Italy Pays Tribute to Amelia Boynton Robinson

Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 11, Number 3-4, Summer-Fall 2002 Italy Pays Tribute To Amelia Boynton Robinson

n Milan and Rome, she was received Ias a head of state—in Milan by the President of the Lombardy region, and in Rome by the Human Rights Com- mittee of the Italian Senate. It’s what she deserves: Amelia Boynton Robinson, 91 years old and heroine of the American Civil Rights movement and close collab- orator of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is now vice-chairman of the U.S. Schiller Institute. She came to Italy with an urgent mission to help stop an Iraq war, but also to tell the story of her life-long fight against discrimination and for Black Americans’ right to vote. That fight led in 1965 to the historic “Bloody Sunday” march to Mont- gomery, Alabama, when she was beaten

and left for dead on the Edmund Pettus Regione Lombardia, Ufficio Portavoce del Presidente/Gianni Congui Bridge, as mounted police attacked the Mrs. Robinson receives medal honoring her Civil Rights battles from Roberto Formigoni, demonstrators. The Voting Rights Act President of Italy’s Lombardy region. was the result of that fight, which she had led in Alabama with her husband of Rome. Mrs. Robinson was introduced economist and director of the Labor S.W. Boynton for 35 years before Martin by the director of the center, Maria Ida Ministry; Marguerite Lottin, a journalist Luther King came there. Gaeta, who brought the greetings of and politician from Cameroon; and As she told official meetings, public Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, and of the Lucio D’Ubaldo, editor-in-chief of the conferences, and press and TV inter- City Commissioner for Cultural Policy. magazine Nuova Fase, spoke along with views, today she continues this fight In the afternoon, Mrs. Robinson was Mrs. Robinson. with Lyndon LaRouche, whose move- received by the Human Rights Commit- The audience of 80 people included ment inherited Dr. King’s dream, tee at the Italian Senate. The president the Hon. Giovanni Galloni, former “encompassing, this time, peace and of the Committee, Sen. Enrico Pianetta, Minister at the time of the Christian development for the whole world.” and the vice-chairwoman Sen. Patrizia Democracy in the 1970’s; Tommaso Toia, thanked her for the honor she was Fulfaro, leader of the Association for the Honored in Milan doing the Italian Senate by addressing Left; and Father Ulisse Frascali, founder Mrs. Robinson’s Italian tour began Sep- their Committee. of the Nuovo Villaggio del Fanciullo in tember 24 in Milan, where she was offi- After she had spoken on her lifelong Rimini. cially received by Roberto Formigoni, fight for human and Civil Rights, some On September 28, Mrs. Robinson the President of the Lombardy region. women Senators expressed their appre- embodied the dialogue of cultures at a He awarded her a medal in memory of ciation that Mrs. Robinson is a very meeting of 1,000 at the Soka Gokkai her fight for Civil Rights and in memo- good example for women in politics, Buddhist Cultural Center near Rome, ry of Martin Luther King. who fight for human rights, but “under which had just inaugurated an exhibi- In the evening, she met students totally different conditions, since you tion on “Three Men of Peace: Mahatma from Milan and Bologna, Roman risked your life at your time,” as Sen. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Catholic priests, nuns, and some jour- Patrizia Toia said. Another Senator Daisaku Ikeda”—the last being the nalists, at a meeting organized by the interjected: “When I come home today, leader of the Buddhist Center. university group of the Solidarity I will tell my 19-year-old daughter that I On September 25, Corriere della Movement in Santa Maria Liberatrice met history this afternoon, and that Sera and Libero published the pic- parish. There she was also interviewed young people should do the same.” ture of her meeting with Lombardy by the major Catholic magazine, President Formigoni. A full-page Famiglia Cristiana. Public Mass Meetings interview was published on Septem- September 26 saw the first of three A public meeting was held at the Libre- ber 27 by the Italian daily Il Manifesto, public meetings in Rome, at the Sala ria Paesi Nuovi, in front of the Italian under the headline “But America Is delle Letterature, organized by the City Parliament, where Dr. Nino Galloni, Not Bush.”