classes—again, shuttling back and forth from the farm—in 1927. That led Robinson to enroll at Prairie View College (now Prairie View A&M University), where he completed a degree in agricultural science in 1931. He also married while he was in school, to Dorothy Redus, who would become his life partner as well as a major influence on the eventual direction of his life as an educator and activist.
Robinson went to work for the Texas Agricultural Extension Service in Palestine immediately after graduation in a position in which he helped local African-American farmers learn about new techniques and other educational information to help their endeavors. When World War II broke out, Robinson and Dorothy moved to San Francisco, where Frank worked in a shipyard that built ships for the United States Navy, but when the war ended, the couple moved back to Palestine. Dorothy got a job with the Butler Independent School District, which led Frank—who had never really contemplated a career in education—to apply for an open position at Butler as well. The ISD hired him, and in a surprise to even himself, Frank J. Robinson found a career. He would eventually become the Superintendent of Schools at Butler and, in the mid-to-late 1950s, became a leader in securing new buildings for the schools, as well as expanding the electrical service out to Butler from Palestine and constructing a community center.
It was also during this time that Frank Robinson became an activist. When he was growing up in the segregated environs of Smith County in the 1910s and 1920s, Robinson—grudgingly, like most African Americans of his day—accepted the fact that Texas society was segregated. However, when he moved to California during World War II, he was able to see and live in a society in which the races were not divided by a power structure based on the concept of White superiority. San Francisco was not devoid of racism, certainly, but the entire social structure of the region did not rest on the concept that the races were not equal, as was the case in Anderson County and the rest of Texas. When he and Dorothy returned to Texas, which meant returning to segregated schools, public facilities, and the suppression of Black political voices, it stuck in Frank Robinson’s craw. Thus, as an educator and superintendent, he emerged as a leader in the growing civil rights movement.
Robinson decided to retire from his role in the Butler Schools in 1962. He and Dorothy could have eased into the life of a retired couple, but they chose a different path. Robinson took a job as a district supervisor for the American Woodmen Life Insurance Company and also began to invest in real estate. Inspired by his experiences, as well as the grim episode of the Freedom Rides that played out in the South in 1961, he also became politically active, which would become the defining feature in his life as well as led to—and many believe this to be the case—his eventual “assassination,” as E.R. Bills has characterized Robinson’s death.
Next week, Robinson’s activities lead him to come in direct confrontation with the White power structure of Anderson County and East Texas.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu; www.easttexashistorical.org.
