Lifting Every Voice: My Journey from Segregated Roanoke to the Corridors of Power

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Synopsis
Bill Robertson was one of our greatest pioneers and a tireless advocate for racial justice. One of his final acts was the completion of his memoirs. Lifting Every Voice reveals how the advances made during his lifetime were no foregone conclusion; without the passionate efforts of real people, our present could have been very different.The survivor of a traumatic childhood in the Green Book South, and the witness to his father's rage over racial inequity, Robertson rose above an oppressive environment to find a place within the system and, against extreme odds, effect change. He was the first Black man to run for the Virginia General Assembly, and as a teacher, the first to help integrate a white school in Roanoke. He became the first Black decision-maker in any southern governor’s office, appointed by Virginia governor Linwood Holton in 1970. In a state controlled by segregationist Democrats, Holton was the first Republican governor since Reconstruction, and his government was pivotal in its commitment to move the state away from nearly a century of segregationist policies. Bill Robertson was an inner-circle member of this historic administration. His account of its challenges and hard-won victories tells us much about that critical era.Robertson went on to serve five presidents, heading the Peace Corps office in Kenya and later serving as deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. As a public servant he worked on both sides of the aisle, in a way almost inconceivable in today’s polarized society, collaborated with the Jaycees to build a camp for children with mental disabilities in Virginia, and eventually focused his support on Black Lives Matter in his eighties—because there is still so far to go.
Copyright:
2022

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
224 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780813947181
Related ISBNs:
9780813947174
Publisher:
University of Virginia Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Social Studies
Reading Age:
18 and up
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.
Foreword by:
Linwood Holton
With:
Becky Hatcher Crabtree

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