Born in poor circumstances in the segregated US South he became a lawyer, a distinguished political activist, and an author.
He is well known throughout the United States and beyond.
I first heard of him in the late 1970's, shortly after he founded the TransAfrica Forum which has served since 1977 as a "major research, education and organizing institution for the African American community, offering constructive analyses concerning US policy as it affects Africa and the Diaspora..."
He served as Trans Africa's president until 2001.
Over those 24 or so years, Mr. Robinson engaged in major political activism.
He has been a champion of social justice in the United States, advocating with great passion and effect the plight of African Americans, and calling for reparations for them.
He was one of the leading fighters worldwide for ending segregation in South Africa. Indeed, in 1984, he established the Free South Africa Movement which pushed successfully for the imposition of sanctions against the apartheid South African Government.
The man was a veritable thorn in the side of the Reagan Administration in Washington and in the side of any other institution or person standing in his path to social justice.
In 1994, he went on a 27-day hunger strike to press for the re-instatement of Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti after a short-lived coup d'etat by General Raoul Cedras. Aristide had been Haiti's first democratically elected President.
And again, Mr. Robinson was successful, and the United Nations sent in a multinational operation to put Aristide back in power.
Some Kittitian and Nevisian police officers participated in that operation.
He also dumped crates of bananas on the steps of a US Government office building to protest against unjust trade practices in bananas against Caribbean nations.
He has more than once expressed the view that America's domestic and foreign policies exploit the poor.
He went to jail a number of times in the name of his causes and his convictions.
In 1999, he wrote a book called "Defending the Spirit" which was a rallying call to a new era of African American leadership, and which portrayed what it means to be Black in America.
In 2001, he wrote "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks", which strongly articulated his views on reparations for Black America.
In that same year, he decided that it was time to quit America, so he gave up his post as President of TransAfrica Forum, packed his bags, and took off for the Caribbean with his wife and young daughter.
Then in 2002, he wrote "The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe To Each Other".
In this book, Mr. Robinson states that while Blacks must push for reparations, they must also fight against the growing prison industrial system which he considers to be as ominous for Black and Brown people as the slave trade was for Black people between the 17th and 19th centuries.
He calls on Blacks to understand, expose and dismantle this frightening system.
This book was heavily influenced by Mr. Robinson's work with gang members, ex-convicts and other persons who lives had been deeply affected by poverty.
Two years later, yet another amazing book by Mr. Robinson, entitled "Quitting America: The Departure of A Black Man From His Native Land", hit the bookstands.
In it, he told the story as to why he had left America. And he compared and contrasted life in the world's only superpower with life in his new Caribbean island home.
I am happy to say that in the comparing and contrasting, the Caribbean island home came out the winner, hands down.
I'm talking about an intelligent, sensitive, strong, visionary and decent man. And such a man would be expected to make sensible choices and to have exquisite taste.
Which is exactly what he did.
Indeed, he had already chosen a brilliant, beautiful and regal Caribbean woman named Hazel as his wife.
This is a lady who had gone up to North America and gotten her tertiary education, to build on the solid foundation which she had left the Caribbean with.
She had reached the point where she had held down a very important job with the US Congressional Arms Services Committee, and she operated a very reputable consultancy service in the US. An independently bright and dynamic woman who could acquit herself with aplomb and graciousness in the midst of immense adversity. An alpha female. Double alpha, even! And charming and nice!
So it would come as no surprise that Mr. Robinson would quit America and come to live in the Caribbean with Hazel and their daughter, Khalia.
His latest book has just come out. It is entitled: "An Unbroken Agony: Haiti From Revolution to The Kidnapping of a President".
It tells us the story of Haiti from the Revolution led by L'Ouverture and Dessalines, right up to the taking out of Aristide. It tells us about the imposed sanctions and about the reparation penalty charged by France back then just after the Revolution, equivalent to US$21 billion of today's dollars.
It shows how Haiti was never given the chance to get off its feet and never 'forgiven' for defeating the might of the French and for taking its independence, and opening the way for the abolition of slavery.
This book is a mighty book and it is about a story that every person of conscience must know.
I have just started reading it, and already I am captivated.
The story, the writing style, the command of English, the vast knowledge of the writer of his subject, and most of all, his passion for Haiti and all that it symbolizes.
There are some people in this old world of ours who can talk, and others who can write. Then there are those who can do both at the highest and most captivating level.
Randall Robinson falls into that third group.
And, as is the case with others of his ilk, his effectiveness in getting his message so magically to us cannot be simply explained by the fact that he has a powerful intellect.
It has to come from a place far deeper than that which stores bare intellect.
And it does.
Mr Robinson's effectiveness comes from his soul. He is a man of soulful compassion, sensitivity, and sincerity of purpose. A man of decency, principle and courageous conviction. A man of love. A good man. A real man.
That is why he moves people the way he does.
I am urging you, Dear Reader, to get your hands on this "Unbroken Agony..." book.
Read it, and then go after every other book that Mr. Robinson has written. You will be the better for having read them.
Before I end, I must tell you which Caribbean island the Robinsons migrated to.
It is the island of St. Kitts.
And it is an honour for us to have a man like him in our midst, living and walking amongst us.
This is where, essentially, he has been getting his inspiration to write these wonderful and stirring books. I fervently hope that we will do all that we can do, and more, to keep inspiring him.
Sometimes, I worry that he might be disappointed in us, given our pettiness, our polarization, our short fuses, our disunity and mutual disrespect, our quickness to follow the lead of others who are blinder than we are (although possessed of greater material "wealth" than we are),our disturbing indifference to our historical and cultural foundations, and our "sell-out" mentality.
There is a stirring passage at the start of Chapter 7 at page 27 of the book which I want to leave with you.
"A dark soul emboldened by pride or virtue, who elects to retrieve a stolen birthright, resist a cruel domination, or militantly ward away the puissant swarming spores of Columbus and his like, must decide at some point to engage the silver-tongued takers to draw them into a dangerous intimacy, and by so engaging them, risk a contagion of the spirit, or fates even worse".
"The odds of success are never good. The taker controls all, but the most abstract and otherwise valueless of weapons; for it is always the taker who controls the guns, the wealth, the heralds of public information, and more often than not, the weak's very own thoughts".
That, Dear Reader, is Randall Robinson.
A national treasure to be cherished, respected, and loved.
I think it is most appropriate at this time, as we celebrate Emancipation Day to be discussing a book on Haiti's Revolution and its tribulations over the centuries, written by a man who knows the story so well; an adopted son of St. Kitts & Nevis.
Until Next Time,
Plenty Peace.
