What Happens When Someone Makes Waves: The Life and Death of Frank J. Robinson (Part 2 - Nov 12, 2023)

by Scott Sosebee

The second of a multi-part look at the remarkable life and controversial death of East Texas civil rights activist Frank J. Robinson

When Frank Robinson ended his career as the Superintendent of Butler schools and began a second career as an insurance executive and real estate investor in the early 1960s, he also began to increase his activism in the cause of civil rights. The campaign for African American civil rights and equality began to grow in intensity in the decade after World War II as new organizations and new activists came to the forefront. The initial focus of these protests and movements played a huge role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but such legislation did not mean the work was done—something Frank Robinson understood all too well. He observed daily that despite legal and legislative victories, in places such as Palestine, East Texas, and the entirety of the South, change was either slow or non-existent. Such experiences led Robinson, in 1965, to help found and become the leader of the Anderson County Civic League.

The Anderson County Civic League’s broad focus was to make the county’s African American citizens aware of the need to organize to affect change in the long-held southern concept of a bi-racial society based on white supremacy, but more pointedly, Robinson understood that if change was to happen, Anderson County’s Black citizens not only needed to vote but needed to win political offices in order to have their voice heard and to also gain a “seat at the table.” Anderson County was historically one of the centers of slavery and plantation culture in Texas, and after the end of slavery, formerly enslaved people constituted—at times—as many as forty percent of the county’s population; at the time Robinson formed the County Civic League, African Americans were fully a quarter of the population. Despite such numbers that should have made a difference in a nation and state that practiced representative democracy, no African American had ever held any political office in Anderson County.

One of the most pervasive ways in which Texas had suppressed the African American political voice was through the “at-large” system of officeholders. In an at-large scheme, while there may be five places on a County Commissioners Court, they were not designated as certain precincts, wards, or any other kind of demarcation. Instead, if there were five spots on the Court, voters from the entire county voted to fill those five spots. That intentionally diluted the Black vote and usually resulted in wholly White representation in city, county, state, and congressional seats. The Supreme Court ruled, in a series of cases in the 1960s, that such arrangements violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a ruling that instituted a spate of lawsuits to establish “single-member” districts or precincts for representation on elected bodies.

Such a campaign became Robinson’s focus, and in 1969, the Anderson County commissioner’s court—in order to stave off a lawsuit—was reapportioned into four voter precincts. But, as had been the custom of White efforts in the South for a century, they made sure to gerrymander those precincts to make sure that African American votes could not sway elections. The blatant move to hinder the intent of the Supreme Court and other legal rulings surrounding “one man-one vote” dictums infuriated Robinson. In response, he organized the East Texas Leadership Forum. It was an expansive effort, and Robinson’s stature and organizational skills made for the gathering of African Americans from multiple backgrounds and skills in sixteen East Texas counties, all to pool resources and challenge these latest efforts to silence Black political voices. Robinson was also able to gain financial support from national organizations such as the AFL-CIO, the ACLU, the NAACP, and others.

Prominent ACLU attorney David R. Richards served as general counsel for Robinson, Rodney Howard, and Timothy Smith (residents of three of the diluted precincts) as they filed suit against the Anderson County commissioners in late 1973. The case, named Robinson v. Commissioner’s Court, Anderson County argued that the Anderson County precincts lines were intentionally drawn in such a way to lessen the influence of Black voters, an action that violated—in their argument—the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution. The case was heard by William Wayne Justice, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Texas, a Lyndon Johnson appointee. Justice ruled in March 1974 that Anderson County had intentionally and egregiously gerrymandered the precinct map with the express purpose of racially diluting African American votes. He ordered the lines redrawn. Anderson County appealed the ruling, but in December 1974, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld Justice’s ruling. After the result, seven other East Texas counties filed similar suits and achieved the same results. Frank Robinson had fought the White establishment and won.

Robinson had obtained victory, but he pressed on—which likely cost him his life. The city of Palestine still employed a similar scheme to form its city commission. Robinson then filed suit in the spring of 1976 against the city to force them to also use single-member districts to elect commissioners. He formed another group—the East Texas Project—to bring similar suits in other East Texas cities. Robinson was actively pursuing racial justice and, by all accounts, was motivated to make sure that East Texas ended its more than one hundred years of racial oppression. Despite such motivation, on October 13, 1976, Robinson was found dead in his home of a gunshot wound to the head. The coroner and police department in Palestine ruled Robinson’s death a suicide, but that begged a question—why would someone so active, committed, and full of vigor to produce results commit ? The inquiry into Robinson’s death would not answer that question.

Next week, the investigation into Frank Robinson’s death raises more questions than it answers

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.