Randall Robinson, an American human rights activist and lawyer known for his advocacy against South African apartheid and for Haitian democracy, died last Friday (March 24) at age 81.

Robinson died of aspiration pneumonia in St Kitts, where he spent the last two decades of his life.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Khalea Ross Robinson who described him as an incredible father. “He did a lot on behalf of people he hadn’t even met.”

A press release from Robinson’s family noted that he “led a range of foreign policy campaigns in his life-long advocacy in defense of democracy and justice in Africa and the Caribbean,”

Remembering his life’s work

Robinson was one of the leaders of the Free South Africa Movement, which began in the 1980s and pushed to end apartheid.

He founded the Washington DC-based foreign policy advocacy organisation TransAfrica in 1977 to promote diversity and equity in the foreign policy arena and justice for the African World including the African diaspora.

Robinson served as the president of the organisation until 2001.

During his time at TransAfrica, he organised a sit-in at the South African embassy to lobby against apartheid and went on a 27-day hunger strike to pressure the US government to reinstate Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, among many other actions.

He was also a leading voice advocating for reparations for black Americans.  

Before founding TransAfrica and becoming known for his political activism, Robinson earned a juris doctor degree at Harvard Law School and worked as a civil rights attorney in Boston. He served as a professor of human rights law at Penn State University and wrote several books.

Robinson attributed his activism later in life to his experiences of segregation.

“The insult of segregation was searing and unforgettable,” he said in a 2005 interview with The Progressive Magazine.

He said joining the social justice movement was “salvaging. We all have to die, and I preferred to have just one death. It seems to me that to suffer insult without response is to die many deaths.”

According to Robinson’s family, a funeral service will be held in St Kitts in April, with another memorial service slated to be held in Washington DC in May.