TransProtest

By John S. DeMott

Just who was this man, and where did he get off telling South Africa's Ambassador how his country should be run? No matter. Randall Robinson, 6 ft. 5 in. of polished brass, kept boring in. Accompanied by several civil rights advocates, including District of Columbia Delegate Walter Fauntroy, Robinson went to the South African embassy on Massachusetts Street in Washington and demanded of then Ambassador Bernardus Fourie that the Pretoria government release its political prisoners and extend civil rights to blacks. Fourie demanded that his visitors leave, but Robinson and the others refused. Arrested, they spent the night in a D.C. jail.

That incident a year ago this week started one of the longest continuous demonstrations in U.S. history. Picketing and arrests organized by Robinson's Washington-based TransAfrica lobby occur every weekday in front of the South African embassy. They have ignited flares of protest in 26 other U.S. cities, pushing the Reagan Administration into toughening its mild "constructive engagement" policy toward South Africa.

Among the 3,500 protesters who have been arrested, paid fines or spent short periods in jail are 23 U.S. Congressmen, Connecticut Senator Lowell Weicker, Singer Harry Belafonte, Amy Carter and two of Ethel and Robert Kennedy's children, Rory and Douglas. As the protests spread, the House and Senate introduced bills calling for action against South Africa, and Ronald Reagan came up with his own list of sanctions.

Now Robinson and TransAfrica have undertaken another ambitious project: collecting a million signatures denouncing the Rev. Jerry Falwell's accommodating view of the South African government, to be presented next month in a "freedom letter" to the Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu. TransAfrica had garnered 200,000 signatures by last week, and 50 members of Congress have volunteered to collect at least 1,000 additional signatures each from their constituents.

All told, not a bad year's work for Robinson, TransAfrica and its spin-off Free South Africa Movement. Working out of a basement office in southeast Washington, Robinson has evolved into a black leader to be reckoned with. South African spokesmen predictably deny his effectiveness. Says Embassy Press Attache Pieter Swanepoel: "The activities have had no impact on government decision-making policy. How could they, when they are taking place so far away from where those policies are formed?" But U.S. Senators and Representatives who voted for sanctions against apartheid enthusiastically acknowledge that Robinson's cool, calm competence helped rally black and white Americans against apartheid. Said one congressional staffer: "Everybody can tell that Randall Robinson is no bomb thrower."

But Robinson, 44, is well acquainted with the legacy of racism. Born in Richmond, educated in segregated public schools and formerly all-black Virginia Union University, Robinson never attended classes with white students until he went to Harvard Law School. Handsome, slender and an immaculate dresser, Robinson rejected the corporate life chosen by many of his Harvard classmates and went to Washington, eventually joining the staff of Michigan Congressman Charles Diggs. TransAfrica began in 1977, an outgrowth of Robinson's earlier work with the Congressional Black Caucus in organizing opposition to the Ford Administration's benign policies toward white rule in what was then Rhodesia. Money, most of it contributed by prominent blacks, was hard to raise. Recalls Robinson: "We came up with between $15,000 and $20,000, so we didn't know if we'd be in operation for more than a month."

TransAfrica is now on a far sounder footing (this year's budget: $400,000), and Robinson's thoughts go beyond mere survival. He sees his witness against apartheid as a fight for U.S. blacks as well. "For black Americans, a response to South Africa is a response to them," he says. "This is a test of our own democracy." Next on his agenda: deploying pickets against IBM, General Motors, Ford and other major U.S. corporations that do business with South Africa. Says Robinson: "They are providing the legs on which this monster walks." --By John S. DeMott. Reported by Hays Gorey/Washington

With reporting by Reported by Hays Gorey/Washington