Bernice Robinson

Bernice Violanthe Robinson was born on February 7, 1914, in Charleston, South Carolina to Martha Elizabeth (née Anderson) and James C. Robinson.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2015}}{{sfn|U.S. Census|1920|p=13A}}{{sfn|The Post and Courier|2010}} Martha, sister to Septima Clark′s mother, was a seamstress and James was a bricklayer. Robinson was the ninth and youngest child in the family and attended Simonton Elementary School.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}}{{sfn|Charron|2009|p=232}} She went on to further her education at the segregated Burke Industrial School, completing the ninth grade, the maximum education allowed for African Americans at that time.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}}{{sfn|Gillespie|2008|p=48}} In 1929, she moved to Harlem to join an older sister, who was living there{{sfn|Charron|2009|p=232}} and the following year married Thomas Leroy Robinson.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2015}} She completed her high school education at the Wadleigh High School for Girls and dreamed of continuing her education at the Boston Conservatory of Music. When her sister became ill and unable to support them, the girls returned to Charleston, where Robinson had a daughter and divorced before returning to New York in 1936.{{sfn|Charron|2009|p=232}}

Upon her return to New York, Robinson found work in the garment district, working during the day as a seamstress and attending night school at the Poro School of Cosmetology.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}} She eventually opened her own beauty salon and though Robinson worked long hours, enjoyed the financial independence the shop offered. The shop became a meeting place for neighbors and led to her meeting politicians and activists. She registered to vote and became politically active for the first time, mailing flyers for a local assemblyman.{{sfn|Gillespie|2008|p=48}} In 1945, Robinson took real estate courses while in New York.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2015}}

In 1947, Robinson returned to Charleston to care for her aging parents. She opened another beauty shop and along with her mother took in sewing for extra money.{{sfn|Gillespie|2008|p=48}} She joined the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) branch and worked with them as a secretary and the Chair of Membership.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}} She used her shop as the center of her activism, not only to make contacts, but allowing her clients to have mail sent to the shop so that postal carriers would not be aware of their private business.{{sfn|Gillespie|2008|p=49}} In 1955, the United Nations held a workshop on school desegregation, which Robinson attended. Esau Jenkins and her cousin, Septima Clark were inspired by the meeting, and began to make plans of how they could increase activism on Johns Island.{{sfn|Blunden|2016|pp=182–183}} The workshop opened Robinson's eyes for the first time to the problem of illiteracy and the limitations of being able to only register voters who could read.{{sfn|Charron|2009|p=234}} Jenkins and Clark convinced a reluctant Robinson that she was the perfect person to run an experimental education program because she did not have formal training as a teacher and would not have preconceived notions of structure or curriculum.{{sfn|Gillespie|2008|p=50}} Beauticians were also highly regarded in civil rights work because they had community respect as entrepreneurs and activists,{{sfn|Gill|2010|p=1}} but were also known as good listeners and were unlikely to face backlash from white employers since they were self-employed. It also helped that Robinson had a fairly good knowledge of Gullah, the creole language spoken on the island.{{sfn|Charron|2009|p=250}}

After very little training at the Highlander Folk School on basic human rights, a room was hired and Robinson held her first class on January 7, 1957. Discarding materials for children's education, she taught the students how to read labels on canned goods, how to fill out paperwork, read newspapers, and other tasks they needed for their daily lives. After three months of instruction, the final exam was for the students to register to vote. Eighty percent of her students passed. The schools became known as Citizenship Schools and sprang up throughout the southern United States,{{sfn|Blunden|2016|p=183}}{{sfn|Gillespie|2008|p=51}} after the program was transferred from Highlander to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}} Robinson continued giving volunteer instruction and training others as teachers.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}}{{sfn|Blunden|2016|p=183}} She taught classes in states like Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and became the supervisor of the Low Country Citizenship Schools.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}}{{sfn|Charron|2009|p=257}} In 1967, she enrolled in a correspondent course in Community Development through the University of Wisconsin–Madison and later completed a similar course in interior design.{{sfn|Library of Congress|2015}}

In 1970, Robinson left the SCLC and went to work for the South Carolina Commission for Farm Workers (SCCFW), supervising VISTA volunteers. The work centered on development of day care and childhood development centers for communities on Edisto Island, Johns Island, Wadmalaw Island, and Yonges Island. Between 1971 and 1973, she directed the creation of the Yonges Island Day Care Center.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}} In both 1972 and 1974, she launched unsuccessful bids for the state House of Representatives, but became the first African American woman to vie for public office.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}}{{sfn|Simpson|2016}} In 1975, Robinson returned to the SCCFW to direct programs for migrant workers' day care. She became a loan and relocation officer at the Charleston County Community Development Department in 1979 and retained that position until her 1982 retirement.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}}

Robinson died September 3, 1994, in Charleston, South Carolina.{{sfn|Simpson|2016}} In 1991, Eliot Wigginton published Refuse to Stand Silently by: An Oral History of Grass Roots Social Activism in America, 1921–1964, which included oral history from Robinson and other activists involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Robinson's personal archive of papers was donated in 1989 to the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.{{sfn|Spelbring|2013}} In 2011, a critical review of the career of Robinson was made by Clare Russell. In her essay, A beautician without teacher training: Bernice Robinson, citizenship schools and women in the Civil Rights Movement, Russell argues that Robinson has been inadequately studied and her legacy misrepresented. Rather than an untrained teacher, Russell evaluates Robinson based on her broad education and work experience.{{sfn|Russell|2011}}

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• {{cite book|last=Blunden|first=Andy|title=The Origins of Collective Decision Making|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3YAJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA183|year=2016|publisher=Brill|location=Leiden, the Netherlands|isbn=978-90-04-31963-9}}
• {{cite book|last=Charron|first=Katherine Mellen|title=Freedom's Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cOJnnhieVkMC&pg=PA232|year=2009|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina|isbn=978-0-8078-9846-8}}
• {{cite book|last=Gill|first=Tiffany M.|title=Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women's Activism in the Beauty Industry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aAQAkpyzmZYC&pg=PA1|year=2010|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana, Illinois|isbn=978-0-252-07696-1}}
• {{cite thesis|type=Ph.D.|last=Gillespie|first=Deanna M.|date=2008|title='They Walk, Talk, and Act Like New People': Black Women and the Citizenship Education Program, 1957–1970|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OMgfM2zk20EC&pg=PA48|publisher=Binghamton University|location=Binghamton, New York|isbn=978-0-549-57761-4|id={{ProQuest| }}}}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
• {{cite journal|last1=Russell|first1=Clare|title=A beautician without teacher training: Bernice Robinson, citizenship schools and women in the Civil Rights Movement|journal=Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics & Culture|date=June 2011|volume=4|issue=1|pages=31–50|doi=10.1080/17541328.2011.570031|s2cid=144594679|issn=1754-1328 }}
• {{cite web|last1=Simpson|first1=Patricia H.|title=Robinson, Bernice Violanthe|url=http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/robinson-bernice-violanthe/|website=South Carolina Encyclopedia|publisher=University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies|access-date=1 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201213040/http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/robinson-bernice-violanthe/|archive-date=1 February 2017|location=Columbia, South Carolina|date=June 20, 2016|url-status=dead}}
• {{cite web|editor-last1=Spelbring|editor-first1=Aaron|title=Inventory of the Bernice Robinson Papers, 1920—1989|url=http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Robinson_Bernice.html|website=Avery Research Center|publisher=College of Charleston|access-date=1 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624064853/http://avery.cofc.edu/archives/Robinson_Bernice.html|archive-date=24 June 2016|location=Charleston, South Carolina|date=May 2013|url-status=dead}}
• {{cite web|ref={{harvid|U. S. Census|1920}}|author=|title=1920 U.S. Census: Charleston Ward 12, Charleston County, South Carolina|url=https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRVW-8B5?mode=g&i=24&cc=1488411|website=FamilySearch|publisher=National Archives and Records Administration|access-date=1 February 2017|location=Washington, D.C.|date=10 January 1920|id=NARA T625, Roll 1688}}
• {{cite web|ref={{harvid|Library of Congress|2015}}|author=|title=Bernice Robinson papers|url=https://www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/survey/view_collection.php?coll_id=2617|website=American Folklife Center|publisher=Library of Congress|access-date=1 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170124121629/https://www.loc.gov/folklife/civilrights/survey/view_collection.php?coll_id=2617|archive-date=24 January 2017|location=Washington, D. C.|date=May 15, 2015|url-status=dead}}
• {{cite news|ref={{harvid|The Post and Courier|2010}}|author=|title=Clarence Robinson Obituary|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/charleston/obituary.aspx?n=clarence-robinson&pid=141623103|access-date=1 February 2017|newspaper=The Post and Courier|date=April 2010|location=Charleston, South Carolina}}

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Category:1914 births

Category:1994 deaths

Category:People from Charleston, South Carolina

Category:Activists for African-American civil rights

Category:20th-century American educators

Category:American cosmetics businesspeople

Category:American women in business

Category:20th-century African-American women

Category:20th-century African-American educators