From Riverhead to the national stage: Rashad Robinson, making a difference

Riverhead native Rashad Robinson may be soft-spoken and small in stature, but the young political activist casts a long shadow and his voice is heard loud and clear in the board rooms of America’s largest corporations.

The 34-year-old Riverhead High School alumnus has gained national recognition for the work he describes as “holding America’s largest corporations accountable to the ordinary folks who buy their products.” He is the executive director of ColorOfChange.org, an internet-based civil rights and political advocacy organization that boasts nearly 900,000 members. Its mission: to make government more responsive to the concerns of black Americans and to bring about positive political and social change for everyone.

ColorOfChange.org counts among its victories pressuring corporate sponsors to stop advertising on Glenn Beck’s FOX News TV show after Beck called President Barack Obama a racist. Stripped of its advertiser support that once included America’s top brands and largest companies, Beck’s show went off the air.

ColorOfChange.org was also responsible for choking off corporate funding of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group responsible for the promotion and passage of state laws that Robinson says hurt citizens and undermine democracy.

“ALEC is a 40-year-old institution that for us represents the very worst of money and politics, of big corporations that can can drown out the voices of everyday people.” Robinson said in an interview last week. “It takes money from big corporations and gives it in secret to state legislators, who in turn pass laws that put a wide range of communities in harm’s way,” Robinson said.

ALEC, which would wine and dine legislators with junkets at exclusive resorts, Robinson said, would also draft bills and supporting memoranda for legislators who agreed to sponsor them — the lawmakers would only need to put their names in the headers, Robinson said.

As ColorOfChange.org staff members worked to fight passage of the ALEC-sponsored voter ID laws introduced in many of the nation’s state houses prior to the last presidential election — laws widely criticized as aimed at disenfranchising minorities — they discovered a connection between ALEC and the controversial “stand your ground” self-defense laws, Robinson said.

The “stand your ground” laws, adopted in more than half of the states in the union, deem the use of force, including deadly force, justifiable — with no obligation to retreat — when there is reasonable belief of an unlawful threat. ALEC has strong ties to the gun industry and gets funding from the gun industry, Robinson said.

Florida became a flashpoint in the “stand your ground” controversy after a neighborhood watch volunteer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in February 2012 and local prosecutors initially decided not to charge the shooter, George Zimmerman, with any crime. After intense scrutiny and public outcry, a special prosecutor was appointed a month later to take over the investigation. Zimmerman was subsequently charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, 17. Jury selection in Zimmerman’s trial is scheduled to begin today.

“We mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to call on corporations to pull funding from ALEC,” Robinson said. But the group didn’t even have to identify ALEC’s corporate sponsors to get results. “They knew what we could do, because of what we did with Beck.”

All told more than 50 corporate sponsors pulled their support from ALEC, Robinson said.

“ALEC had to give up its swanky headquarters and it disbanded committees that deal with legislation and guns,” he said.

Robinson and his organization also led the campaign to end Pat Buchanan’s tenure on MSNBC after he published “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” in 2011 — a book in which the conservative commentator laments that birth-rate trends and “Third World” immigration are bringing about “the end of white America.”

The activist says his work, consisting of good organizing and good strategy is aimed at “fairness and a democracy that works for everyone, a democracy where folks making minimum wage can make their voices heard just as loudly as Mayor Bloomberg.”

“We try to leverage the voices and the power of citizens of all races who want our democracy and economy to be fair and open,” Robinson said.

His success has gotten him named — for the second consecutive year — one of the 100 most influential African-Americans by The Root, an African-American news, opinion and culture website.

On May 30, Robinson was honored with a “Transforming America” award from the NYC-based public policy organization Demos, a group dedicated to “an America where we all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy.”

On June 26, Robinson, along with Sen. Tom Harkin, is being honored by Americans for Democratic Action at its 66th Annual Awards Banquet in Washington, D.C. The group, founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, said Robinson “has helped mobilize communities across the country to create more inclusive cultural and political institutions. An expert on the impact of popular culture on American attitudes and values, Robinson is a leading strategist on utilizing media to shift public opinion on progressive and civil rights issues.”

Robinson says he always knew he’d pursue a career doing exactly what he’s doing. He’s been an activist since his youth in Riverhead, he said.

“I’ve never ‘known my place.’ Ive always believed that I have a right to make my voice heard,” Robinson said.

“At Riverhead High School, I was not close to being valedictorian,” Robinson said. “But people were well aware of where I was heading. I was always interested in and excited about politics and policy, in organizing and making a difference,” he said. “I think very few people I graduated with would be surprised that I became engaged in politics.”

While still in high school, he hosted a talk show on Cablevision’s public access channel and led a protest against the Riverhead Rite-Aid pharmacy, which would not let high school students on the premises during their lunch breaks.

Robinson said he’s always been driven and always had a belief that he could achieve whatever he sets his mind to.

For that he credits his “incredible” parents, Riverhead residents Everett and Shirley Robinson, he said. “I’m grateful for the privilege I was afforded by my parents,” Robinson said.

He holds a degree in political science from Marymount University in Arlington, Va. As a college student he interned in the office of East End Congressman Michael Forbes “after he switched parties,” Robinson notes. Upon graduation, he became in community organizing and political advocacy work, working for the Right to Vote campaign and FairVote. He was the senior director of advocacy at GLAAD when he was recruited for the executive director spot at ColorOfChange.org in 2011.

What he’s doing today, he said, is really “just an extension of my interests growing up.”

“If I could go back and talk to 16- or 17-year-old Rashad,” he said. “I’d tell him to have fun but stay focused on what the next 10 or 15 years will look like. Identify something you care about, something you love and work toward it,” he said.

“I get to wake up every day and do something I actually love. That’s as good as it gets.”

Photo captions: (Top) Riverhead High School Class of 1997 alumnus Rashad Robinson on the set of CNN, where he has appeared as a guest commentator. He has also appeared in hundreds of news stories, interviews and political discussions on ABC, BET, MSNBC, OWN, The New York Times, Fast Company and NPR. (Middle) Rashad Robinson, 2013. (Bottom) Rashad Robinson with his parents, Shirley and Everett Robinson at their Riverhead home. (Courtesy photos)

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