Five years ago, only one of Cumberland County’s state lawmakers who were previously enslaved or a free African American before the Civil War was mentioned on a Virginia historical roadside marker. Later this school year, all four historic figures will be named on Virginia historical roadside markers. During the 2023 Cumberland Middle School summer school session, a group of rising ninth graders collaboratively wrote a story map detailing the contributions of State Senator John (Lipscomb) Robinson. The next school year, students summarized the story map on the Virginia roadside historic marker application. Last spring, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources approved the John (Lipscomb) Robinson historic roadside marker.
This school year, seventh grade history enrichment students are adding content to the original story map and collaboratively writing the text for a two-part story map series leading up to the roadside marker unveiling. The portion of the article below is a summary of The Life and Legacy of John (Lipscomb) Robinson: Educational Legacy Story Map collaboratively written by Maria Martinez-Owens, Scarlette Gibbs, Peyton Bryant, Sarah Troxell, Aubrey Wise, Rey Gamboa, Melody Gee, Aurian Bolden, Blakely Elder, Nevaeh Fernandez, Audrey Hatcher, Jamir Hubbard, Ty’Mier Jones, Jesus Parilla and Destiny Griffin.
The Life and Legacy of John (Lipscomb) Robinson
When our nation was founded, Virginia did not have public schools. Typically, it was only wealthy people who could afford private schools who got an education. In 1831, enslaved people and free African Americans were forbidden by the Virginia General Assembly to attend school. The percentage of Cumberland County residents who were not allowed to attend school was around 70%. John Robinson, a future state senator, could not legally attend school because he was a free African American before the Civil War.
John (Lipscomb) Robinson was born on either October 28, 1825, or October 28, 1826. He was descended from enslavers and enslaved people, and was born free from his mother Catherine “Kitty” Lipscomb. As a free African American in Virginia, he had some rights, but could not legally attend school or vote. He went by the name John Lipscomb until the late 1840s or early 1860s when his mother and siblings changed their last name to Robinson. John (Lipscomb) Robinson began to purchase land in the 1850s. The Cumberland County 1861 tax records stated he owned two parcels of land and an enslaved person. The 1860 census showed he owned real estate, personal property and changed his profession from an Oyster Trader to a Wagon Driver.
The 1867 Congress required all former Confederate states to rewrite their state constitutions to reenter the union. John Robinson was elected to represent Cumberland County in the 1867-1868 Virginia Constitutional Convention. At the 1868 Virginia convention, he voted in favor of establishing the first public schools and granting African American men the right to vote.
John Robinson was elected to the Virginia Senate in 1869. He was on the Committee on Public Institutions that created laws for the new Virginia public school system. He voted to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment that defined citizenship and required due process at the state level and Fifteenth Amendment, which provided universal male suffrage.
John Robinson had 13 children with his first wife, Emily Robinson, and four children with his second wife, Martha Robinson. He had 17 total children in his lifetime. One of his sons, John W. Robinson, resided in Amelia County. In 1930, there was not a high school for African American students in Amelia County. John W. and his second wife, Lettie Robinson, helped in the efforts to establish one.
Classes first took place at Russell Grove Presbyterian Church in 1933 while Russell Grove High School was being built. Amelia County required Russell Grove High School to have 35 students attend their school to stay open. Lettie Robinson even drove children from her neighborhood in her own car to meet the requirement. The school building was completed in 1935. The Amelia County African American community, after paying their yearly property tax, raised $3,500, and $2,000 came from the Jeanes fund. Amelia County required parents to pay $2 per child to ride a school bus. Lettie Robinson was also recognized as the first bus driver for Russell Grove High School.
Russell Grove’s first valedictorian was John W. and Lettie Robinson’s daughter, Sarah C. Robinson. After graduation she attended St. Paul’s College and later married John E. Crump, who owned a barber shop at 1749 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W., Washington, D.C. It was only one block away from the White House. Lettie Robinson’s granddaughter, Virginia Walton, was also part of the first Russell Grove graduating class. She attended normal school at Virginia State and began her long teaching career in Amelia County. In 1960, Virginia Walton Harris earned her bachelor’s degree from Howard University. Virginia Walton Harris’s teaching career then took her to Pittsylvania County and Northern Virginia.
State Senator John Robinson personally knew the Rev. R. T. Coleman. They were both active in politics. R.T. Coleman was the president of the Cumberland County Republican Party and the first pastor of Mt. Olive Baptist Church. State Senator John Robinson’s son, the Rev. J. Henry Robinson, became the second pastor at Mt. Olive Baptist Church. The Rev. J. Henry Robinson’s daughter, Parrie Robinson (John Robinson’s granddaughter) remained in the area and married James M. Hendrick Jr. (Please go to https://cardinalnews.org/2024/01/02/the-story-of-a-confederate-veteran-laid-to-rest-on-a-formerly-enslaved-mans-land/ for Hendrick family background information). Their daughter, Irene Hendricks (John Robinson’s great-granddaughter), moved to New York, N.Y., and married Edgar Berry Sr. Their son, Edgar Berry Jr. (John Robinson’s great-great-grandson) served in the U.S. military and as a New York City police officer. After retirement, he and some of his family returned to Cumberland County. He held many local positions including Chair of the Board of Elections, Fire Marshall for the Cumberland Volunteer Fire Department and member of the Cumberland High School Principal’s Advisory Committee.
As a Prince Edward Academy Foundation board member, Edgar Berry Jr. played an active role in desegregating a segregation academy. Segregation academies were private schools in the south, established by white parents to avoid school desegregation. At the time, his decision to help Prince Edward Academy regain its tax-exempt status was viewed by some to be controversial. Prince Edward Academy was established in 1959 to educate white students as Prince Edward County closed all its public schools rather than integrate them. This occurred eight years after Barbara Johns’ student-led walkout, which protested the conditions and overcrowding at Robert R. Moton High School, and five years following the Brown v. Board of Education decision in which R.R. Moton High School students were included as plaintiffs. The case ordered an end to segregation in public schools. Prince Edward County Public schools would remain closed until 1964. Some African American families with the resources for transportation enrolled their children in segregated schools in neighboring counties such as Cumberland. Some of those left the state and attended schools in New York and North Carolina, with many living with host families and in dormitories. Many families could not afford the cost for additional transportation and could not send their students to school for five years. Missing out on needed education meant the options for work were mostly limited to working in tobacco fields, the pulpwood industry or domestic work. Of Prince Edward County’s 75 African American teachers, 72 left the county. Prince Edward Academy later lost its tax-exempt status because it did not allow Black students to attend the school. The school wanted tax-exempt status back because it was in a financial crisis. It got tax-exempt status back in 1985 but did not yet have any African American students enrolled in the school.
Edgar S. Berry Jr. attempted reconciliation. In 1986, Prince Edward Academy admitted five Black students. In a January 21, 2004, Farmville Herald article, Berry recalled the day the first African American student arrived; “When he got off the bus… I said, you know that ends it because they can never again say this is a segregated school.” Prince Edward Academy changed its name to Fuqua school in 1993 after it received a big donation from J.B. Fuqua. Edgar Berry’s Jr.’s granddaughter, Danielle Wynn Shields (John Robinson’s four-times granddaughter), also provides educational leadership. She graduated from Fuqua School and James Madison University. At Buffalo Gap High School, she taught English, Leadership Communications, AP Language and Composition, mentored new teachers and co-sponsored the Peer Mentor club and was named teacher of the 2022 Teacher of the Year. She is currently an Assistant Principal at Stuarts Draft High School. Over the last 150 plus years, John (Lipscomb) Robinson and his extended family have provided educational leadership through legislative action, as teachers, while serving on boards, as college professors, while driving school buses, as school administrators, as authors of children’s books, and as student leaders.