How, he wondered, did we get here?Īfter many years as a practicing lawyer, Robinson started looking at our Nation’s history and was shocked by how deeply encoded white supremacy and the oppression of Black Americans is in that history. When King was killed, it felt to Robinson like the movement died with him. Before King’s murder, Robinson believed the country had reached a “tipping point,” and true racial equality was within reach. Robinson also attended a court hearing for some of those arrested for marching and that experience, at 11 years old, is why he ultimately became a criminal defense lawyer. He marched with his father and brother in one of the Memphis Sanitation Worker strikes. was murdered in Robinson’s hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Robinson was 11 years old when the Reverend Dr.

In 2011, Robinson began raising his then 13-year-old nephew and, as a Black man raising a Black son, struggled with what to tell his son about racism in America. He went to Marquette University and Harvard Law School and has been a trial lawyer for over 40 years. Former ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jeffery Robinson had one of the best educations in America.

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