Lafayette Robinson

{{Short description|American politician and banker}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Lafayette Robinson

| birth_date = Unknown

| birth_place = Alabama, U.S.

| death_date = Unknown

| nationality = American

| occupation = Bank cashier, politician

| known_for = Delegate to Alabama's 1867 Constitutional Convention

| office = Delegate, Alabama Constitutional Convention

| parents = John Robinson (father)

| employer = Freedman's Savings Bank (Huntsville branch)

| party = Republican

}}

Lafayette Robinson was a bank cashier who served as a delegate to Alabama's 1867 Constitutional Convention representing Madison County, Alabama. He also served on the Huntsville School Board. He worked at the Freedman's Savings Bank in Huntsville.

Lafayette's father, John Robinson,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8PCI20OHCz0C&dq=lafayette+robinson+huntsville&pg=PA125|title=Neither Carpetbaggers Nor Scalawags: Black Officeholders During the Reconstruction of Alabama, 1867-1878|first=Richard|last=Bailey|date=December 12, 2010|publisher=NewSouth Books|isbn=9781588381897|via=Google Books}} was enslaved prior to 1828 when he was manumitted by the state legislature. In 1830 the legislature allowed him to free his wife and their two children, one of whom was Lafayette Robinson.Freedom's Lawmakers by Eric Foner page (1996) 185

Lafayette Robinson left Alabama during the American Civil War to avoid conscription in the Confederate Army.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S4spEAAAQBAJ&dq=lafayette+robinson+huntsville&pg=PA225|title=Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South|first=Warren Eugene Jr.|last=Milteer|date=September 15, 2021|publisher=UNC Press Books|isbn=9781469664408|via=Google Books}} He, Andrew J. Applegate, and Columbus Jones appeared on an 1867 "Republican Union" ticket as delegate candidates for the Alabama Constitutional Convention. They were elected.{{Cite web|url=https://digital.archives.alabama.gov/digital/collection/voices/id/13505|title=Q129720 - Q129721|website=digital.archives.alabama.gov}}

A panic caused Freedman's Savings Bank to fail costing African American depositors.{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GVLFte9PRv0C&dq=lafayette+robinson+huntsville&pg=PA111|title=Early History of Huntsville, Alabama, 1804 to 1870|first=Edward Chambers|last=Betts|date=December 12, 1916|publisher=Brown Printing Company|via=Google Books}}