Betty Garman Robinson - Interview 06-28-2017 - Final
Channel: Washington, D.C. Lessons of the Sixties
Date: 2019-08-20

Betty Garman Robinson moved to Washington DC in 1965 to help run the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) office, then headed by Marion Barry, also new to town as National Chairman of SNCC. A graduate of Skidmore College and an early member of SNCC, Betty was already a dedicated civil rights activist and quickly became a key organizer for various initiatives of the “Free DC Movement” which was headed by Barry. Home Rule for DC was the overriding local civil rights issue in the 60s and 70s for Washingtonians.  Later Betty assumed leadership positions in grassroots efforts to end the Vietnam War, including chairing the DC Committee to Defend the Conspiracy during the 1969-70 trial of antiwar leaders in Chicago, and her work in organizing a 1971 conference of Vietnamese, Cambodian and American women in Canada. Betty remains an active participant in the fight for racial justice, working with the anti-racist organization SURJ (Standing Up for Racial Justice) Hands on the Freedom Plow, published in 2010, is a collection of personal accounts by Betty and 51 other women about their experiences working in the civil rights movement. Betty Robinson’s begins her interview with her work on desegregation and voting rights in the south and in Washington for SNCC, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and continues her conversation about the decades of work she did in Washington and Baltimore, and still does today, with many national and local groups fighting for racial justice and community empowerment.  Although issues of race have been central to her years of organizing, she also includes her experiences within the peace movement and the women’s movement.