Spottswood W. Robinson III

Lawyer, judge, and educator

• Born: July 26, 1916
• Birthplace: Richmond, Virginia
• Died: October 11, 1998
• Place of death: Richmond, Virginia

As one of the attorneys in the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case, Robinson was instrumental in striking down the “separate but equal” clause that had allowed racial segregation in the schools. He went on to serve as dean of the Howard University School of Law and then as an appellate court judge for the rest of his career.

Early Life

Spottswood William Robinson III, the son of Spottswood Robinson, Jr., an attorney, and Inez Robinson, was seemingly destined for a career in law. He showed an early aptitude for the legal profession, winning early admission to Howard University’s School of Law in 1936 and thus starting his graduate legal education before his final year at Virginia Union University. Despite being younger than most of his classmates, Robinson graduated magna cum laude in 1939 with the highest grade point average ever recorded at Howard’s School of Law up to that time. Immediately after graduation, he began a teaching fellowship at Howard, eventually working his way up to the level of associate professor by 1945. Before enrolling at Virginia Union, Robinson had attended the segregated Armstrong High School in Richmond, Virginia, an experience that might have influenced the most important work of his legal career: the struggle to provide equal educational opportunities and facilities to all children.

Life’s Work

Robinson was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1943. For the first four years of his practice, he taught part time at Howard. In 1947, he took a leave of absence from the university; one year later, he resigned from the faculty entirely. His resignation enabled him to join Virginia’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund. While involved with the fund, Robinson fought many legal battles on behalf of needy African Americans.

Robinson’s NAACP career continued in 1951 with an appointment as Southeast regional counsel, a post that involved travel throughout the South. There, he found that his status as a lawyer did little to help him find a place to eat. He was often barred from restaurants, so he packed his own lunch.

During his tenure as the Southeast regional counsel for the NAACP, Robinson took on a lawsuit that would eventually be grouped into the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954. Robinson’s suit involved students from segregated Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia. At Moton, buses, supplies, and other facilities were not up to the same standards as those for the county’s white schools. In this challenge to the “separate but equal” doctrine, Robinson represented 100 parents and 450 students. The Brown case—which did away with the “separate but equal” clause from the Plessy v. Ferguson case in 1896—became a milestone in American civil rights. While Thurgood Marshall is most often associated with the landmark Brown decision, Robinson’s role is less well known.

Robinson served as dean of the Howard University School of Law from 1960 to 1963. He was appointed to a federal judgeship in 1964; became the first African American to sit on the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals in 1966; and served as the chief judge of that court from 1981 to 1986. He received honorary degrees from Georgetown University and New York Law School. He retired from the court in 1989 but continued to occasionally hear cases until 1992, when he returned to his Richmond, Virginia, home. He died in Richmond on October 11, 1998, of an apparent heart attack.

Significance

In addition to Robinson’s trailblazing judicial career, he is noted for his service on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. After he was appointed, a block of southern senators opposed confirming him, claiming that he would be biased because of his previous association with the NAACP. Robinson’s scholarship and professional credentials won out, however, and he was confirmed by a vote of seventy-three to seventeen. Ultimately, he is best remembered for his involvement with the landmark Brown case. In his argument before the court, he is credited with interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment to reflect its promise of educational equality for children of all races.

Bibliography

Edds, Margaret. “Out of the Shadows.” Style Weekly 26, no. 42 (October 15, 2008). Richmond, Virginia’s alternative newspaper profiles Robinson and Oliver W. Hill, Robinson’s fellow attorney in Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, the local case that was consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education. Includes anecdotes and historical details from contemporaries and family members of both men.

Robinson, Spottswood W., III. “William Henry Hastie: The Lawyer.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 125, no. 1 (November, 1976): 8-12. Robinson’s article serves as a testimonial to Hastie, his mentor and colleague at Howard Law School. The article also discusses an early case involving racial segregation and interstate travel.

Rowan, Carl T. Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. This thorough accounting of the legacy of Marshall includes many references to Robinson.