It takes courage and hard work to break into U.S. politics and seek elected office. USINFO looks at three very different women who risked the odds and won. This is the third and final article in a series about women serving their first terms in the Maryland General Assembly.
See also “Maryland Delegate Urges Women To Be 'Part of the Process'”
and “Hard Work, Supportive Friends Helped Woman Break into Politics.”
Barbara A. Robinson, State Delegate. |
|
|
Washington -- Barbara
Robinson has had more than her share of bad fortune: an
abusive stepfather, an alcoholic mother, grinding poverty,
sexual molestation and rape, homelessness and vicious racial
discrimination.
In her youth, people told her she never
would amount to anything. But she defied the odds and succeeded
in government, business, and -- most recently -- in politics.
“I had so much to prove -- that I
was as good as the next person,” Robinson said. “Success
is the best revenge you can get on anybody.”
That success, however, did not come easily.
Despite a difficult childhood in segregated Georgia, she
managed to complete high school with honors. A grant allowed
her to escape her dysfunctional home and go to college in
Baltimore. But she dropped out after the first semester,
pregnant with the first of five children she would have
with the man who would be her husband for 46 years. Nonetheless,
she was determined to get an education.
It took her 18 years to earn her bachelor’s
degree. She would work for tuition money, attend school
until the money ran out and return to work to earn more
tuition money. Her husband, who never completed high school,
felt threatened by her ambitions.
“Once he kicked down the door to the
bedroom so he could tear up my schoolbooks,” Robinson
recalled. Finally, she told him: “I’m going
to graduate with or with out you. … So whatever you
do to make me drop out of college, it’s not going
to work.” He relented and eventually grew proud of
her accomplishments.
But living in low-income public housing
did not provide much in the way of a social support system.
The “street people” who were her immediate associates
scorned her for her efforts to improve herself. And she
found she had little in common with her fellow students,
who had come from better circumstances.
“I was by myself,” Robinson
said. “I had to create a place for myself. And I did.”
Robinson went on to earn her master’s
degree in criminal justice administration. She became the
first woman and the first African American in the Maryland
court system to hold positions of chief administrator of
the Traffic Division, deputy administrator of the District
Court and deputy administrator of the Supreme Bench, which
later became known as the Circuit Court.
In 1985, she founded her own company --
Strategies, Tactics, and Results Associates Incorporated.
Known as STAR, the company now is widely recognized for
its work in human resources development, training and the
transportation industry. Five years later, she founded SelfPride
Incorporated, a nonprofit organization that provides community-based
residential facilities and 24-hour care to people with developmental
disabilities and employment opportunities for people who
were welfare recipients.
Despite her accomplishments, Robinson remained
dissatisfied with what she saw as systemic racism that hindered
minority entrepreneurs. So she decided to change things
“from the inside” by running for a seat in the
House of Delegates in the Maryland General Assembly. With
47 senators and 141 delegates elected from 47 districts,
the Maryland General Assembly meets each year for 90 days
to act on more than 2,300 bills, including the state’s
annual budget.
Robinson competed against 19 people running
for the three open seats representing her Baltimore district.
“They were younger than me and had much more experience
in politics,” she said of the other candidates. In
one of her first public appearances with the challengers
she recalled: “I started getting scared, my voice
shaking.” But she told herself: “The old Barbara
Robinson the fighter is going up there. … I’m
in it to win it.”
At an age when most women settle down to
play with their grandchildren, Robinson enlisted her five
grandchildren and their parents to work in her campaign.
“I got my friends to help me,” she said. “I
had 30 volunteers that worked like 300.” She funded
her campaign with her own money. She knocked on doors in
rough neighborhoods that other candidates declined to visit.
And she won.
“Nobody endorsed me,” Robinson
said. “I don’t owe any allegiance to any special
interest groups. … I represent the voters. And that’s
a great, great feeling.”
Completing her first year of a four-year
term, Robinson said: “My primary goals are to see
that small businesses get their fair share of the market,
to see that women-owned businesses get their fair share
of the market, to see that those [minorities] who are in
business not only get their fair share of the market, but
have the same advantages that nonminorities have to expand.”
A member of what she describes as the “over-60
wisdom group,” Robinson acknowledged with pride: “I
am 69 years old, and I ain’t finished yet.”
Jane Morse
USINFO Staff Writer
###
