The Savannah Tribune Salutes Black History Month

Amelia Boynton Robinson In observance of Black History Month, The Savannah Tribune will salute African Americans who have made tremendous contributions to our society and world.

Civil rights pioneer Amelia Boynton Robinson was born on August 18, 1911 in Savannah, Georgia.

She started her college education at Georgia State College (now Savannah State) and after two years transferred and graduated from Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), in Tuskegee, Alabama, earning a degree in home economics. (She later studied at Tennessee State, Virginia State, and Temple University.)

In 1934, at the age of twenty-three, Robinson became one of the few registered African American voters. In an era where literacy tests were used to discriminate against African Americans seeking to vote, Robinson used her status as a registered voter to assist other African American applicants to become registered voters.

On February 29, 1964, Robinson became the first African American woman ever to seek a seat in Congress from Alabama.

She was also the first woman to run for this office in the state, winning ten percent of the vote when only five percent of the registered voters were African American.

In 1965, Robinson was one of the civil rights leaders that led the famous first march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge which resulted in that day being called Bloody Sunday.

Robinson was gassed and beaten, and a wire photo of her left for dead on Edmund Pettus Bridge, went around the world and helped to spark the outpouring of support for the Civil Rights Movement.

Robinson has remained in Tuskegee and continues her work in civil and human rights on a national and international level.

She is Vice Chair of the Schiller Institute, a nonprofit, international organization that bases its views on the writings of German philosopher Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805).

In 1990, Robinson received the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Medal in honor of her life's work for the advancement of human rights.

The Schiller Institute published Robinson's autobiography, Bridge Across the Jordan, in 1991. She is 98 years old. Information is courtesy of the Schiller Institute