Estelle Richmond
Robinson, and the Forgotten Activists of the 1960s
by Jordan Antebi
Professor Alison Isenberg
May 8, 2018
May 8, 2018
This paper represents my
own work in accordance with University regulations. [s/Jordan Antebi]
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In late 1971, 26 women—11 black and 15
white—convened at the YMCA in Trenton, New Jersey for an urban issues workshop
titled “What’s Happening in My World?”1 The event—part of a series
sponsored by the Rutgers University Bureau of Community Services (BCS)—was
described in the local newspaper as a “real exercise of the mind and the vocal
chords,” a “free-flowing round-table discussion” about topics such as “drugs,
the PTA, snobbishness of the suburbs, problems of housing, newspapers and
parental responsibility.”2 The early 1970s represented the political
zenith of both second-wave feminism and the liberal counterculture, and this
event was no exception in its social and cultural embodiment of the times. It
was a gathering for Trenton women about their challenges and concerns in a
changing city.
At the center of the group sat one woman, Estelle Richmond
Robinson, an urban specialist at Rutgers-New Brunswick BCS, who led the
session, gesturing, listening, talking, and moderating the discussion. She was
substituting that day for another colleague who usually led the workshops, but
conducted the day’s event as her own. There was something about her— perhaps it
was her thoughtfulness, her calm voice, or her smile—that put the other
participants at ease and encouraged them to speak candidly about specific
concerns. She was demonstrative, looked the other women in the eye, and
listened intently as they described their vulnerabilities
2
Ibid.
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The occasion was a
homecoming of sorts for Estelle Robinson, whose career in political organizing,
and policymaking began in Trenton nearly two decades before. Looking across the
room, she could identify other women in the group— women she grew up with,
women she lived near, or women she worked with—whom she still considered
friends or colleagues, even years after departing the city political scene.
Those personal and professional relationships, which transcended age, geography
and race, helped coalesce the civic working group. “The common thread that we
have here,” she said, “is the interest in Trenton and trying to do something to
help the city. Some of you have walked out of each session with frustrations
and a sense of not covering all there is to cover. There isn’t any other way to
feel, though, when you begin thinking about the solutions to these problems...”4
As
a resident born and bred in Trenton, a mid-sized, Northern manufacturing city,
Estelle loved her community “warts and all,” its people, its places, its
diversity, and embraced the political fight against its challenges, including
racism, sexism, poverty and inequality.5 From a young age, she took
a special interest in social activism, interpersonal relationships and what she
called “getting people together” to advocate public policies related to these
issues.6 Her ability to organize political coalitions by personally
connecting with people, a technique she called
4
Ibid.
5 Ann M. Wilson interview
with author, February 17, 2018.
6 Robinson, Estelle R.
Untitled speech, Networks and the New Jersey Network on Adolescent Pregnancy,
manuscript, ca. 1982. From Alexander Library, Rutgers University, The Estelle Robinson Papers, 1964-2001. (accessed
February 1, 2017)
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In 1985, shortly before her retirement as Director of the Center
for Community Education—the successor agency to Rutgers BCS—Robinson published
a pamphlet titled A Guide to Networking. The
small, yellow booklet outlined a de facto mission statement for her political
organizing strategy, as well as a reflection on the professional objectives,
experiences and achievements from her public career spanning more than three
decades. Inside the guide, she defined Networking as building “a system of
cooperation through which diverse groups and individuals are flexibly linked
together by a shared focus...,” such as services provision, policy planning, or
advocacy.7 Networks were “neither superagencies nor formal
organizations,” but information sharing entities to help cities “avoid
duplication and competition andÉemphasize sharing and mutual cooperation.”8
Through personal relationships and connectivity, she said, Networks could help
city residents, policymakers and organizations “exchange information and
resourcesÉto expand their effectiveness,” just as the women at the YMCA exchanged
perspectives and ideas to build inter-group trust.9
The formal origins for
Estelle’s Networking concept dated to the turbulent 1960s, when unrest flared
in American cities. From 1961-1967, she served as a volunteer community
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid, p. 1.
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Decades
before the modern computer social network, Estelle Robinson envisioned the
“network” as a mechanism to organize, unify and empower individual citizens in
the urban political process. When her public career in Trenton ended in 1967
due to partisan politics outside her control, she brought these ideas to a
statewide audience at Rutgers, where she used them to develop a policy
framework for family health education in the 1970s and 1980s. As a woman in
public leadership during the 1950s and 1960s, she forged her own independent
career as a community organizer and policy specialist outside the traditional
occupational confines of elected office, academia, and religion from which she
was discouraged or outright excluded. She developed the Networking concept by
using her quick mind, gift of people skills and shrewd knack for politics to
circumvent the social and political barriers that challenged her. Robinson’s
passion for families, child welfare and education also distinguished her career
as an early
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Estelle Robinson’s story spans post-war liberalism’s golden era,
movements such as women’s rights, civil rights, and the War on Poverty, and
epitomizes the profound contributions of liberal activists working in cities
during the 1960s. Through an examination of her life, particularly her time
within the City of Trenton, we can see the long-term legacy of grassroots
community organizing from the 1960s, how it has matured and evolved. With 2018
marking the 50th anniversary of the Kerner Commission Report, it may
be easy to write off America’s social progress toward racial and economic
equality as a national disappointment. However, in doing so, society neglects
the stories of earnest, well-intentioned community organizers and public
servants particularly in the smaller, Northern cities like Robinson who worked
during the War on Poverty and civil rights movements, and remained afterward,
“laboring in the vineyards” as she once said, to achieve a better, more humane
society.11
Estelle Robinson’s contributions and those of her colleagues—the
forgotten urban activists—represent a historical aspect of the 1960s that has
remained untold or largely misunderstood for years in modern organizing and
policy circles, and urban neighborhoods. Even Eve Robinson, Estelle’s youngest
daughter, who, inspired by her mother, pursued her own career in higher
education and public service, recalls she “would always talk to me about this
stuff,” but asks rhetorically “How much did I take in?” Today, Eve reflects
upon her mother’s career, and, with hindsight, recalls how it profoundly
affected her and her sisters Joy and Amy.
“We,
her children, I guess, took her work for granted.”12
12 Eve Robinson interview
with author, December 6, 9, 2016; February,8, March 2, 2018.
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Image 2: Estelle, professional
public servant, ca. 1965.
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Josephine Richmond was born in Trenton on February 27, 1921, the
youngest child of Evelyn and Israel Richmond. Later, her name was changed to
Estelle in homage to her mother’s “favorite cousin” Esther.13 During
this time—the ‘Roaring Twenties’—sales soared at the family’s downtown tire
business and Mr. Richmond allegedly wanted to name their daughter “Bergougnan,”
after the shop’s fastest selling brand.14 Thankfully, his wife
“quickly...voted down...that idea,” and, instead, Estelle’s namesake became the
Jewish heroine and Persian queen, celebrated
during the holiday Purim for her bravery and ingenuity.15 It was a
fitting name choice for a young girl, whose upbringing incorporated progressive
Jewish values such as feminism, social justice, and volunteerism.
During
the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Evelyn and Israel Richmond immersed
themselves in Trenton’s civil society and, through example, instilled in their
two daughters the importance of community service and personal relationships—an
idea Estelle’s older sister Ruth Richmond Adams described as “the necessity of
caring about the needs of others.”16 As Ashkenazic Jewish immigrants
from Eastern Europe, the Richmonds came from working class backgrounds, but
achieved success as skilled entrepreneurs during the 1920s and 1930s.
Profitable ventures related to the burgeoning automobile industry, including
the tire shop, a downtown parking garage, and Trenton’s first interstate bus
line to Pennsylvania, allowed the couple to move in the early 1920s and raise a
family in West Trenton, the city’s affluent, upper-
14
Ibid.
15 Adams, “Immigrant
Pioneers.”
16
Ibid.
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Years later, Estelle
would cite her mother Evelyn’s feminism, and insatiable concern for people,
especially children, as inspiration for her own vocation.19 “My
mother spent her life taking care of people,” wrote Estelle’s sister Ruth
Richmond Adams, noting their mother’s difficult upbringing in Russia-Poland.20
Evelyn’s mother Anna had six children, and she allegedly died attempting to
abort a seventh pregnancy.21 Ruth recalled their mother describing
how, as a teenager, she “was told to take care of all of the children, even
though she had an older sister.”22 One can imagine the young girl’s
shock of having her mother die, and then caring for her own kin, barely an
adult herself. This experience of losing her mother due to inadequate
reproductive healthcare, and then having to care for the family likely affected
Mrs. Richmond, and made her an early supporter of women’s health, family and
children’s welfare, passions she passed on to a young Estelle.
In Trenton, Mrs.
Richmond earned a reputation for her “warm, human interest [in] people,” Jewish
philanthropy, and civic leadership.23 Before immigrating to the
United States at a young adult age, she was “an ardent Zionist” and ran in
radical, leftist political circles that
18
Ibid.
19 Eve Robinson; also, Joy
Robinson-Lynch, interviews with author.
20
Ibid.
21 Joy Robinson-Lynch
interview with author, December 1, 2016; March 10, 2018
22 Adams, “Immigrant
Pioneers.”
23 “Resolution: Evelyn Richmond,” Jewish Federation of Trenton, June
1961. From Jewish Federation of Princeton-Mercer-Bucks, Board of Directors Minutes, Notes and Resolutions, Jewish Federation of
Trenton, 1963-1980. (accessed November 1, 2016)
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Inspired by Szold, Mrs. Richmond organized and led local
progressive, Jewish, and women’s organizations such as the Trenton Council on
Human Relations, the Jewish Federation of Trenton, and the Trenton chapters of
Planned Parenthood, Hadassah and Youth Aliyah during the Depression era.26
After the start of World War II, she “immersed herself” in the Youth Aliyah
project, and organized fundraising efforts at gala dinners and annual
drives—during which she enlisted the efforts of her teenage daughters—to “save
many children from the gas chambers in Germany and Poland.”27 She
received several honors and commendations for her work, including a series of
letters from the Israeli diplomat Abba Eban and a special plaque from Hadassah
in Negba, Israel honoring her leadership on behalf of Youth Aliyah.28
Estelle’s sister Ruth remembered they both “had a happy childhood.
Our parents doted on us and thought we were wonderful.” Their mother “made us
matching [silk] dresses on her
25
Ibid.
26 Ibid; also, “Brief
Illness Proves Fatal: Dies at Age 70,” Trenton
Evening Times, May 26, 1961. “Mother and Dad could also not understand why
black people were kept out of the unions,” Ruth recalls. “They belonged [during
the 1940s] to the Council for Human Relations and worked hard to get black men
admitted into the unions. One such person was a man named John Mack from the
West Indies. He was highly intelligent as well as a skilled electrician. They
worked hard to get him admitted to the union. Finally, he was.”
27 Adams, “Immigrant
Pioneers.”
28 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author; also, “Mrs. Richmond Honored,” Trenton Evening Times, February 1, 1953.
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Estelle Robinson left Trenton in 1937 after
graduating Trenton High School to attend Cornell University, where she
graduated in 1941 with a B.A. in Bacteriology. She returned to the city during
the mid-1940s to find work as a lab assistant and, then, raise a family with
her husband Dr. Irving W. Robinson. During this time, Estelle joined her mother
at Hadassah, Planned Parenthood and Youth Aliyah, helping her organize events
and appeals throughout the 1950s.30 Mrs. Richmond also lived to see
Estelle appointed and sworn-in to the Trenton Board of Education, an
accomplishment she celebrated shortly before her death in May 1961. When Evelyn
Richmond passed away, the Jewish Federation of Trenton produced a special
resolution honoring her “outstanding” leadership and “untold services...for the
Jews of our community.” The organization’s Board of Directors lauded “her warm
affectionate, contagious interest in children” and the “tireless energies [she]
expended in maintaining the interest of the local community in Youth Aliyah.”
Mrs. Richmond’s service to the city, they said, left her own children “a
priceless heritage, a good name, [and] the esteem and love of her fellows.”31
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29 Adams, “Immigrant
Pioneers.”
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31 Resolution: Evelyn
Richmond,” Jewish Federation of Trenton, June 1961.
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Evelyn Richmond’s
professional example helped shape her daughter Estelle in other ways, including
her passions for women’s health, families and children, and her professional
focus on political organizing, what Estelle later called “Networking,” during
the 1960s. Mrs. Richmond’s capacity for connecting people, socially and
politically, may have inspired Estelle, in part, to incorporate these personal
qualities into her work during the War on Poverty era. Mrs. Richmond’s work
with Estelle also represented a passing of sorts from her Progressive-era
generation to her daughter’s, the next generation of urban activists from the
1960s onward. Watching and working with Evelyn may have imparted upon Estelle
the progressive idealism that motivated her own civic passion for Trenton and
community organizing well into the 1960s and beyond. Although this attitude
tempered and evolved with the passing years, its core value, optimism, remained
intact until the day she died.35
33 Robinson, Eve. “Photo,” email message to author, March 16, 2018;
also, Joy Robinson-Lynch, interview with author.
34 Joy Robinson-Lynch;
also, Eve Robinson, interviews with author.
35 Ann M. Wilson,
interview with author.
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Image 3: The Richmond women, ca. 1960; (L to R) Estelle, her mother
Evelyn, and sister Ruth. Estelle always cited her mother’s example as a personal
and professional inspiration for her own career.
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Image 4: “Estelle and Irving” at home, Passover, late 1960s. The picture
captures the couple’s spirit: kind, generous, and fun-loving.
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Irving W. Robinson, Estelle once remarked, “was the perfect mate,”
a kind, attentive, husband, whose longtime companionship she credited for
having “a very, very happy life.”37 Tall, bespectacled, with a
gentle smile, one family friend remembered Dr. Robinson as a “prince,” a doting
husband and father, and a well-respected pediatrician “beloved by generations
of mothers in Trenton.”38 Irving was six years Estelle’s senior,
grew up in Lakewood, New Jersey, and attended City College of New York before
pursuing a graduate career in pediatric medicine. The couple first met through
mutual friends during the mid 1940s, after he returned from overseas service in
the Army Medical Corps. Irving was stationed at Fort Dix, and Estelle—a recent
graduate of Cornell University—was working as a lab assistant in Trenton.39
The romantic attraction was, by her recollection, instant and mutual. Irving
was “handsome and dashing,” she remembered. “He had sophisticated tastes in
music, art, and literature and he was a leftist. If I had made him up, he would
have been unchanged.”40
Within
the year, the couple was engaged, and they married in June of 1946. After
living together for one year in New York City, while Irving fulfilled his
medical residency, they moved to New Haven, Connecticut where Dr. Robinson
completed an externship at Yale University’s Clinic of Child Development under
Dr. Arnold Gesell, a preeminent expert in “normative” child development. When
Estelle became pregnant with their first child in 1947, she and Irving
38 Ann M. Wilson,
interview with author.
39 “Irv Robinson, of West
Tisbury, Dies at 93,” The Martha’s
Vineyard Times, August 11, 2008; also Joy Robinson-Lynch, and Eve Robinson,
interviews with author.
40 Robinson-Lynch, Joy.
“List of Items-Misc. Writings by Estelle Robinson,” email message to author,
March 20, 2018.
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***
Estelle and Irving Robinson returned to
Trenton during a pivotal time of expansion and growth. In 1949, the Saturday Evening Post described post-war
Trenton as a boomtown whose “chief problem,” like many manufacturing cities,
was “how to grow gracefully.” Yet, the magazine noted much of the growth was
happening outside the city, not inside. Roebling, Lenox and other factories
were humming, but upwardly mobile GIs—especially white and middle class
families—moved in increasing numbers to the suburbs. One person told the
magazine that “It is stylish to move out of town as soon as you make good in
Trenton,” a trend that portended badly for the urban tax base, and the
socio-economic diversity that allowed the city to thrive.42
However,
in contrast with the white flight happening outside the city, the Robinsons
“made good” in West Trenton, an urban, upper-middle-class community with a
civic nexus. As one childhood friend of Estelle’s nostalgically recalled,
post-war Trenton was an “Athens,” a city of middle class residents—black and
white—joining organizations such as the PTA, the YMCA, the local church,
synagogue or book club.43 The neighborhood civic tradition created a
local
42 Morris, Joe Alex, “The
Cities of America: Trenton,” The Saturday
Evening Post, October 1, 1949.
43 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author.
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Yet, there was also a
strong political dimension to the couple’s civic activity, grounded in their
shared interest in social justice, racial and economic equality. During the
1950s Trenton remained a hyper-segregated city, with de facto residential
segregation by race, ethnicity and class, and racial and economic disparities
between groups such as African Americans, Jews, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Poles
and Hungarians. The couple saw civic participation as a political statement
against these inequalities, a community mechanism to help organize individuals
in groups, while empowering people to collectively advocate for “fairer”
democratic principles.45 Estelle and Irving shared what they described
as “leftist” or “left wing Democrat” views, and both dabbled in socialist and
communist politics as college students.46 These leftist ideologies—
and the liberal, New Deal-era strain of Democratic politics from their early
adulthoods emphasizing justice and equality—resonated with their passions for
human values, and “what government could do for people,” including policies
that “equalized things in a democracy” for the poor, the marginalized and the
vulnerable.47
45 Joy Robinson-Lynch, interview
with author.
46 These quotations come
from Estelle Robinson’s personal journals excerpted in, Robinson-Lynch, Joy.
“List of Items-Misc. Writings by Estelle Robinson,” email to author. The author
was unable to visit these documents, now in the possession of her daughter
living in Massachusetts, and so she transcribed excerpts and sent them via
email. Additional background information about the Robinson’s political views
comes from, Joy Robinson-Lynch and Eve Robinson, interviews with author.
47
Arthur Finkle, interview with author, September 24, October 16, 2016; March 10,
2017; February 16, 2018; Also Joy Robinson-Lynch interview with author. During
the years before the legislation for Medicare and Medicaid, Estelle and Irving
would, on occasion, make available
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As
Estelle’s public career blossomed in Trenton—the PTA, the Board of Education,
Rutgers University—she and Irving relied upon each other for professional
advice and support. “My parents were co-activists,” remembers Joy
Robinson-Lynch. “They shared political and philosophical views, discussing
everything. I couldn’t tell you where one’s thoughts ended and the other’s
began.”51 Together, the couple worked as an activist unit,
leveraging Irving’s medical expertise with Estelle’s gift for politically
organizing people during the 1950s and 1960s.52 “He
48 Eve Robinson, interview
with author.
49
Ibid.
50 Juanita Faulkner,
interview with author, February 13, 2018.
51 Robinson-Lynch, Joy
“Re: New Discovery,” email message to author, February 12, 2018.
52 Arthur Finke, interview
with author.
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When, on May 28, 1958,
the parents at Junior High School No. 3, the local elementary and junior high
school, elected “Mrs. Irving Robinson” to the PTA presidency, it was her first
career breakthrough, the first time she led an organization where she could
work to develop public policies and affect policy changes in the city. 53
As Estelle was sworn-in on the auditorium stage, a special Western Union
telegram arrived, addressed “Mrs. Estelle Robinson.” It was from Irving. Years
later, she saved the note as a memento from those early days:
“Reassuring to know my
children will have benefit PTA headed outstandingly. Assure you my hearty
support.
Everlasting love,
Irving
Robinson, MD”54
Irving’s
note epitomized the couple’s egalitarian marriage, their collaboration, and
personal respect for each other as partners and co-activists. Together, through
a shared interest in people, they became well-known, respected local advocates
for families, healthcare and education.
The
1950s and the next decade, the ‘Turbulent ‘60s,’ provided Estelle and Irving
Robinson their share of political triumphs— civil rights, education reforms,
anti-poverty programs, Project Head Start—and disappointments—conservative
backlash, Vietnam, polarization and violence. Yet, social justice and community
remained inherent to their civic participation in Trenton. Inherent was also
the Robinsons’ shared commitment to human values, political values Estelle once
described as “set on human considerations and on consideration of the quality
of life. Values based on understanding each other and a discovery of a unity of
54 Robinson, Irving.
Telegram to Estelle Robinson, May 28, 1958. From Estelle and Irving Robinson
Papers, personal collection of Joy Robinson-Lynch.
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The Junior 3 PTA, and later, the Trenton Board of Education,
provided Estelle Robinson the vital career opportunities she needed to test her
ideas about political organizing and how it could affect policy reforms before
the Great Society. She assumed the Junior 3 PTA presidency during the middle of
the post-World War II “Crisis in Education,” a nation-wide debate, in part,
about segregation and inequality in American public education.
In 1955, Rudolf Flesch,
a prominent reading expert published the book Why Johnny Can’t Read, a pedagogical study that argued American
schools taught reading “all wrong,” and significantly underperformed with
comparable institutions in other developed countries.56 The book was
released shortly after the Brown v. Board
of Education Supreme Court decision and touched a political nerve with the
American public, sparking fierce controversy about the relationship between
civil rights and education. “Certainly,” the public intellectual Hannah Arendt
wrote at the time, “more is involved here than the puzzling question of why
Johnny can’t read.”57 With civil rights demonstrations happening in
the South, Flesch’s book provided a timely focus on the modern social, economic
and political problems inherent within American education. Experts had used the
phrase “crisis in education” as early as 1949, but Why Johnny Can’t Read solidified its place in post-war, American
vernacular as a catch-all for the institutional racism, de facto segregation,
social and economic inequality that persisted after the formal end to “separate
but equal” doctrine.58
57
Arendt, Hannah. “The Crisis in Education,” 1954. <http://learningspaces.org/files/ArendtCrisisInEdTable.pdf>
58 Goulb, “Solving the
School Crisis in Popular Culture.”
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Trenton’s Central High
School, described some years later by the city’s Human Relations Council as
“desegregated but not truly integrated,” embodied the entire system’s inherent
contradictions and flaws.61 On one end of the spectrum, the high
school enjoyed a “highly academic” reputation, sending a steady stream of
graduates—predominantly white, affluent students from established families—to
Ivy League and other high-caliber universities.62 There were
nationally-ranked debate and forensics programs and an extensive selection of
accredited college prep courses available to these students.63 On
the other end, a noticeable achievement gap existed between white students and
black students that discouraged the latter from pursing
60 Arthur Finkle,
interview with author.
61 “Complete Text of THS
Study Report: City Human Relations Council Receives Findings of Panel.” Trenton Evening Times, July 15, 1968, p.
7D.
62 Eve Robinson, interview
with author.
63 City of Trenton. “1965
Annual Report City of Trenton New Jersey,” Trenton
Evening Times, April 10, 1965, 6.
the same educational
opportunities as the former. An institutional “tracking” system funneled
disproportionate numbers of working class students of color, many from recent
Southern migrant families, into the vocational or remedial programs rather than
college prep.64 Hurt, humiliated, and often ignored by academic
administrators, without the educational resources they needed to succeed, many
black students suffered in indignity, while some left Trenton High altogether.65
The high school’s educational disparities—in funding, achievement, and physical
facilities— elicited intense social and political tensions, and demonstrated
the tangible results of a separate, unequal school system for all Trenton
youth.66
The “Crisis in
Education” and the issues it embodied, white flight, a shrinking tax base,
institutional racism and inequality, continued into the 1960s, establishing the
political context for Estelle Robinson’s early public career. The school
system’s separate, unequal status quo reinforced the “crisis” of racial
tension, and culminated with spontaneous unrest and protests at Trenton High
School during 1967 and 1968. Ever present, these conditions defined Estelle’s
organizing efforts, first at the PTA, and later, the Board of Education.
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5 Ibid. Also, Farrell,
Gregory. “Crisis in Education Is Nothing New in Trenton,” Trenton Evening Times, January 20, 1964.
66 Arthur Finkle,
interview with author.
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In response to the Crisis in Education, Estelle Robinson developed
her first major organizing project, a city-wide PTA summit, as PTA president of
Junior High School No. 3. Junior 3 was the Robinson family’s K-9 neighborhood
school, located two blocks from their home on West State Street. During the
1950s, it enjoyed a reputation as one of Trenton’s flagship schools, and the
PTA—with its large neighborhood membership and participation—wielded
considerable political influence.67 In 1957, for example, after a
child died crossing a new highway behind the school, the PTA lobbied and
brokered a compromise agreement with New Jersey’s Department of Transportation
to construct two neighborhood pedestrian overpasses. It was during this public
campaign that Estelle first “cut her teeth” as a neighborhood organizer, leading
parent meetings, collecting traffic data, contacting local and state automobile
organizations, and meeting with DOT officials. The campaign’s success, her
resourcefulness and zeal in organizing committees earned Estelle the respect of
her peers, impressed the PTA leadership and ultimately resulted in her election
to the PTA presidency.68
The ongoing “Crisis in
Education” deeply unsettled Estelle Robinson, and she leveraged her new PTA
position to speak out against Trenton’s educational inequalities. She wielded
the power the presidency entitled and skillfully seized the political moment to
advocate policy reforms. After attending one state conference on education,
Robinson wrote a scathing letter in December 1958 to the Trenton Evening Times, criticizing state policymakers for their
inaction to redress educational inequality. “The crisis in education,” she
wrote, “which has been
68 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author; Additional information about PTA campaign from, “Loggie
Bound Skaters Dart Across E-W Road,” Trenton
Evening Times, February 13, 1958.
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“This is shocking in the
richest country in the world!
Communities do not
educate children as a favor to parents.
We educate children because we need future generations of good,
productive, intelligent citizens. Education is democracy’s most important
asset.”
Ten years before the
unrest at Trenton Central High School, Estelle Robinson’s letter provided a
clarion call against inequality in the city’s public school system. It also
launched her opening volley in the political fight against Trenton’s
educational ills, advocating specific policy proposals such as progressive
taxation, which she called “an intelligent program of tax revision” with “a
broad-based system of taxation (sales or personal income tax),” to reform the
existing funding system. Robinson’s argument that “education is democracy’s
most important asset” echoed her political commitment to human values and the
basic quality of life considerations inherent to all Trentonians. “It is time,”
she wrote, “for the citizens of Trenton to let their state legislators know
that they demand the best in education for their children.”69
Estelle Robinson soon
mobilized the PTA’s political organization to advocate for educational reforms
in Trenton. In November 1959, she convened and chaired, under auspices of the
Junior 3 PTA Education Committee, a special policy summit on public education.
The citywide conference invited female PTA officials—black and white—from Trenton’s
neighborhood districts, plus county and state representatives from the New
Jersey Congress of Parents and Teachers and the Federation of District Boards
of Education in New Jersey to develop a “list of qualifications” for Trenton
school board appointees.70 Robinson also enjoyed the full political
70 “To Draw Qualifications
List for School Board Candidates,” Trenton
Evening Times, November 1, 1959; Demographic details come from, “Outline
School Board Qualifications,” Trenton
Evening Times, December 2, 1959.
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The
Trenton Evening Times reported that
the summit’s purpose was “to develop and promote a deeper and more widespread
understanding of the purposes, achievements, problems and needs of the public
schools.”73 Estelle Robinson’s motive in convening and chairing the
meeting also reflected her passions for political organizing and social
equality. She sought to connect the PTA women in a way that transcended
neighborhood barriers of race, ethnicity and class, and organize them as one
unified constituent group. As mothers, she believed these women shared a common
interest in education for their children, and as members of the same
organization, could work better together than separately. The strategy for
“having more people
72 Arthur Finkle,
interview with author. Finkle, a former city political operative, vividly
recalls the Mayor’s honesty and high judgment: “He was one of the few—I count
on a hand—honest politicians I ever met. He would go to a convention and would
give back the city $1.35 and say, ‘I didn’t spend it.’ I’m not sure whether
that was to be publicized—because he was a politician— but he was honest to a
fault.” Recalls Bill Faherty, Holland’s political advisor, “Of course I’m
prejudiced, butÉIÉnever [met] a more honest and dedicated person as that man,
Arthur Holland.” Until his death in 1989, Holland was known to many New Jersey
government officials for his high code of ethics. Today, Rutgers University’s
Arthur J. Holland Program on Ethics in Government at the Eagleton Institute of
Politics honors his contributions as a “proponent and practitioner of open,
responsive, and ethical government.”
73“To Draw Qualifications
List for School Board Candidates.”
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Estelle Robinson
envisioned Trenton’s mothers as allies, not adversaries in this fight, and
leveraged the PTA apparatus to organize their political power as one reform
bloc. Years later, she wrote “A facilitator who makes the group feel that everyone
has something to contribute provides a good start for the network’s growth.
Once everyone is convinced that there is a common focus and that sharing ideas
and information will enhance each agency’s role, the meeting will proceed
well.”75 Her leadership during the 1959 summit did just that,
helping the neighborhood women reach a basic political consensus on city
“public education” (which they defined as “public and private schooling,”
agreeing “that there is a place for both in our society.”)76
Robinson’s efforts also empowered the local women and recognized their
collective power to affect change. As mothers, she believed these women were in
a unique position to speak as educational advocates. “WomenÉare the most
concerned about these human, yes humane aspects of our society and when they
care enough, they will make things happen,” she later told a group of women
educators, stressing the importance of female public leadership.77
The working group’s
tangible result, the “list of suggested qualifications” for BOE candidates,
helped define the ways in which Trenton’s educational leadership could be more
inclusive, representative and equitable. This policy document—which the PTA
later presented to Mayor Holland in a public ceremony—advocated the
professionalization of board
75 Robinson, A Guide to Networking, p. 4.
76 “Outline School Board Qualifications,” Trenton Evening Times, December 2, 1959.
77 Robinson, Estelle Richmond. Untitled speech,
manuscript, Summer 1969.
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Mayor
Holland used the PTA criteria as a basis to work with neighborhood groups in
selecting quality, professional candidates for the job, including women.79
The criteria, according to one political operative, gave the Mayor an explicit
mandate to “clean up” board patronage, and added credibility to his efforts to
appoint “good people,” male and female, rather than “hacks.”80 From
1960-1966, during his first tenure in office, Holland appointed three female
members—Helen P. Solon in 1960, Estelle Robinson in 1961, and Helen W. Green in
1963—the board’s first women to serve. The trio stood out as highly qualified,
well-respected, upright leaders in their neighborhood communities. Solon was a
real estate broker in West Trenton, and an active civic leader who became the
BOE’s first female president in 1964. Green was a social worker and public
school teacher, Trenton’s first African American educator assigned outside the
segregated Lincoln School, and the first black female appointed to the school
board. Together, the three women lent a professional, dignified presence to the
board during the 1960s and helped trail-blaze opportunities for other female
public leaders in Trenton.81
79 Elizabeth Holland,
interview with author.
80 Arthur Finkle,
interview with author.
81
Personal composites of Helen Solon and Helen Green draw from recollections by
Arthur Finkle, Elizabeth Holland, Juanita Faulkner, Joy Robinson-Lynch and Eve
Robinson; Additional information about Solon comes from, “First Woman: Mrs.
Solon Elected School Board Head,”
Estelle
Robinson’s PTA presidency and the policy reforms she helped enact demonstrated
her ability as a “natural networker,” someone, she once said, who effectively
organizes and reads, listens and communicates with people.81
“Estelle’s gift of bringing diverse groups of people together was
extraordinary,” recalls her Rutgers University colleague and longtime friend
Ann Wilson. “She was just brilliant in her ability to relate to people. She
made you feel like you were the only one in the room. When she was talking to
you, you were the best thing on Earth.”82 Robinson’s interpersonal
skills inherently formed the basis for her career as an organizer and political
activist focused on “Networking” people with public policies. These qualities,
which she put forth at the PTA, ultimately earned her the Board of Education
appointment in January 1961.
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82 Ann Wilson, interview
with author.
Image
5:
Trenton’s PTA Committee presents Mayor Arthur Holland its school board
selection criteria, December 1, 1959. Organizing the PTA summit, which
developed the criteria, helped earn Estelle her own school board appointment in
1961.
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One day in late 1960, Mayor Holland called Estelle Robinson at her
home to schedule a meeting about school board appointments. Board vacancies,
the Mayor said, were opening in early 1961 and he wanted to solicit Estelle’s
personal advice, as a former PTA president and organizer, for “who to appoint.”
She and Irving took the assignment seriously, and spent hours preparing for
Holland’s visit to their home. “I can remember my father and mother talking,”
says Joy Robinson-Lynch, “asking ‘Who should we recommend to be on the board?’
It had to be someone who lived within the city boundary and they got a map to
see if ‘so and so’ lived in Trenton.” And, yet, unknown to both Estelle and
Irving, Holland’s consultation was a ruse. “It was very coy of him,” she says,
“He was really interviewing her.”84
In many ways, Estelle Robinson and Arthur Holland were similar
political personalities: lifelong public servants, liberal reform Democrats,
and political idealists with high ethical standards for government. Estelle’s
work at Junior 3 had caught Holland’s attention, and he was “impressed” with
her public leadership and organizing abilities. “Estelle was fine, principled,
intelligent and really committed to what she was doing,” recalls Elizabeth
Holland, the Mayor’s widow. Whatever Art and Estelle said during their first
private meeting at the house has been lost to history, but it seemed to confirm
his public support for her appointment. The pair hit it off, and thereafter,
the Mayor held her in the highest personal and professional regard. At one
point, he even told his wife that he thought Robinson was “a female Art
Holland.” “He thought of Estelle as someone having the same ethical standards
as he did,” Betty recalls.85
85 Elizabeth Holland,
interview with author.
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The
close political alliance that Estelle Robinson developed during this time with
Mayor Holland would intertwine her Trenton public career with his until 1966,
when Holland lost reelection and Robinson left city politics to work full-time
at Rutgers University. However, the two three-year appointed terms Estelle
spent on Mayor Holland’s board from 1961-1967, provided her the professional
experience she needed to develop Networking after the “long, hot Summer” of
1967. At the beginning of second-wave feminism, Art Holland also “had her
back,” politically advocating for Estelle’s leadership when she was vulnerable
to sexual harassment and discrimination on the Board.87 The Mayor’s
early support for Robinson during these incidents, such as one in 1962 that
involved hiring for a new school superintendent, helped legitimize her
policymaking role and gave her the professional credibility she needed to
pursue an independent career in public service.
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86 Joy Robinson-Lynch, interview with author.
87 Ibid.
|
Image 6: Estelle is sworn in for her first board term, January 31, 1961.
She
later recalled this
event as one of the proudest moments of her career.
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With Mayor Holland next to her, her husband Irving, and their
three daughters watching from the audience, Estelle Robinson took the BOE oath
on January 31, 1961 in a public ceremony that she later regarded as one of her
proudest career moments.88 A newspaper photograph from the ceremony,
shows Estelle solemnly repeating the oath, her right hand raised as the city
clerk certified her as Trenton’s second female school board member. The image
also shows Estelle taking the oath surrounded by men, a visual allusion to the
social politics of second-wave feminism, a national movement whose arc
paralleled her own board appointment and public career.
When Robinson first assumed office, few women held public
leadership positions in Trenton and institutional sexism on the Board of
Education hindered her ability to serve effectively. She was an outspoken and
articulate woman, her daughters recall, and some male board members “did not
like” these qualities, which they believed challenged their professional and
personal authority. According to Eve Robinson, these men “did not think women
should be in a position of power,” and repeatedly sought to undermine Estelle’s
credibility, either by obstructing, ignoring, or belittling her.89
“She had a lot of stories as a woman being denigrated by older men on the
board,” recalls Joy Robinson-Lynch. “They did not want to give her power, and
she had to really assert herself strongly in order not to be stepped aside.”90
The
gendered power struggles between Estelle Robinson and her male opponents
surfaced as early as her first board meeting on February 1, when she clashed
with the BOE
89 Eve Robinson, interview
with author.
90 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author.
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“[Board President]
Urbaniak said he might shift assignments but pointed out that committee
assignments are made largely on the basis of seniority. Mrs. Helen Perlee-Solon
offered to let Mrs. Robinson have her place on the instruction committee, but
no decision was made.”91
Instruction had been
Estelle’s policy specialty at the PTA and it made sense for her to request that
committee assignment. At Junior 3, she chaired the PTA’s “School Education
Committee” after her presidency ended and she represented herself in that capacity
during the 1959 PTA Summit, the event that inspired her board appointment.
Urbaniak, however, seemed to ignore these qualifications, appointed her to a
committee that she seemed to have no interest or specialty in, and refused her
own request “on the basis of seniority.”
Estelle Robinson’s lack of board experience may, in part, have
legitimately justified the President’s rationale for her assignment, but her
“prompt” objection and Helen Solon’s involvement also suggest how the
confrontation may have been gendered. Solon supported Robinson’s bid to change
the committee assignment and it seems significant that she, the other female
board member, stepped in to help. The story offers a tantalizing lens into the
early political difficulties Estelle would describe to her children. The
euphoria in which her pubic career started seemed to dissipate, as she
struggled her first year in office to achieve an equal, professional footing
with men in board policymaking.92
The
escalating tensions between Estelle Robinson and her board opponents erupted in
one climactic confrontation during early 1962, when Trenton commenced the
search for a new public school superintendent. In August 1961, the previous
superintendent Dr. Richard R.
92 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author.
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The confrontation
occurred when Estelle Robinson asked Leon Levy to join the new evaluation
committee and the Board President refused her request. Robinson’s account
survives through her daughters, who separately recall her telling the story as
an example of the sexual harassment she experienced on the BOE. Eve Robinson
remembers Estelle saying Leon Levy harbored a strong personal contempt for her
and was one of the men who believed she “should [not] be in a position of
power.” When Estelle asked for the committee assignment, Levy rebuffed her,
allegedly saying “What would you know about interviewing people, except for
interviewing maids?” The comment implied that, as a woman, Estelle “was 'just'
a housewife and never really had experience with job interviews, except hiring
a 'maid' to do her housework.” Humiliated, and infuriated, she then “got up,
left the room and would not come back to the
94 Ibid.
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Word
of the confrontation quickly spread to Art Holland who, under unusual political
circumstances, intervened on Estelle Robinson’s behalf.98 “Levy had
to call her later and apologize,” Eve Robinson recalls. “My father did not want
my mother to accept the apology, but she did.”99 In making political
amends, Levy—possibly under Holland’s direction—also appointed Estelle to the
superintendent committee, as Vice Chair.100 The political outcome,
and
97 It is unclear whether
Estelle actually tendered her resignation. However, the recollection that she
“would not come back to the meeting” may obliquely reference such a scenario.
98 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author. As Mayor, Art Holland had the power to appoint
candidates, but according to Betty Holland, believed in upholding the political
independence between his office and the Board of Education. Aside from
appointments, he generally wouldn’t interfere in board affairs, as it created
bad political precedent. Estelle’s situation, therefore, may have been serious
if the Mayor intervened on her behalf.
99 “Politics makes strange
bedfellows,” remarks Arthur Finkle, who professionally knew both characters and
recalls their clashing personalities. Estelle Robinson, he says, was warm,
affable and idealistic, while Leon Levy “butted heads with a lot of people,”
was abrasive, difficult and realistic. However, both were Jewish community
leaders and liberals allied with Art Holland. Moreover, they were committed
public servants and cared deeply, albeit in different ways, for Trenton. Levy,
for instance, was a prominent lawyer—a shrewd labor negotiator—and wrote the
Articles of Incorporation for United Progress, Inc., Trenton’s Community Action
Agency. Holland, who usually maintained political independence from board
affairs, may have
recognized
a breach in his coalition and intervened to keep the peace, reminding the pair
they were on the same side. “I don’t think they were that philosophically
different,” Finkle says, “I just think they didn’t get along.” With this
specific incident, however, he does think there was “probably in Leon’s mind—a
sexist overtone, but he wouldn’t [have] acknowledge[d] that.”
100 “Miss Christie Will
Not Seek Top School Post.” The committee, the newspaper reported, was “headed
by Dr. Roscoe West [ex-president of Trenton State College], with Mrs. Estelle
Robinson as vice chairman. Other members are Dr. Arthur Thomas and Eugene T. Urbaniak,
with [Leon] Levy as an ex-officio member.”
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The 1962 committee appointment, however, bestowed one vital credit
to Estelle Robinson: the professional recognition of her own name. Press
coverage of the event identified her as “vice chairman...Mrs. Estelle
Robinson,” not “Mrs. Irving Robinson” which previous articles had used to
describe her position on the BOE.102 “Women were never referred to
by their 'own' names back then,” remembers Eve Robinson. “My mom was always
labeled
‘Mrs. Irving Robinson.’
Only after you were a 'widow' could you use your 'own' name if you were a
married woman.”103 This specific coverage indicated a small, but
significant change, giving Estelle the agency and authority she needed in local
policymaking to pursue her own, independent public career.
102 “Miss Christie Will
Not Seek Top School Post.”
103 Robinson, Eve.
“Thank you and Some New Discoveries...,” email message to author, December 6,
2016.
Image 7: Trenton Public School administrators, ca. 1962. Standing (L-R),
John D. Harvey, Secretary, Trenton Board of Education, Thor Pearson, Trenton
Board of Education, Dr. Sarah C. Christie, Assistant Superintendent of Schools,
unidentified, Leon L. Levy, President, Trenton Board of Education; Sitting
(L-R), unidentified teacher, Dr. Richard T. Beck, Superintendent of Schools,
unidentified teacher, Estelle R. Robinson, Trenton Board of Education. Beck was
hired that year by the BOE’s Superintendent’s Evaluation Committee, to which
Robinson and Levy belonged. The corsages indicate this particular event may be
a hiring or faculty awards ceremony.
Image 8: The Board of Education debates teacher’s pay, February 1962. As
Trenton’s
school
system struggled with shrinking tax revenues and tighter budgets, local
newspapers reported Estelle remained a strong public advocate for raising
teacher salaries.
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Estelle Robinson’s appointment as Vice Chair also gave her an
influential voice in hiring Trenton’s new Superintendent of Schools, Dr.
Richard T. Beck, a like-minded advocate for progressive school taxation and
closing the achievement gap. Beck was a past president of the New Jersey
Education Association, and worked as Superintendent of Schools in Irvington,
New Jersey, where he said his “particular interest was in developing the
curriculum so that it would serve best the varying needs of pupils of differing
levels of economic and educational status.” Upon taking charge of the district,
he said the superintendent’s job would be a “great challenge.” “Trenton, I
believe,” he told the Trenton Times,
“is ready to move forward as a city under its new Mayor and council and as a
school system under its dedicated Board of Education. With the help of the
staff, the Board of Education, and the people of Trenton, I will devote myself
to bringing to Trenton the very best in education for its young people,” he
pledged.103
As
early as his hiring in 1962, both Dr. Beck and Assistant Superintendent Dr.
Sarah Christie recognized the “overwhelming” political urgency to accommodate
“accelerated social change”—white flight, poverty, racial and economic
inequality—in Trenton’s Public Schools.104 Writing in 1965 to
Robinson and her BOE colleagues, Beck said his administration’s first three
years had been “most difficult.” “Problems of poverty and underprivilege,
mental health, ethnic recognition, family-life education, urban renewal and
civil rights are a few of the many impacts being felt by the Trenton Public
Schools,” the superintendent noted. However, despite these
104 Beck, Dr. Richard T.
“Narrative Report & Statistics, 1962-1965,” Superintendent of Schools,
Trenton, New Jersey, 1965. From collection of Eve Robinson. By 1963, the
district was almost evenly divided between black and white enrollment. 11 of
Trenton’s 21 schools were majority African American, and overall, there were
8,135 black and 8,323 white students matriculating, an approximate 49-51 percent
split.
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Trenton’s lofty,
ambitious educational agenda coincided with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War
on Poverty, a comprehensive federal program that funded many of the city’s
projects during the 1960s. Working with federal and state officials, Trenton’s
educational leaders sought to innovate programs that would distinguish their
community as a national leader for excellence and achievement. From 1964-1966,
Estelle and Irving Robinson participated in the city’s War on Poverty as local
and state policy advisers for Project Head Start, a federally funded pre-school
program for low-income children. This work formalized Estelle’s public role as
an information facilitator, and gave her the vital experience necessary to
develop Networking as a grass roots organizing strategy later in the decade.
106 Ibid. Dr. Beck
initially believed enforced desegregation would be a vital component of such
efforts. “The Negro population,” he told the Board of Education in 1963, was
“growing larger each year and he wonders whether there is any solution to the
segregation problem.” During the Board’s June 18th meeting, the Trenton Evening Times reported the
superintendent proposed building a new school on North Clinton Avenue, “plus
some other school changes, [that] would relieve the present segregation
problem.” The changes included transitioning Junior High School No. 5 from an
“elementary-junior high set up” into “an elementary school.” The board agreed
in principle to this idea, but members, including Estelle, expressed reservations
about details of the plan. She “questioned” whether “the State Department of
Education would approve the McClellan School site anyway, because it might
continue the presently-claimed ‘de facto segregation.’” Mayor Holland, in
attendance, added that re-districting schools created political “headache and
expense,” and he believed “the only real answer to the school board’s
segregation problems is through residential integration.”
Image 9: Irving Robinson articulated his vision for a comprehensive
pre-school program for low-income children in an April 1963 conference paper.
Many friends, relatives and colleagues insist this document helped “invent”
Project Head Start. Today, it is difficult to substantiate those claims, in
part, because only the title page survives. “Deprived children” was the era’s
accepted Academy of American Pediatrics vernacular for low-income and special
needs children. The undated, handwritten note was attached by Estelle Robinson.
Image 10: Estelle is sworn in for her second board term, January 21, 1964.
Image 11: Networking at Rutgers University, January 1965. Estelle started
work at Rutgers through a 1964 Ford Foundation fellowship and remained there as
an Urban Agent until 1968. She later joined the university’s faculty and rose
to become a tenured professor in the School of Social Work, where she remained
until retirement in the late 1980s.
Image 12: Trenton Board of Education, 1965-1966. Standing (L-R), John D.
Harvey, Secretary, Dr. Angelo J. Migliori, M.D., Jasper R. Massari, President,
Eugene T. Urbaniak, Thor Pearson, Harry J. Bodine; Sitting (L-R), Estelle R.
Robinson, Vice President, Helen P. Solon, Helen W. Green, Dr. Roscoe L. West.
This group represented the culmination of Art Holland’s efforts to
professionalize and diversify the Board of Education. Using the PTA criteria,
the Mayor selected new board appointees that included its first three women to
serve.
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By mid-1965, federal anti-poverty funds were pouring into Trenton,
so much that Estelle Robinson recalled the activity “made us [Irving and I]
believe that a war on poverty was being waged.”108 The Robinsons
perceived the War on Poverty as “another New Deal,” and were thrilled about the
political opportunities—and ample funds—it provided to enact lasting, policy
changes in Trenton.109 Trenton’s “war” on poverty, she said, was a
means to an end, a concerted attack against “racial tension” that had been
motivated by the “prolonged period of [civil rights] marches, sit-ins, and
other forms of protests by the Negro community.” The couple believed “the War
on Poverty and these protests were indisputably related,” and saw the political
momentum in their own community as a new opportunity to legislate pre-school
programs, a policy item they had long-advocated in Trenton.110
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108 Robinson,
Estelle Richmond. Untitled speech, manuscript, Summer 1969.
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110 Robinson, Estelle
Richmond. Untitled speech, manuscript, Summer 1969.
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The normative way of thinking, in turn,
inspired Irving and Estelle Robinson’s vision for a pre-school program in
Trenton. They called pre-school “a pediatric approach to an urgent social
problem,” and argued during the 1950s and early 1960s that it could help
wavering cities like Trenton close the achievement gap.112 Juanita
Faulkner, who taught in Trenton’s schools during this time, recalls Dr.
Robinson “seemed to have been thinking about these things long before they
became popular.” “He was right on target,” she says “understanding the
activities and physical functions a child was capable of doing at certain
ages...He felt early education would give children from [low-income] urban
environments the chance to become better equipped for their formal entrance to
school, more on par with their affluent and suburban counterparts.”113
Irving
articulated his vision in an April 1963 conference paper titled “A Pre-School
Program for Deprived Children: A Pediatric Approach to an Urgent Social
Problem.” This important medical and policy document preceded the Great Society
and earned the Robinsons early recognition for their efforts to close the
achievement gap.114 Years later, relatives, friends,
112 Robinson, Irving. “A
Pre-School Program for Deprived Children: A Pediatric Approach to an Urgent
Social Problem,” title page of conference paper, April 1963. From Estelle and
Irving Robinson Papers, personal collection of Joy Robinson-Lynch. The phrase
“deprived children” was the era’s accepted AAP medical vernacular, referring to
both special needs children and children from low-income backgrounds.
113 Juanita Faulkner,
interview with author.
114 Robinson, “A
Pre-School Program for Deprived Children.” Dr. Robinson’s 1963 program may have
been more comprehensive than Project Head Start, the federal counterpart.
According to Juanita Faulkner, Irving’s program advocated for medical
intervention when children were toddlers, not three years old, the beginning
age for Head Start. After the War on Poverty, the
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By
mid 1965, the couple had become heavily involved with Head Start and other antipoverty
projects in the city. In December 1964, the Board of Education appointed
Estelle as its representative to United Progress, Inc.’s Board of Directors. The
position facilitated information flow between the two organizations and
community planning for Trenton’s CAP programs
115 The author has
independently heard this claim from several sources, including Arthur Finkle,
Juanita Faulkner and Joy Robinson-Lynch, who even remembers joking about it
with her parents when they were alive.
116 Juanita Faulkner, interview with author.
Governor Hughes, a longtime resident of West Trenton, whose children may have
been patients of Dr. Robinson, later appointed him to New Jersey’s Head Start
Advisory Board in April, 1965.
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National events, such as President Johnson’s Great Society
legislation, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the publication of Michael
Harrington’s The Other America roused
the Robinsons’ sense of political urgency and inspired their fervent activity
in Trenton. “We know that we are now the richest nation in the world,” Estelle
eloquently wrote during the 1960s. “And it is this great success of ours which
makes our poverty unbearable for those who carry it and unacceptable for those
who believe in the democratic ideals and yes—the basic values of this
118 “City Woman Farm
Idea Guinea Pig.” Trenton Evening Times, January
21, 1965.
119 New Jersey Office of
Economic Opportunity. The Opportunity to
Live in Decency and Dignity: Annual Report, 1965. State of New Jersey,
October 1965, Annex 5. The additional information about Irving’s local Head
Start consultations comes from Irving Robinson, “Curriculum Vitae,”
ca. 1984. From Estelle
and Irving Robinson Papers, personal collection of Joy Robinson-Lynch.
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It was during 1965, when
the Great Society reached its zenith, when liberals worked feverishly to enact
legislative programs, that Estelle Robinson first developed her niche as a
Networker in Trenton. “I inadvertently served,” she recalled, “as an internal
link between various agencies in the city, as well as a source of information.”121
As a woman on the BOE, Robinson had been denigrated and passed over for
publicized leadership positions. However, the War on Poverty provided her new
opportunities to influence policymaking through grass roots organization and
information sharing. “I was able to serve a clearing house function within the
city itself simply on the information I acquired on my rounds or had in my
possession,” she wrote in 1968.122 Working in this capacity, Estelle
and Irving informally linked community schools, policymakers, residents, and
local, state and national organizations such as Rutgers Urban Studies Center,
the Office of Economic Opportunity, East Trenton Civic Center, Mercer Street
Friends, the Committee on Big Cities of the Federation of Boards of Education,
the Jewish Federation of Trenton, and Youth Aliyah.123 This work
merged Estelle’s past PTA-BOE experience and brought her into contact with many
different grass roots groups. “People were always at the house,” recalls Eve
Robinson, “My parents were always attending meetings.”124
Estelle
Robinson’s community organizing during 1965 with Rutgers, UPI and the BOE
earned her the respect of colleagues and superiors, and ultimately resulted in
her own election as
121 Robinson, Estelle R.
A City Views the University, p. 4.
122 Ibid.
123 “City Woman Farm
Idea Guinea Pig.” Trenton Evening Times, January
21, 1965.
124 Eve Robinson,
interview with author.
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Educational leaders such
as Mayor Holland, Dr. Beck, and Gregory Farrell, Director of United Progress,
Inc. saw Estelle as a “warm, decent, intelligent, and progressive voice worth
listening to,” and viewed her organizing efforts as a model for what the
Trenton schools could aspire to and achieve during the 1960s.127 Her
accomplishments, her interest in closing the achievement gap, and her passion
for public service allegedly placed her in the running for Board of Education
President, a position she would have achieved if Mayor Holland re-appointed her
to another three-year term in January 1967.128 However, partisan
politics that year abruptly and prematurely ended those aspirations.
126 Juanita Faulkner,
interview with author.
127 Gregory Farrell,
interview with the Trenton Project, December 4, 2017.
128 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author. City newspaper coverage from the 1960s corroborates this
claim. Traditionally, the Vice Presidents of the Trenton Board of Education
were given preference for the next presidential appointment.
Images 13 and 14: The Mayoral election
of May 10, 1966 was an unexpected defeat for Art Holland, and Trenton liberals.
The Mayor’s campaign manager Bill Faherty recalled the loss as “the darkest day
of my life.”
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Estelle’s fortunes changed on May 10, 1966, when Art Holland
unexpectedly lost reelection to Carmen J. Armenti, a conservative City
Councilman who allegedly campaigned in East Trenton “about hitting street crime
hard and ending wasteful liberal programs.”129
Armenti’s
strategy, in part, capitalized on what Newsweek
Magazine called a national “white backlash” against President Johnson’s
civil rights and anti-poverty legislation.130 During the election,
the candidate used racially coded, even gendered, rhetoric to turn Trenton’s
contest into a local referendum for the same issues. At rallies in the city’s
Chambersburg neighborhood, for example, Armenti taunted Holland as a “liberal”
and allegedly promised to replace “minority groups and white people considered
liberals...appointed [to the board] by...Mayor Holland.”131 The
candidate’s campaign exploited civil rights and education as a wedge issue that
would increase turnout in white, working class Chambersburg, North and South
Trenton. “He was trying to play to the people,” says Juanita Faulkner.132
“Armenti preyed on whatever weaknesses Holland had,” recalls Arthur Finkle, a
UPI colleague of Estelle Robinson’s whose uncle, Albert Finkle, worked as
Armenti’s publicist. “He got the ethnic group together.”133
130 “Politics: The White
Backlash, 1966,” Newsweek Magazine, October
10, 1966.
131 Peroni, The Burg: An Italian-American Community at
Bay in Trenton, p. 83. The backlash against Holland represented a
culmination of voter anger toward the Mayor on several issues, including taxes,
Urban Renewal, the economy, education and civil rights. Bill Faherty, however,
Holland’s campaign manager, believed the main reason for the backlash was racism.
In 1964, Art and Betty Holland moved to a racially integrated neighborhood,
Mill Hill, and this, he says, was a deciding factor for many voters. “I will
say to this day, the people unfortunately decided that Arthur had gone too
far,” he recalled in an oral history. “What did he do? He moved into a mixed
neighborhood. He didn’t do it purposely. He felt generally that he wanted to do
this, and I think there was a backlash.”
132 Juanita Faulkner,
interview with author.
133 Arthur Finkle,
interview with author. With his uncle serving as Carmen Armenti’s publicist—
and his father as Art Holland’s publicist—during the election, Finkle witnessed
how the
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At a pivotal moment for
Trenton—demographically and politically—the couple was upset that Armenti’s
administration shifted government’s focus from policy reforms toward what
Estelle called “economics and power plays.”137 The new Mayor, for
instance, diverted Title I
134 Ibid.
135 For the BOE presidential nomination, Mayor
Armenti replaced Estelle Robinson with Angelo J. Migliori, a Holland appointee
and prominent, well-respected Italian-American doctor from Chambersburg. To
some observers, the election was viewed as a power-grab by the Italian-American
community. “At rallies held in the Burg,” wrote one, “some of Armenti’s
followers emphasized that it was time to have an Italian-American mayor.
Speakers said that all Italians must stick together this time and Armenti would
bring glory to them.” The mayor’s new presidential appointment to the BOE would
support that observation.
136 Steven Zwerling,
interview with author April 20, 2018.
137 Robinson, Estelle
Richmond. Untitled speech, manuscript, Summer 1969.
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139 Kovisars, Judith F. Obituary for a Hometown: Urban Renewal in
Trenton, NJ. Thales Microuniversity Press, Stillwater, Oklahoma, 1974, p.
63. According to Kovisars, “By 1965, the City announced that it sought five new
schools by 1971 at a cost of 7.48 million dollars. The following year, the City
received $2,500,000 in federal funds ‘to teach children of the inner-city.’
None of this money was for schools in the non-integrated, predominantly
middle-class and lower-middle-class white neighborhoods. The deprivation of
these schools from federal funds heightened the exodus of the whites to the
suburbs and further strengthened the group solidarity and hostility of those
who remained.” It is not clear which federal program Kovisars was referencing,
but the timing suggests Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
140 “Armenti to Select 3
New Board Members,” Trenton Evening
Times, January 18, 1968. Art Finkle says this appointment exemplified the
retrenchment of “spoils system” politics under the Armenti administration, a
departure from Art Holland’s efforts to professionalize the Board of Education.
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Despite these setbacks and defeats, Estelle Robinson found
closure—personal, professional, political—by reflecting upon her own public
service and the passion, the sense of civic duty that had motivated her work
with the city. When the Trenton Evening
Times interviewed her in January 1967 for comment on not being reappointed
to the Board of Education, Estelle’s response—her final public words about
Trenton—made it clear she left the political scene defiant, but proud of her
accomplishments. Robinson spoke to the paper candidly, arguing she believed her
achievements were self-evident, above partisanship. “I can’t say I’d be
disappointed if someone [Mayor Armenti] were to say, ‘no, you don’t have to put
in hours and hours of service to the city,’” she said. “I don’t think not being
reappointed would be any reflection on my performance. I’m conceited enough to
say that.”142
The
personal, written testimonials that Estelle received shortly before her
departure may have uplifted her spirits, and inspired her statement to the
press. Educators such as Dalba Brilliantine, Principal of Junior High School
No. 2. praised Robinson’s leadership and capacity for visionary, big-picture
thinking. “I want you to know that I personally feel you have been an
outstanding member of the school board because of your understanding of all
phases of the educational process,” the principal said. “Your record speaks for
itself.”143 Administrators such as Dr. Beck and Dr. Christie also
lauded Estelle for her fortitude and perseverance throughout her years in
Trenton. “I personally feel the loss [of your departure] totally,” wrote Dr.
Sarah
142 “Mayor May Replace
School Board Trio,” Trenton Evening
Times, January 11, 1967.
143 Brilliantine, Dalba.
Dalba Brilliantine to Estelle Robinson, Trenton, NJ, January 16, 1967. From
collection of Eve Robinson.
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Estelle Robinson’s
passions for grass roots organizing and closing the achievement gap transcended
Trenton’s political difficulties of the 1960s and remained vital to her career
for years afterward. “To the end of her life,” recalls Eve Robinson, “she was
very dedicated to Trenton andÉvery proud of all the work that she did.”145
She especially took pride in the anti-poverty programs Mayor Holland’s BOE, Dr.
Beck and Dr. Christie developed during her tenure such as pre-school, remedial
reading, child study services, volunteer tutoring, summer learning institutes,
bilingual classes, and speech therapy. These initiatives, small, but
significant reforms which paralleled efforts nationwide, placed Robinson’s
Networking at the forefront of local programs, including pre-K, that remain
accepted in public education today.
145 Eve Robinson,
interview with author.
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Da*
.41.6-4-1Z74-1
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PROGRAMS
FOR HUMAN RENEWAL
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Trenton Schools and Haman Renewal'
Pieta
hro• (numbered) and descriptive material (numbered
1-121 indicate the part which the
Trenton Public Schools Ore playing
in the renewal of our
human resources. An of these programs ore funded with greatly
increased ,slate aid;
with large grants of _ Federal oid; wish assistance from foundation grants; or with a corfibinatiod of oil three. Nearby colleges, univers. Wes and private
schools. os well on the
New Jersey State Departrnent
Of Education have helped
establish and implement MeSe programs_ The local community action agency,
United Progress, Incorporated,
hos also worked very closely with the school system on many
preitolt. The prole-cis described here do not - cover oil of the new programs, but are illustrative of efforts which the schools are making for human renewal.
Trenton Board of
fducation
A .1 attalseri.lrl ,PrrOrtrot
Nolen Yr. corn
Edward
1 stenin, DOS.
lode
tory,ItA
Rolm P. Won
John
Serowe
Eugen• Ildrontek
Iturcorl Wert, MM.
Richard T. got, EO e sum nt schopir
John D.Hervey,Sorenm or Echoer Loma
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·
7. Princeton University
Cooperative Programs Far the
third canserotive summer, Prtmason Unirtersiry will sponsor a school for
911., 1011. and 11th graders to dernomfrola better ways of teaching-Me
inner city Auden/ TOCI6C11,IfOrrli Trenton ond surrosoding onets wilt elmsn
moats ttothers setected frommony parts of the cuunrry. NI students
are from Trenton'Schooln federal
and
foundation
funds support th peg rams.
·
8. Lawrenceville preparatory School
Projects
For The third consecutive 9111,1, 6714,11[0.110- reill sp.., programs
for More able students from an inner city school The purpose of throe summer programs
is to hero prepomTrenhorisyoung people to entertop-flight colleges
FeiderS1 funds through 0.9.1. and foundatinn
mergers ore paying for Orme programs_ Lawrenceville Preporoftry. School
conhibutes greet-1y in making their foal-lies and their fine staff
available Ion Trenton students_
·
9. Title I (E.S.E.A.) — Public 'and Porodnat
School Praqrams
Doing the past Mo years the Trenton
Schools hone received much needed additions! Federal funds through Title I
attire Elemenmry.Serondory School Act. These fords
ore dedicated to helping disodvorstaged pupils in bath public and parochial schools. Additional
supplim, hooks, equipment, aides and teachers been vastly improved looming
opportunities far our disodeantoged students. One of the finest outcomes hos been
the fine cooperation between public and pore chic! school stuffs.
·
10. Work Experience
Over -4513 rtuderrh are now engaged in
partfigne work experience programs while_ they are attending school. These yobs not anry
permit Mordents to earn
needed money so that they mrry stay in sohool her are of great
practical melee to the students.
Many of these smgroms hose
been roonsored by C-Yr }D.' community action ogeoty (0.P.I.),
while others ore sponsored with vocarlionol funds. 5til1 others ore
sponsored by private bosinnis net industry.
·
1-1. National Teacher Corps
Al Jeff mon School Trenton has the only Notionot Teacher
Corps in limn Jersey.
A team leader and
three.young teacher infernos, paid throug5 Federal fund, are enriching program% for
se-recut% and community oat, time 'Peary Corps" type reams are doing o tremendous jab for the entire Jefferson Scheel area. This is on. of our finest new proven.— a reel onset.
·
12. Junior Five Project
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This is the Era
cooperative school project in the stale end porhopi in the
country inveforag o Stone
Deportment of Educolion, a
State College end a city school system. The purpose of this project ot Junior Foe is to develop
beater ways of meeting tire
·
nee&
of inner city wedded-a In this fourth year of operation,
financed through opeciol Stone funds, Jollier rwecominties to Moraine., toils in education for
children from
four years oldto !harken-. • ' ' ' • • • •
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1. Head Start
lhis 'pm kindergoeen program is
pet-Asps the bert known end moff successful of oil Federal programs. In
Trenton it tackles us to support on ollyearsound program for for some 300
foucyearolds end a special
summer pogrom far some odditienol fart:-
year-olds to propose them tar school, sr ir funded through our
load community action ogency (U P.1.1 and hes been in apart:don since July,
1965.
·
2. Skills Training
Center
Ties Manpower Training Act program_ trains school dropouts end the needled -unemployable.' for prodoctive
johns G Co different vocations it iso part of Trenton's greatly expanded Vp[pf■onoi progrorn made possible wills Federal
fends. Job Voce-meat for these vocational graduates is extremely
high. It it in its second year of
operation.
·
3. Grant Demonstration School
A moior Fodecal grant wish Thin III funds fffementury
Secondary. EducPtion Act) hos mode possible
this inner ory exernplory school. Student teachers from Trynten State
College end regular staff members. from Trenton Schools Gore better mehods
of Machin. An oddisioe te Grant School is now onder .111truction to fooldesp Iris demonoronor
school teaching. This oddities will be completed in September, 1907, reody
far the second year of apes:iron.
·
4. Adult Education
-Federal and Slate funds, again wills local OAF.
eminence, hove msde evadable many new adult programs in boric education_
Three marnmunrty schools at Grant, ',her and teenier Ewe are effective, meeting the needs of irony of our elder youth and
oduns..These neun programs once fine add..ro to our outstanding
or.-going accredited evening high school Pragrom-
·
5. Action Bound
Underachieving and poorly morbased high school yoolh ore being
sionilicantly helloed by this aut-of-doer 'kussivolu program, Fully funded
through Federal and faundotien sources, this Action Bound grogram, Whdl WIOnWed ii tnatoisch hos given many
young people a reel challenge to uchievo. Plans
hove lea been approved for a folltirhe Action Bound progrom at
Trento. Cannot Nigh School lent peer for some 1D0 youth. This, on introrotion with great promise.
·
6. I. P. I.
Washington School Ins the only
Individuolited Prescribed Instruction P.F..1.)
project in the
entire owe Funded M.-6,h Research tor Meer
Schools. 5, Project wider
Title IV
indiedval oroeroor.me being developed Inc end, srtfent in mothernatios. needing and sCience-Spertol
mot-Geols and. speoully rtainnol. mashers will 011I(1,1 vidtors hem a wide area to ab,r-irre borer way-sq.-oohing_ .
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irro
SCIMISimbliMAN
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Image 15 (previous page): A list of anti-poverty programs developed by the Trenton Public
Schools, May 1967. As the Board of Education’s United Progress, Inc.
representative from December 1964 to November 1966, Estelle helped as an
information facilitator, an “internal link,” for the planning of many of these
programs. Although disappointed by the election, she found solace in her
accomplishments: the programs whose legacy outlasted her untimely public
departure.
Image 16: Paul and Barbara
Ylvisaker, March 1967. The Ylvisakers were close friends of the Robinsons, and
Paul an important professional mentor to Estelle. Ylvisaker’s interest in the
relationship between higher education and grass roots policymaking influenced
Estelle’s own Networking concept, which she developed after the “long, hot”
Summer of 1967.
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After departing Trenton’s public scene, Estelle Robinson pursued
new organizing projects at Rutgers University, where she could affect changes
on a statewide basis. “She got another venue, a bigger venue, in terms of
acting upon her beliefs around collaborative projects to move change and
justice,” recalls Ann Wilson. “She was now able to move what she had seen in
Trenton to a bigger arena.”142 After the “long hot” Summer of 1967
when unrest erupted nearby in Newark, Estelle’s work as an Urban Agent assumed
a new relevance and urgency as cities mobilized to prevent additional violence.
Meeting informally during this time with other like-minded New Jersey
organizers and policymakers at the home of Dr. Paul N. Ylvisaker, the state’s
Director of Community Affairs, Estelle and Irving Robinson discussed organizing
strategies that would address racial tensions in the community. The couple’s
connection to Ylvisaker positioned them at the vanguard of national urban
affairs, and helped inspire Estelle’s own organizing concept, Networking, to
combine grass roots and higher education resources for local policy reforms.
Estelle
Robinson developed Networking partly in response to her concern with the
growing unrest in Trenton’s school system. “The sudden ‘solution’ to the
Trenton High School crisis didn’t succeed in making anybody happy at last
night’s dramatic school board meeting,” solemnly reported the Trenton Evening Times. It was December
20, 1967, less than one year after her departure from the Board of Education,
and student fights the previous week at Trenton Central High School attracted
more than 500 students, parents, and teachers to the Board of Education’s
meeting, where people debated race relations and the future of city public
education. The event was a remarkable, if not pivotal, moment of civic
discourse, where black and white,
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At the meeting, attendees voiced collective
frustration with the public leadership and institutional racism, mismanagement,
and negligence. “Dissident students, some of their parents, students who object
to the disorders, parents who just want their children to go to school and
teachers were equally upset,” the Times reported.
“I have no gripes against any teacher,” Marvin Dotson, a student, testified.
“The students have gripes...against the administration. I want the
administration out...tonight.” Paulette Williams, a recent graduate, told the
board that at college she “realized my experience at Trenton High was
distorted. I realized I led a much more segregated life than students in
Tuscaloosa or in Maine.” Mrs. Rosanne Abrams, a parent, also tearfully asked
the Board of Education “whether the school [is] going to be open on January 1
and every day after that.” Then, speaking the issue that was on everyone’s
mind, Abrams answered her own question: “I’m worried about my children’s
education.”144
Estelle
and Irving Robinson also testified that day as concerned parents, and community
activists. Their eldest daughter Amy had already graduated high school, but
their two youngest daughters, Joy and Eve, were still matriculating students.
Trenton High’s unrest and turmoil, therefore, were as much personal as
political issues for the couple. On December 20th, Irving, speaking
for himself and Estelle, publicly raged against Mayor Armenti and the BOE for
jeopardizing his children and others, “[calling] the school board’s silence
‘cowardly’ and [questioning] whether the board had yielded to political
pressure.”145 “My father would get very
Times, December 21, 1967.
144 Ibid.
145 Ibid.
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The Trenton Evening Times reported Dr. Robinson “said he [and Estelle]
had a lot of respect for what the students were saying about some of their
problems” but noted the absence of any significant policy response to these
protests. The “question,” he argued, was “simply ‘Is the student body going to
control the school.’”148 As public officials including Dr. Beck, the
Board of Education and other administrators “sat and took all the abuse” and
deferred comment during the meeting, Estelle recognized their performance only
exacerbated tensions.149 “She could the read the water,” Joy
recalls. Unlike Irving, however, Estelle was “more measured in her speech” and
waited until after the public comment to express her grievances.150
Frustrated, she personally approached Dr. Angelo J. Migliori, the new BOE
President, to register her protest. “A lot of the parents came here in good
faith tonight to hear what the school board had to say,” Estelle told Migliori.
“And now they’re going home frustrated. This was a time to talk to them.” Dr.
Migliori, a former board colleague—who publicly admitted that “many mistakes
have been made in the past by people in high places”—told Estelle his own frustrations.
“Try sitting up here,” he replied. “You can’t hear a thing.”151
148 Goodman, “‘Solution’
to THS Crisis Fails to Satisfy Anybody.”
149 Ibid. According to the newspaper, Trenton school
officials deferred comment “with the explanation that a special committee
appointed by the Trenton Human Relations Council will make a full report on the
issue.” The paper reported that “Mrs. [Estelle] Robinson is a member of the
study group.” Estelle may have participated because of her work with UPI during
the Holland Administration. The Human Relations Council didn’t publish its
report until July, 1968.
150 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author.
151 Goodman, “‘Solution’
to THS Crisis Fails to Satisfy Anybody.”
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Bureaucracy,
Estelle Robinson observed, was a primary obstacle drowning out voices for
change, and hindered the school district’s response to unrest. “Estelle knew
there was not enough,” recalls Ann Wilson. Trenton, she says, had “good people,
competent people working in the health department, the local schools, or in the
local child welfare agency,” but institutional racism and mismanagement
undercut those individual efforts.153 Robinson recognized the
system’s leaders, such as Dr. Beck and Dr. Christie, were inherently well
intentioned, but those below them, such as Trenton High principal William D.
Walker, weren’t keeping up.154 The
152 Robinson, A City Views the University, p. 11.
153 Ann Wilson,
interview with author.
154
“Complete Text of THS Study Report: City Human Relations Council Receives
Findings of Panel.” Trenton Evening
Times, July 15, 1968, p. 7B. The Trenton Council on Human Relations report
on the high school disorders, a remarkable document worthy of its own study,
vividly details the institutional problems contributing to the high school
unrest in 1967 and 1968. The
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As the city school
system descended into chaos and unrest, Estelle Robinson drew upon her
organizing knowledge to develop Networking, a strategy, she hoped, would improve
Trenton’s institutional response to racial tension. Robinson, in part, honed
her ideas through informal discussions she and Irving held with Paul Ylvisaker
throughout 1967. The Robinsons first met Ylvisaker during the mid 1960s when
they volunteered for UPI, and looked to him as both a professional mentor and
“good friend.” “My mother really admired Paul Ylvisaker,” Eve Robinson recalls.155
Ylvisaker headed President Johnson’s Task Force on Model Cities, and became New
Jersey’s Director of Community Affairs after departing the Ford Foundation in
March 1967.156 His nationally-recognized policymaking efforts during
the War on Poverty resonated with Estelle’s own passions for education and
provided the linchpin for her Urban Agent efforts in Trenton. “Paul was a
natural connector,” recalls Gregory Farrell, UPI’s first
155 Eve Robinson,
interview with author.
156 “Paul N. Ylvisaker,
70, Educator and Urban Planner,” The New
York Times, March 20, 1992.
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Estelle Robinson, in part, found professional inspiration for
Networking through the Ylvisaker’s social circle, which she recalled as the
“spontaneous network” of “interested people [who] have already been working
together in some way,” united by a “common purpose,” the city.159
The Ylvisakers’ liberal friend group included the Robinsons, Art Holland, now a
Rutgers researcher, Greg Farrell, Donald Cogsville, UPI’s new Director, Robert
Curvin, founder of Newark’s CORE chapter, Joel Sterns, Governor Richard Hughes’
chief legal counsel, and Bud Chavooshian, New Jersey’s Planning Director, who
met informally to socialize and talk politics at the Ylvisaker home near
Princeton.160 The group’s dinner parties and gatherings became the
stuff of legend, as they shared and debated ideas about urban policy and grass
roots organizing. “My mother became very friendly with people in Newark, New
Brunswick trying to revitalize these cities,” recalls Eve Robinson. “Both my
parents were social people, and others really flocked to them just to sit
around and talk.”161
These conversations, in
part, informed Estelle Robinson’s vision for Networking as a “direct action”
strategy to help mediate tensions in Trenton.162 In April 1968, she
codified her ideas in a prescient memo to the Dean of Rutgers’ Extension
Division, titled “A City Views the
159 Robinson, A Guide to Networking, p. 3.
160 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author; also, Gregory Farrell, interview with author.
161 Eve Robinson,
interview with author.
162 Robinson, Estelle R.
Untitled speech, 30th Anniversary Celebration Center for Community
Education, manuscript, 1996.
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Estelle
Robinson’s Networking represented one well-intentioned effort to mobilize
Trenton at the cusp of violence, but its timing for the city was too little,
too late. In April 1968, the same month as Robinson submitted “A City Views the
University,” an assassin felled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights
leader, and unrest erupted in Trenton and other cities across the United
States. Familiar with the local politics in civil rights and education, Estelle
and Irving empathized with the black community’s anger and understood it had to
pass. “My parents saw the riots as just an indication of the times, a vehicle
for people to express their frustration with a lack of progress,” recalls Eve
Robinson. “I think they viewed everything as part of the cycle of change.” Eve
notes that the 1960s, particularly 1968, was a “time of fast changes,”
including
167 Ibid, p. 5.
168 Ibid, p. 2.
169 Ibid, p. 11.
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Since the 1950s, the city’s activists, organizers and
policymakers, including the Robinsons, had worked to reform the public
education system but their efforts were limited by institutional conditions and
political forces, the “fast changes,” that now seemed beyond their control. “We
wage what is termed a war on poverty only to discover it is a skirmish,”
Estelle wrote in 1969. Despite the tireless efforts she and Irving spent
organizing, advocating policies in Trenton, the “crisis in our cities,” she
said—the local Mayor’s election, the election of a new President who campaigned
“to put aside a comprehensive attack on hunger,” the liberal coalition’s
fracture over “a war which seems more and more unrelated to any national
purpose,” and the “disorders which plague us at this moment”—had shown, she
believed, why this “attack has not been intense enough, or continuous.”
“In spite of all the
many words, stated and published, in spite of what we term national awareness
of the poverty problems, the urban problems, the crisis in our cities, in spite
of the Economic Opportunity Act and all its programs, in spite of the Report of
the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, in spite of all our good
intentions—poverty is still very much with us.”168
As
Trenton erupted in unrest during April 1968, first at Trenton High School, then
downtown, Estelle struggled to reconcile these events with her own ideals: that
despite everything she and her colleagues had individually stood for and done,
despite years of Networking, despite “all our good intentions,” “poverty is
still with us.” And it was this poverty—and racism, and sexism, and inequality—
she acknowledged, that fueled racial tensions and the anger of “young people
168 Robinson, Estelle
Richmond. Untitled speech, manuscript, Summer 1969. From Alexander Library,
Rutgers University, The Estelle Robinson
Papers, 1964-2001. (accessed February 1, 2017)
whose eagerness,
militancy, and determination to break the bonds of poverty we see daily.” “We
have a great choice to make at this moment,” she said. “Will we become so
divided because we are so suspicious of each other’s motives that we remain
so?”169
The issues in Trenton and other urban areas were complex, without
clear solutions, and their circumstances—the social, political, economic unrest
of the 1960s—had surpassed Estelle’s own efforts to change the city. “There
were good-hearted people in Trenton who really tried to make it work,” her
daughter Eve Robinson says. “My parents were two of them. But there were forces
beyond everybody that made it difficult to achieve.”170
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170 Eve Robinson,
interview with author.
Image 17: School administrators, including a dejected Dr. Beck, at the
Board of Education’s monthly meeting, Trenton High School, December 20, 1967.
After retiring early from his position in July 1968, Beck remarked that “What
happened here is part of a nationwide feeling of unrest. A lot of people have
simple answers for complicated problems. There are a lot of things wrong with
our schools, but you could have the best school in the country and still have a
riot.”
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Years later, Estelle Robinson, recalled those
days in Trenton as she spoke in 1996, after a lifetime of Networking. “I have
the advantage of being 75 years old and as they say—Been there—Done that,” she
told the crowd at Rutgers University.170 It was the Center for
Community Education’s 30th anniversary, and Estelle, now retired,
spoke as a seasoned veteran of the War on Poverty, sharing stories from
Networking the city. Recognizing the event’s significance, she reflected on
Networking, and the legacy of community organizing from the 1960s onward. After
1968, Estelle joined the Rutgers University faculty full-time as an Assistant
Professor, then a tenured Professor of Social Work, where she focused on family
life education and health services provision. Through her efforts to Network
educators, policymakers and service providers, Robinson became an early,
leading advocate in New Jersey for family education. “Most of what she did at
Rutgers was based on what she had done in Trenton,” recalls Eve Robinson.171
Speaking before the
audience, Estelle said “it was fun for me to look back, and talk about the old
days,” and told the crowd that she felt “fortunate” to have participated in the
Great Society programs which “innovated [policy] changes and empowered people
who had been
171 Eve Robinson,
interview with author. The story of Estelle’s tenure as a faculty member at
Rutgers is as epic as her story in Trenton, and worthy of another study by itself.
She remained an “Urban Specialist” at Rutgers Urban Studies Center until the
early 1970s, when she joined a class action lawsuit against the university
demanding equal pay for women faculty and staff. The legal fight involved the
American Association of University Professors, the Women’s Equity Action
League, the Rutgers law professor (and future Supreme Court justice) Ruth Bader
Ginsburg, and New Jersey Senator Clifford P. Case. The University settled with
the plaintiffs in 1976, and Estelle was ultimately promoted to a fully tenured
professorship in the School of Social Work. Her advocacy in this capacity with
the New Jersey Network for Adolescent Pregnancy, coordinated by Ann Wilson, and
with other colleagues including Susan N. Wilson, executive director of the
Network for Family Life Education, helped place her at the forefront of
developing family life education in New Jersey.
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Contemplating the
powerful, but “elusive” goal she called activism, Estelle Robinson recalled her
final, bittersweet years of living in Trenton. After 1968, she and Irving
remained in the city, hopeful it would recover. Despite the unrest and
upheaval, “they thought it would stabilize,” says Eve Robinson. “We still had
some vital neighborhoods. Downtown was shrinking and dying away, but I think
they thought maybe the other neighborhoods would still remain.” 173
While other Trenton doctors moved to the suburbs, the Robinsons stayed on West
State Street to advocate social justice ideals and serve the neighborhood poor.
“Here’s to you, Mrs. (Estelle) Robinson, and to you, too, Dr. Irving Robinson
for daring to argue for people and life,” one neighbor wrote in 1979. “You
dared to say that families are the future of this city.”174 The
couple’s medical practice and neighborhood organizing efforts demonstrated
their optimism and confidence in Trenton. “They still believed in Trenton, and
they still wanted to be there,” recalls Joy Robinson-Lynch.175
However,
as years passed, Trenton’s economic collapse, including the spread of poverty
to West State Street where the couple lived, left them grasping for solutions.
“The cities,
173 Eve Robinson,
interview with author.
174 Paci, Catherine.
“Trenton Couple Earns Applause for Stand,” Trenton
Evening Times, February 13, 1979.
175 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author.
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Trenton was a microcosm of what Estelle
Robinson had learned after decades of public service: being an organizer was a
“deep struggle,” and “you’re a lifetime working at these things.” In Trenton,
her hometown, she had accomplished so much—advancing racial integration in
education, trailblazing leadership opportunities for women, and championing
early childhood programs—yet the city’s fate showed how those efforts, her own
efforts, remained imperfect. “I would not use the word ‘disillusioned’ to
describe Estelle because she was, at her core, an optimist,” recalls Ann
Wilson. “But I think she may have had her eyes opened in terms of how much more
difficult and entrenched any solutions are. That may have been the sadness to
her,
177 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author.
178 Joy Robinson-Lynch,
interview with author.
179 Eve Robinson,
interview with author.
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“We thought we solved it
in one generation in terms of a War on Poverty with staff programs, and so
forth, but here we are 30 years later, still struggling around these issues.
They are entrenched, systemic, and are part of each generation, it seems,
because we’re not looking at the root causes. And that’s a struggle that each
generation must deal with.”180
Estelle grappled with
these same questions in 1996, arguing her generation’s efforts to achieve
political solutions proved “elusive,” but nonetheless vital, for inspiring
long-term “progress.” “The present thinking is that all those efforts
failed—that there was no great society—or not a great enough society—and the
proof is that many of yesterday’s problems are here today,” she told the
audience. “As the government gets downsized, the issues get downsized, if not
hidden away.”181 Yet, Estelle said, it was the larger cultural shift
that her cohort inspired in Trenton and elsewhere—the advancement of racial
equality, gender equity, education reforms—not just the city’s immediate
problems, that defined their legacy. Future generations, she said, would come
to understand and appreciate this long-term view, despite the present-day
challenges. “I suggest to you that social changes cannot be measured in a short
181 In her later years,
Estelle also expressed frustration with New Jersey state officials and their
policies, whose collective indifference she blamed for Trenton’s economic
decline. For example, the state maintained a tax-exempt monopoly on prime
downtown and riverfront real estate, parcels it had condemned during the 1960s
for “Urban Renewal,” but neglected for decades as highways and parking lots.
“My mother blamed all the governors for a lack of attention to Trenton,”
recalls Eve Robinson. “It bothered her that the legislature was in Trenton and
they would drive in and drive out and never pay any attention.”
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Networking the city, Estelle Robinson understood, was an
imperfect, but real means to an end for enacting change. “There are no easy
answers or quick fixes,” she wrote in the twilight of her career, “but each
person has the capacity to make a difference through decisions made and actions
taken.”183 That individual “capacity to make a difference,” the
passion for organizing and public service that started with her mother and
motivated her, she knew, would continue with her children and others committed
to social justice ideals. Although many challenges remained for the city—the
“Bridge to 2000,” Estelle said, looked “shabby” and it was “frustrating to see
lack of progress”—her ultimate hope for Trenton, and America, lay with the
younger volunteers, organizers and policymakers who, like her, were dedicated
to service.184 “The best source of help for a network,” she argued,
was “within the network itself,” those people committed to the real work, as
she and Irving had done, and Evelyn and Israel Richmond before them, of caring
for their communities and helping others. “Network participants,” she said,
“contribute ideas, leadership, enthusiasm and dedication.”185 “We
now look for leadership to face the needs and gaps in [social] services,” she
told the crowd. “Will it come from the top down or from the bottom up, I don’t
know. I’ll leave that to my colleagues for later today.”
“Our
song is ended,” she said. “I hope the melody lingers on.”186
183 Robinson, Estelle R.
and Aleta You Mastny, Linking Schools and
Community Services: A Practical Guide, Rutgers University Center for
Community Education, Newark, NJ, 1989, p. 32. <https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED318929.pdf>
184 Robinson, Estelle.
1996 speech. The quote “within the network itself” comes from Robinson, A Guide to Networking, Rutgers
University, 1985, p. 10.
185 Robinson, A Guide to Networking, p. 10.
186 Robinson, Estelle.
1996 speech.
Estelle Robinson had spent her career, a lifetime of organizing in
Trenton, New Brunswick, and Newark, advocating policies and building political
coalitions. And through her work, she persisted against many adversities to
enact small, but significant changes that preceded bigger ones. “That’s the
struggle of Networking,” says Ann Wilson, “I see this too as a community
organizer. You work, and work, and work. It’s the powerful tool, but also the
elusive goal.” Wilson says that Estelle—if she were alive—would have been proud
of how Networking laid the groundwork for movements today such as #MeToo and
gun reform, where “women are running for political office, and young people are
speaking out.” These national movements, Ann says, help vindicate Estelle’s
legacy by building, in part, upon her own lifetime of work. Despite being an
organizer in Trenton when few women held public office, or when liberals were
outnumbered at City Hall, or when poverty struck her neighborhood, or whenever
political odds were against her, Ann says Estelle “never lost the passion,” and
that, she believes, always gave her friend hope for the future.
“That’s part of what
Estelle would say,” she says, “‘You pick yourself up, you dust yourself off,
and keep on trucking.’”187
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Image 18: Estelle at Rutgers University, ca. 1966. The photograph
timelessly captures her
at work, standing her ground, speaking her mind.
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Estelle Robinson’s career epitomizes the story of America’s
forgotten urban activists, the organizers, public servants and policymakers
whose reform efforts during the 1950s and 1960s were drowned out by unrest, but
whose long-term legacies survive through modern political organizing, movements
including women’s rights, civil rights, education, criminal justice, and gun
reform. Despite the political setbacks of post-war liberalism, Robinson and her
Great Society counterparts in small, mid-sized cities across the country
achieved small, but significant accomplishments—lasting accomplishments such as
advocacy for civil rights, gender parity in the workplace, and educational
equality—that still resonate with public policies today. Estelle’s story of
Networking in Trenton highlights the forgotten activists’ role in social
movements of the 1960s, and how such movements—the civil rights and
anti-poverty struggles of the North—were not just comprised of large
institutions, but individuals doing the work regardless of title, position or
institutional affiliation.
The people whom Estelle
collectively referenced as the “Network” were on the ground, “laboring in the
vineyards” as she said, before, during and after 1968, working with municipal
governments, non-profits, and universities. They were also career volunteers,
organizers, and civil servants who courageously fought for their communities
and upheld their values during a time of polarization and division. Although
their role in the decade’s turbulent social change remains forgotten, misunderstood,
or taken for granted, their service—of putting people first and bridging
divides—remains as, if not more, relevant to the present generation of
Americans. Today, with this country struggling to reach political consensus,
the need for more Estelle Robinsons, Americans willing to stand at home for the
common good, is greater than ever.
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A Game of Inches. Directed by Andie Ayala
and Tylor Johnson, The Trenton Project, The Trustees of Princeton University,
2017. < http://www.thetrentonproject.com/copy-of2015-projects>
Adams, Ruth Richmond. “Immigrant Pioneers.” The Jewish Magazine, May 2011. <http://www.jewishmag.com/154mag/immigrant_pioneers/immig>
---. Memoir in “Class of
1959.” City College Fund.
Arendt, Hannah. “The
Crisis in Education,” 1954.
“Armenti to Select 3 New
Board Members,” Trenton Evening Times, January
18, 1968.
Beck, Dr. Richard T.
“Narrative Report & Statistics, 1962-1965,” Superintendent of Schools,
Trenton, New Jersey, 1965. From collection of Eve Robinson.
Blackwell, Jon. “1943: School Spirit,” Capital Century Project, The Trentonian, 2000. <http://capitalcentury.com/1943.html>
“Brief Illness Proves
Fatal: Dies at Age 70,” Trenton Evening
Times, May 26, 1961.
Brilliantine, Dalba.
Dalba Brilliantine to Estelle Robinson, Trenton, NJ, January 16, 1967. From
collection of Eve Robinson.
City of Trenton. “1965
Annual Report City of Trenton New Jersey,” Trenton
Evening Times, April 10, 1965.
Christie, Dr. Sarah.
Sarah Christie to Estelle Robinson, Trenton, NJ, January 15, 1967. From
collection of Eve Robinson.
“City Woman Farm Idea
Guinea Pig.” Trenton Evening Times, January
21, 1965.
“Complete Text of THS Study Report: City Human Relations Council
Receives Findings of Panel.” Trenton
Evening Times, July 15, 1968.
Diehl, Mary Jane S. “Preschool Education for Disadvantaged
Children: An Evaluation of Project Head Start, Trenton, New Jersey Summer,
1965,” PhD dissertation, Rutgers University, June 1967
Dixon, Diana E. “Women
Discuss City Life,” undated 1971 news clipping from Alexander
Library, Rutgers
University, The Estelle Robinson Papers,
1964-2001. (accessed February 1, 2017)
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Estelle. Directed by Ken Ross and
Betsy Reed, Legacy Portrait Films, New York, NY, 2012. <https://vimeo.com/42199174>
Farrell, Gregory. “Crisis in Education Is Nothing New in Trenton,”
Trenton Evening Times, January 20,
1964.
“First Woman: Mrs. Solon Elected School Board Head,” Trenton Evening Times, February 2, 1964
Goodman, James E. “‘Solution’ to THS Crisis Fails to Satisfy
Anybody,” Trenton Evening Times, December
21, 1967.
Golub, Adam. “Solving the School Crisis in Popular Culture: Why Johnny Can’t Read Turns 60,” Ethos: A Digital Review of Arts, Humanities,
and Public Ethics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015.
“Helen W. Green,” Trenton Evening Times, May 14, 1978.
“Irv Robinson, of West
Tisbury, Dies at 93,” The Martha’s
Vineyard Times, August 11, 2008.
Kovisars, Judith F. Obituary
for a Hometown: Urban Renewal in Trenton, NJ. Thales Microuniversity Press,
Stillwater, Oklahoma, 1974.
“Loggie Bound Skaters
Dart Across E-W Road,” Trenton Evening
Times, February 13, 1958. “Mayor May Replace School Board Trio,” Trenton Evening Times, January 11, 1967.
Morris, Joe Alex, “The Cities of America: Trenton,” The Saturday Evening Post, October 1,
1949.
“Miss Christie Will Not
Seek Top School Post,” Trenton Evening
Times, March 14, 1962. “Mrs. Richmond Honored,” Trenton Evening Times, February 1, 1953.
New Jersey Office of Economic Opportunity. The Opportunity to Live in Decency and Dignity: Annual Report, 1965. State
of New Jersey, October 1965
“New Superintendent of Schools Sees ‘Great Challenge’ Facing Him
Here,” Trenton Evening Times, June
15, 1962.
“Outline School Board
Qualifications,” Trenton Evening Times, December
2, 1959.
Paci, Catherine. “Trenton Couple Earns Applause for Stand,” Trenton Evening Times, February 13,
1979.
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67
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Peroni II, Pater A. The
Burg: An Italian-American Community at Bay in Trenton, University Press of
America, 1979.
“Politics: The White
Backlash, 1966,” Newsweek Magazine, October
10, 1966. “Receives Orchid,” Trenton
Evening Times, June 5, 1958.
Robinson,
Estelle Richmond. “Money for Schools,” Trenton
Evening Times, December 10, 1958.
---. A City Views the University, manuscript,
April 1968. From Alexander Library, Rutgers
University, The Estelle Robinson Papers, 1964-2001. (accessed
February 1, 2017)
---. Untitled speech, manuscript, Summer 1969. From Alexander
Library, Rutgers University, The Estelle
Robinson Papers, 1964-2001. (accessed February 1, 2017)
---. Untitled speech, Networks and the New Jersey Network on
Adolescent Pregnancy, manuscript, ca. 1982. From Alexander Library, Rutgers
University, The Estelle Robinson Papers,
1964-2001. (accessed February 1, 2017)
---. A Guide to Networking. Center
for Community Education, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 1985.
---. Untitled speech, 30th Anniversary Celebration
Center for Community Education, manuscript, 1996. From Alexander Library,
Rutgers University, The Estelle Robinson
Papers, 1964 2001. (accessed February 1, 2017)
|
---.
|
--- and Aleta You Mastny, Linking
Schools and Community Services: A Practical Guide, Rutgers University
Center for Community Education, Newark, NJ, 1989. <https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED318929.pdf>
Robinson, Eve. “Thank
you and Some New Discoveries...,” email message to author, December 6, 2016.
---. “Photo,” email
message to author, March 16, 2018.
Robinson, Irving.
Telegram to Estelle Robinson, May 28, 1958. From Estelle and Irving Robinson
Papers, personal collection of Joy Robinson-Lynch.
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---.
|
“A Pre-School Program
for Deprived Children: A Pediatric Approach to an Urgent Social Problem,”
title page of conference paper, April 1963. From Estelle and Irving Robinson
Papers, personal collection of Joy Robinson-Lynch.
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---.
|
“Curriculum Vitae,”
ca. 1984. From Estelle and Irving Robinson Papers, personal collection of Joy
Robinson-Lynch.
|
Robinson-Lynch, Joy. “List of Items-Misc. Writings by Estelle
Robinson,” email message to author, March 20, 2018.
---. “Re: New
Discovery,” email message to author, February 12, 2018.
“To Draw Qualifications List for School Board Candidates,” Trenton Evening Times, November 1, 1959
“Urbaniak, Bodine on
Estimate Board,” Trenton Evening Times, February
2, 1961.
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Adams, Ruth Richmond.
“Growing Up Jewish before World War II.” The
Jewish Magazine, August 2012.
Antebi, Jordan, Owen Clarke, Kelly Fischer,
Mia C. Mummert, Kira Olander, Paul Savarskyy and Alamelu Sekkappan. The Mercer County Magnet Program: Attracting
Diversity and
Closing the Achievement Gap. Manuscript, June 2015. From collection of
author.
Althauser, Robert and Ann Ryan. “Initial Community Data on
Trenton, N.J.” Chapter from, “From Theory to Operations: Disadvantaged Children
and Their First School Experiences, ETS-Head Start Longitudinal Study,” Office of Economic Opportunity, Washington,
D.C., August 1969.
Berman, Lila Corwin. Metropolitan
Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit. University of
Chicago Press, New York, 2015.
Bott, Elizabeth. Family and Social Networks. London,
Tavistock, 1957.
Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years
1963-65. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1999.
---.
At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King
Years 1965-68. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2006.
Cannato, Vincent. The
Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York. Basic
Books, New York, 2001.
Caro, Robert A. The Years of
Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012.
City of Trenton “1965
Annual Report City of Trenton New Jersey,” Trenton
Evening Times, April 10, 1965.
Cohen, Adam and
Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor
Richard J. Daley, His Battle for Chicago and the Nation. Little Brown, New
York, 2001.
Cumbler, John T. A Social
History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics, and Work in Trenton, Rutgers
University Press, 1989.
Curvin, Robert. Inside
Newark: Decline, Rebellion, and the Search for Transformation. Rutgers
University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2014.
Farrell, Gregory. “The View from the City: Community Action in
Trenton,” from Sundquist, James L., ed. On
Fighting Poverty: Perspectives from Experience, Basic Books, Inc., New
York, 1969.
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Goldman, Eric F. The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. Alfred A.
Knopf, New York, 1969.
Golub, Adam. “Solving the School Crisis in Popular Culture: Why Johnny Can’t Read Turns 60,” Ethos: A Digital Review of Arts, Humanities,
and Public Ethics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015.
Goodman, James. “A Few
Handshakes, 2 Careers End: Dr. Beck and Dr. Christie Leave City School Posts
Today,” Trenton Evening Times, July
31, 1968.
Harrington, Michael. The
Other America: Poverty in the United States. The Macmillan Company, New
York, 1969.
Johnson, Lady Bird. A White House Diary. Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, New York, 1970.
Johnson, Lyndon Baines. The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the
Presidency, 1963-1969. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1971.
Krasovic, Mark. The Newark
Frontier: Community Action in the Great Society, 2016. The University of
Chicago Press, London, 2016.
Liebman, Arthur. Jews and the Left. John Wiley &
Sons, New York, 1979.
Lindsay, John. The City: New
York’s Mayor Reports Firsthand on the Struggle to Make a Livable City. W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc., 1970.
Mahaney, Kathryn. “‘A Pervasive Pattern of Delinquency:’ Rutgers
University and the Struggle for Equal Pay, 1970-1976,” unpublished thesis,
September 2010. Accessed via Rutgers-Newark Online, <http://rci.rutgers.edu/~rufair/pdf/RN%20Women's%20History%201970-76.pdf>
Report of the National
Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, The New York Times Edition. E.P. Dutton & Co.,
Inc., April 1968.
Russakoff, Dale. The Prize:
Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston,
2015.
Smith, Marshall and Gray Sidwell. “Trenton,
N.J.” Chapter from, “From Theory to Operations: Disadvantaged Children and
Their First School Experiences, ETS-Head Start Longitudinal Study,” Office of Economic Opportunity, Washington,
D.C., August 1969.
Ylvisaker, Paul N and
Virginia M. Esposito, ed. Conscience and
Community: The Legacy of Paul Ylvisaker, Peter Lang Inc., International
Academic Publishers, New York, 1999.
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Gregory Farrell April 27,
2018.
Juanita Faulkner February 13, 2018
Arthur Finkle September 24, October 16, 2016; March 10, 2017; February 16,
2018
Elizabeth Holland February 7, March 19, 2018
Janis Kind October
14, 21, 2016
Eve Robinson December
6, 9, 2016; February 8, March 2, 2018
Joy
Robinson-Lynch December 1, 2016; March 10, 19, 2018
Stan Salett April
17, 2018
Becky Urban October
29, 2016
Ann M. Wilson February
17, 2018
Steven Zwerling April 20, 2018
Trenton Project
Interviews
Gregory Farrell December 4, 2017
Herb Spiegel November
23, 2016
Herb Spiegel
and Martin Siegel September
1, 2016
Trenton Public Library, Trenton Jewish Historical Society Oral
History Collection
Estelle and March
20, 1996
Irving Robinson
Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics, Oral History
Collection William F. Faherty May 15, 2006
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Paul N. Ylvisaker August 10,
1989
Temple University Digital Archives
Paul N. Ylvisaker November
14, 1977
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Image 1: Alexander
Library, Rutgers University, The Estelle
Robinson Papers, 1964-2001
Image 2: Joy
Robinson-Lynch
Image 3: Joy
Robinson-Lynch
Image 4: Eve Robinson
Image 7: Joy
Robinson-Lynch
Image 9: Joy
Robinson-Lynch
Image 11: Joy
Robinson-Lynch
Image 13: Trenton Evening Times, accessed via
Newsbank.com*
Image 14: Trenton Evening Times, accessed via
Newsbank.com*
Image 16: New Jersey
State Library Digital Archives
Image 17: Trenton Evening Times, accessed via
Newsbank.com**
Image 18: Joy
Robinson-Lynch
*Quote from Image 12/13
comes from William F. Faherty, Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of
Politics Oral History Collection.
**Quote from Image 16
comes from Goodman, James. “A Few Handshakes, 2 Careers End: Dr. Beck and Dr.
Christie Leave City School Posts Today,” Trenton
Evening Times, July 31, 1968.
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I am indebted to the
many individuals who helped make this paper possible.
Although
I never met her, I must first thank my subject. Estelle Robinson bequeathed me
one of the best inheritances: the living “Network” of relatives, friends and
colleagues, who, in every case, eagerly and patiently fielded my inquiries.
Hearing from them about Estelle’s passion and dedication, in turn, motivated my
own enthusiasm for researching and writing her story.
From the start, Eve
Robinson, Joy Robinson-Lynch and Amy Robinson supported this project,
volunteering untold hours for interviews and other tasks. Eve was my first
contact, and her networking on my behalf ensured access to many living
relatives, friends and associates. She also furnished papers from her mother’s
career on the Trenton Board of Education. Joy spent hours searching through boxes
of her parents’ personal papers at home, scanning photographs and documents.
Amy provided vital encouragement with heartfelt, uplifting notes during
difficult moments of the writing process.
The first-rate guidance of Alison Isenberg, my academic adviser,
was an absolute blessing. No matter how stressed or tired I may have felt,
Professor Isenberg always challenged me to go above and beyond. Her own
research about Harlan B. Joseph and the unrest of 1968 is an inspiration to be
compassionate, but questioning, as a historian.
Ann Wilson generously mailed a copy of Estelle Robinson’s A Guide to Networking, and publications
from the New Jersey Network for Adolescent Pregnancy. She also spoke quite
candidly about working with Estelle and her lifetime passion for public
service.
Betty Holland spoke at length about Trenton during the 1960s and
her and her husband’s longtime friendship with the Robinson family.
Arthur Finkle, Trenton’s Jewish historian,
gave me a copy of his book Trenton’s
Jews, and furnished information about the city’s Jewish community and the
1966 Mayoral election.
Juanita Faulkner shared stories from her 50+ year career in New
Jersey education, including working as a public-school teacher in Trenton. She
is one of the few Trentonians who remember Irving Robinson’s pre-school
project, and Helen W. Green, the first black female member of the school board,
two subjects worthy of further study.
Greg Farrell warmly shared recollections from the ‘Ylvisaker
group.’ As one of its only living members, he remains a vital link to Paul
Ylvisaker, whose prolific career, although relatively unstudied, profoundly
shaped American domestic policies of the 1960s.
Steven Zwerling, a distant relative and former Ford Foundation
employee, shared memories of the 1966 election, and explained the role of
private foundations in early antipoverty programs.
Stan Salett, one of the legislative architects behind the War on
Poverty, generously spent an afternoon sharing memories about Paul Ylvisaker
and Project Head Start.
Susie Wilson, Herb Spiegel, Martin Siegel, Becky Urban and Janis
Kind, also shared their memories of Estelle Robinson and Trenton for this
project.
Erika Gorder of Rutgers University Special Collections and
University Archives, Laura Poll of the Trenton Public Library, and Mark
Merkovitz of the Jewish Federation of PrincetonMercer-Bucks, provided
technical assistance at their respective organizations.
Finally, special thanks to my parents, Julian Antebi and Hilary
Burke, whose love and encouragement are an inspiration daily.
