Jack E. Robinson (the elder)

Jack E. Robinson, businessman, rights activist

By Globe Staff | December 4, 2006

Jack E. Robinson, a businessman and Republican activist who served several terms as the president of the Boston chapter of the NAACP, died of congestive heart failure Saturday night, his son Jack E. Robinson Jr. told the Associated Press. He was 79.

Mr. Robinson served three terms as president of the Boston chapter, from 1971 to 1972, 1985 to 1986, and briefly in 1994 and 1995.

He also was a leading organizer for the Republican Party and had owned several businesses, including Converse Construction Co.

Born in Jackson, Miss., Mr. Robinson moved to Boston with his parents. He won a city scholastic tennis championship as a student at Roxbury Memorial High School.

Mr. Robinson served in the Army during the Korean War. Jack E. Robinson Jr. said he met and became friendly with Martin Luther King Jr. while both were students at Boston University.

Mr. Robinson was also a confidant of former senator Edward Brooke, a Republican who in 1966 became the first black man elected to the Senate.

Mr. Robinson also supported the presidential candidacies of Richard Nixon, saying Nixon helped the black community by directing federal resources to cities.

As the leader of the Boston chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he struggled through dwindling membership, outdated facilities, and fiscal problems. As a Republican activist, he also battled perceptions that he could not work with the predominantly Democratic membership.

In his last term, he faced accusations that he hindered the group's affirmative action efforts and that his election was marred by voting irregularities. He was ousted by the national organization and replaced by an interim leader.

But throughout his life, whether leading efforts to ensure fair wages, helping the Republican Party, or running his business, Mr. Robinson did not shy away from confrontations.

"Everything balances out in the end," Mr. Robinson told The Boston Globe in 1994 amid the fight to keep his post as president of the NAACP. "I'm a fighter. When I win, I win, and when I lose, I get ready for the next battle, and there is always going to be a battle."

His love of tennis led him to help found the Sportsmen's Tennis Club in Dorchester, and he spent his final years as the owner of the Martha's Vineyard Resort & Racquet Club in Oak Bluffs.

In addition to his son, who has run several times for political office in the Boston area, Mr. Robinson leaves his wife, Claudette; three daughters, Sarah, Jacqueline Bonner, and Sandra Niles; and two other sons, Timothy Niles and David.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this obituary.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.