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Randall Robinson

Released
Date of birth:06. 07. 1941
Date of death:24. 03. 2023
Age:81 Deceased
Gender:Male
Race:Black
Era:1980s
State:District of Columbia
Time Imprisoned:
1 Day
Support
Anti-Apartheid Civil Rights Anti-Imperialism
Randall Robinson

Biography

Randall Robinson was the lawyer-activist who founded TransAfrica in 1977 to organize Black American foreign-policy advocacy on Africa and the Caribbean. He architected the November 21, 1984 sit-in at the South African embassy that launched the Free South Africa Movement and chaired its steering committee. After apartheid, Robinson led TransAfrica's pressure on the Clinton administration over Haiti and wrote "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks" (2000). He spent his final years in self-imposed exile on Saint Kitts.

Case

Charges: Misdemeanor DC Code 22-1307 (congregating within 500 feet of a foreign embassy / failure to disperse) or unlawful entry.
Arrested: Nov 20, 1984
Incarcerated: Nov 20, 1984
Released: Nov 21, 1984
Sentence: Released same day or following morning; charges declined / dropped (typical FSAM disposition). Verdict as recorded: No — charges declined / dropped Charges as recorded: Misdemeanor DC Code 22-1307 (congregating within 500 feet of a foreign embassy / failure to disperse) or unlawful entry. Free South Africa Movement civil disobedience at the South African Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. The DC U.S. Attorney (Joseph diGenova) declined to prosecute most arrestees, holding the cases lacked "prosecutive merit." Approximately 5,000 such arrests in DC alone Nov 1984 - 1986; daily sit-ins helped produce the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, passed over President Reagan's veto.
Convicted: No — charges dismissed