SNCC 60th

In 2010, at a large event she put together in Baltimore for Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC — a book she co-edited with 5 other SNCC women — the room was packed with representatives from the various campaigns she’d been involved with.

As she called the name of each campaign – focused on affordable housing, police brutality, educational equity, immigrant rights, or mass incarceration – one group and then another stood up. Sometimes those in each group knew each other, sometimes they didn’t.

But Betty knew them all, because she had joined in their struggle… or had helped bring them together. They were part of her vast network, people with whom she had developed deep and lasting personal bonds.

Organizing and enjoying those around her were integral parts of who she was; they were the inseparable parts of her life that brought her joy. She loved being with people: attending potlucks where she’d try out new recipes with vegetables from her garden...

...singing in Baltimore’s Charm City Labor Chorus, reading about all manner of topics (she had an insatiable curiosity) and discussing them with friends and family. Betty particularly enjoyed being with her beloved family: daughters Tanya and Keisha and their families...

... particularly her precious grandchildren, McKenzie, Jeffrey, and baby Thalia.    She also enjoyed learning from young activists and sharing her experiences.

She often asked them to consider: “What kind of a country do you want and what kind of country are you willing to fight for?” As Tre Murphy wrote: "To me Betty Robinson [who we always called Ms. Betty] was one of the greatest souls ever to walk the earth.

She was humble enough to know that it took more than her to win freedom for Black people, gifted enough to see possibilities none of us could visualize, and fearless enough to keep fighting even when the outcomes looked grim or wasn’t what we expected.”