Lifting Every Voice - by William B Robertson (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The memoir of the life of William Bernard Robertson, telling of his early years in Roanoke, Virginia, and college in Bluefield, West Virginia, during segregation; his years as a public school educator and principal; his time as aide to Linwood Holton, Republican governor of Virginia; and the years that followed, including his work for the Peace Corps in Kenya and the state department, assuming duties under five presidential administrations, as well as his longtime volunteer work for Camp Virginia Jaycee, supporting those with special needs"--

Book 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.

Review Quotes

An inspiring, exemplary account of a life well lived.

-- "Kirkus, starred review"

As you read this book, you will no doubt be as heartbroken as I was to learn what my friend had to go through growing up African American in the Green Book South. But I suspect that even more, you will be moved by Bill's fighting spirit. Early in life, he committed himself to fighting injustice, which of course meant constantly witnessing it up close and personal. But he decided that whatever he experienced, he would remain an optimist. He kept to that decision for more than eighty years.

Civil rights literature has not always done a good job of showing how the protests of the sixties marked the beginning of the dismantling of state-sanctioned discrimination, not the end. Bill Robertson's invaluable memoir, on the other hand, chronicles those changes, from the grass roots to the highest government channels. Imagining readers this book will touch, I thought first of older Black Virginians who lived through these events, but then I thought also of younger African Americans who might discover Lifting Every Voice in their local library and be inspired by Robertson's life.

--Andrew B. Lewis, author of The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation

About the Author

William B. "Bill" Robertson was a trailblazing educator, activist, and gubernatorial advisor who was a central participant in Virginia's shift from its segregationist past and who went on to serve in five presidential administrations. Becky Hatcher Crabtree is an author living in West Virginia.