“R” is for Robinson, Bernice Violanthe (1914-1994). Educator, civil rights activist. A native of Charleston, Robinson moved to New York in the early 1940s. In 1947 she returned to South Carolina to help care for her parents. She joined the NAACP and became involved with voter registration drives. In 1954 she attended the Highlander Folk School. In 1957 Robinson became a teacher at the first of what would become Citizenship Schools on Johns Island. She based her curriculum on the practical needs of the people. Because of her success as a teacher, in 1961 she was chosen by the Highlander and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to set up voter registration workshops across the South. The workshops that Bernice Violanthe Robinson created helped transform the political and economic status of thousands of disenfranchised Blacks in the American South.
“R” is for Robinson, Bernice Violanthe (1914-1994)
