I Never Had It Made

Beginning the second half of the book discussing his new career in business, Robinson provides a better introduction for Bill Black, the founder and president of Chock full o’ Nuts, who had built his business hiring primarily black workers and was deeply committed to racial equality. At the same time that Robinson began this new career, he also was asked by Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, to chair that organization’s Freedom Fund Drive in a public speaking and fund-raising capacity. Concerning his early involvement with the NAACP, Robinson declares, “I felt I had a debt to my people and I wanted to volunteer my services at the same time to the organization I believed was helping them the most” (127). In addition to his fund-raising, Robinson served on the NAACP’s board for 10 years, but resigned in 1967 over differences he had with Wilkins concerning the organization’s direction and Wilkins’s refusal to incorporate younger, more progressive voices to the board. While Robinson points out that he has no regrets for his fund-raising activities on behalf of the NAACP because “it remains today the oldest and strongest civil rights organization we have” (130-131), he does suggest that he “made a grave error in resigning rather than remaining on the inside to try to fight for reform” (131).