Jo Ann Robinson

Deceased Person

1912 – 1992

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Who was Jo Ann Robinson?

Jo Ann Gibson Robinson was a civil rights activist and educator in Montgomery, Alabama. Born near Culloden, Georgia, she was the youngest of twelve children. She attended Fort Valley State College and then became a public school teacher in Macon, where she was married to Wilbur Robinson for a short time. Five years later, she went to Atlanta, where she earned an M.A. in English at Atlanta University. She then accepted a position at Alabama State College in Montgomery. It was there that she joined the Women's Political Council, which Mary Fair Burks had founded three years earlier. In 1949, Robinson was verbally attacked by a bus driver, which led to her involvement in activism. In late 1950, she succeeded Burks as president of the WPC and helped focus the group's efforts on bus abuses.

On Thursday, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus from the whites section on the bus. Mrs. Parks, a civil rights organizer, had intended to instigate a reaction from white citizens and authorities. That night, with Mrs. Parks' permission, Mrs. Robinson stayed up mimeographing 35,000 handbills calling for a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The boycott was initially planned to be for just the following Monday. She passed out the leaflets at a Friday afternoon meeting of AME Zionist clergy among other place and Reverend L. Roy Bennett told other ministers to themselves attend a meeting that Friday night and to urge their congregations to take part in the boycott. Reverend Ralph Abernathy then helped Robinson pass out the handbills to high school students leaving school that afternoon. He wanted to help her so that she would not be solely blamed.

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Born
Apr 17, 1912
Education
  • Clark Atlanta University
  • Fort Valley State University
Died
Aug 29, 1992

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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