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EIRNS/Brendon Barnett
Amelia Boynton Robinson at Compton College


Amelia Boynton Robinson
Inspires Los Angeles Youth

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Amelia Boynton Robinson Inspires Los Angeles Youth
(Download Mrs. Robinson’s 36 MB Presentation in LA)
(download is in Ogg format)*

by Nicole James

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 1 (EIRNS)—The next time you get tired during organizing, or feel demoralized by a Baby-Boomer, just think of Amelia Boynton Robinson, the world’s preeminent embodiment of the Civil Rights Movement, who at 94, is travelling the world, scheduled to speak at four events on any given day, and how she is able to move people through ideas (see article, page 1, on Mrs. Robinson’s visit to Italy). One organizer reported that when Amelia sat down after one of her speeches, it surprised the organizer that although she was physically old, she was able to uplift everyone in the room. Some of us, in our twenties, have a hard time keeping up: I know I did.

Amelia Boynton Robinson’s first presentation on her visit to Los Angeles, was at our Nov. 13 town meeting celebrating Friedrich Schiller, where she embodied Schiller’s idea of a beautiful soul. She organized in such a way that she was constantly thinking of whom she was addressing, putting herself in the shoes of the youth who face no future. Having a chance to be at all of Amelia’s events, I got a good sense of her intervention into history, which impacted over 1,000 people, even more if you include the teleconference at Cerritos College that gave all city colleges access on a cable channel. Amelia, who has been around almost for a century, made me realize the potential that exists in all of us. I got to see first hand the kind of organizing that led to the Voting Rights Act, and the love and determination it takes to stay committed to an idea, not some particular accomplishment.

Amelia said that LaRouche’s youth movement is what keeps her fighting, because she realizes that she has an extended family of revolutionaries that are committed to the fight for the development of all mankind. At every event, the thing Amelia most looked forward to was the Q&A section, because she wanted to use that as an opportunity to understand the way youth are thinking. All of her responses to the questions were subjective, i.e., cognitive, always telling people the potential that exist in them to effect change.

A Life Dedicated to Truth

At most events, Amelia showed that if you dedicate your life to Truth, you don’t get old. At Fullerton College, where she spoke to 150 students and professors, she gave a two-hour speech and took an hour of questions, and because of the sharpness of the speech, not only did she freak out a couple of Baby-Boomers who stormed out as she attacked Cheney, but she got the youth to reflect on their immortality. The youth asked Amelia, “What is true freedom?” “Is it possible to help in the small?” “What if I want a career instead?” Most realized that they would have to change their thinking, and become optimistic.

At the beginning of each event, we opened with a Negro Spiritual, which Amelia pointed out as the only true American music, the only Classical music this country has produced.

The LaRouche question was taken up at once when a young Hispanic student asked why she was following LaRouche, a white man, when everyone knows they really don’t understand black culture. Amelia stopped him, “That’s not true, that’s not our culture. There’s American culture, and the Negro Spiritual is the contribution African-Americans made to American culture. And its the highest contribution made to American culture, not like this terrible so-called music people call our culture today.” Amelia added that Rosa Parks had her named removed, before she passed, from one of these rap music albums. “Did you hear about that?” she challenged the student.

I was blown away by Amelia’s ability to get people to be truthful, and I realized it was because she actually loved everybody that she talked to and people truly knew it, so they did not feel the need to be phony.

In every speech Amelia gave, she stressed that the fight today is even more crucial, because it is not just about getting African-Americans the right to vote, but fighting for economic justice for all mankind. She emphasized that Lyndon LaRouche is leading that fight today. This caused a lot of freak-outs from the professors, who had to deal with the fact that Amelia was organizing people to join the LYM.

Amelia’s effect in Los Angeles will definitely reverberate throughout the campuses, and the students will not forget the question that she left on the table, which is: What are they going to do to continue this fight.


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* Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source. See http://www.vorbis.com/ for downloaded software to play file


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