Robinson, Amelia Boynton, 1911-

Civil rights pioneer Amelia Boynton Robinson was born on August 18, 1911, in Savannah, Georgia. As a young lady, Robinson became very active in women's suffrage. In 1934, at the age of twenty-three, Robinson became one of the few registered African American voters. In an era where literacy tests were used to discriminate against African Americans seeking to vote, Robinson used her status as a registered voter to assist other African American applicants to become registered voters.

In 1930, while working as a home economics teacher in the rural south, Robinson became re-acquainted with Sam William Boynton, an extension agent for the county whom she had met while studying at Tuskegee Institute. They married and began to work together to bring education, a higher standard of living, and voting rights to the African American poor, most of whom worked as sharecroppers. In 1936, Robinson wrote a play entitledThrough the Years, to raise money for a community center that would be open to African Americans in a then-racially segregated Selma, Alabama.Through the Yearstells the story of Robert Smalls (one of Robinson's ancestors), through the character of Joshua Terrell, a slave, who gains his freedom and goes on to serve in the U.S. Congress.

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