Yvonne Robinson valued education, community service and kindness and belonged to a pioneering family that helped integrate Park Forest.
She liked when kids in the neighborhood gathered in her yard to play sports so she could keep an eye on her five sons, said her second oldest, Dr. Leonard Robinson Jr. of Olympia Fields.
“She felt comfortable that her boys were where she could see us, as a parent who might be concerned a little bit at the time,” Robinson said.
Yvonne Robinson died Dec. 11. She was 89.
When Robinson and her late husband, Leonard Sr., moved from the East Side of Chicago Heights in 1963, they were among the first Black families in Park Forest.
When her brother moved to the West Side of Chicago Heights a year earlier, a racist arsonist burned his house to the ground. Robinson’s brother defiantly rebuilt the home in the same spot.
Robinson shared her recollections about moving to Park Forest as part of the Park Forest Oral History Project in 1980. A digital archive of the Illinois State Library maintained by the secretary of state’s office published a transcript of the interview.
“Most of the neighbors I found friendly,” she said 42 years ago. “I could tell they were very inquisitive. My children made friends rapidly. There was one or two families that I could feel were quite hostile, but they stayed out of my way and I stayed out of theirs.”
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Leonard Robinson Jr. was the only Black child at his elementary school for six years, he said. He graduated from Rich Central High School in 1976.
“I think I was probably the first African American kid to go K-12 in Park Forest,” he said. “My brother started in second grade.”
The Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., prominently features the Robinson family’s Park Forest experience in a permanent exhibit, “America on the Move.”
“Before the Robinsons moved in, the Park Forest Social Action Committee canvassed the neighborhood, calming concerns and getting an idea of how neighbors would accept the family,” according to the Smithsonian. “This level of community involvement was important to Mrs. Robinson. Protesters had burned down her brother’s house in a nearby suburb the year before.”
Yvonne Robinson and her five siblings were raised in Chicago Heights by their parents, Robert and Manila Gavin. Her mother was a college graduate and her father ran a successful dry cleaning business.
She studied education at Indiana University, where she met her future husband. Leonard Robinson Sr. later was elected to the Rich Township High School District 227 Board, and also worked as an administrator for Rich Township.
Rich Township dedicated a building in his honor in 2009, the Leonard Robinson Family Service Center, 21966 Governors Highway, Richton Park.
Yvonne Robinson worked as an educator. She was a principal and teacher, including at a school named after her late eldest brother, Dr. Charles E. Gavin. After his death in 1971 at age 44, relatives established a charitable foundation in his name.
The foundation’s annual golf outing and other events have raised money to fund scholarships that helped students attending medical schools and others who studied art. Chicago Heights District 170 named Lincoln-Gavin Elementary School, 1520 Center Ave., in his honor.
Leonard Robinson Jr. said he and his four brothers enjoyed growing up in Park Forest during the 1960s and 1970s.
“I think the neighborhood we grew up in was ahead of its time,” he said. “They welcomed us.”
The family home had the biggest yard in the neighborhood, he said, and became the gathering spot for young athletes.
“Our mom would make lemonade and cookies,” he said.
Yvonne and Leonard Sr. set good examples for their children, he said.
“I always felt like my mom was just the nicest person you could meet,” Leonard Jr. said. “My dad was similar. They sort of laid the blueprint for how we could manage being the only Black kids in the neighborhood.”
Yvonne Robinson told the Park Forest Oral History Project in 1980 that Park Forest police provided extra patrols in front of their home. The village surveyed neighbors to ask their thoughts about integration.
“I do recall the policeman would sit in front of our house,” she said at the time. “I did welcome any kind of protection the village had to offer.”
The Smithsonian exhibit features a village of Park Forest document dated July 27, 1959, instructing village employees how to answer questions about the potential of Black families moving into the community.
“The Village Government must extend equal services and protection of the law to all its citizens without any discrimination between them,” according to the document. “In the event that a Negro family should make its home in Park Forest, the Village Government will assure that family the same protection of the law that is afforded to any other resident or property owner in the Village.”
Dr. Leonard Robinson Jr., an independent internal medicine physician who sees patients at Franciscan Health Olympia Fields and Ingalls Hospital in Harvey, said his parents worked to advance civil rights in several communities.
“There was tension,” he said. “My parents were involved in the civil rights movement in the south suburbs, trying to help integrate the various neighborhoods and towns. Our landing in Park Forest was pretty smooth for the most part.”
The arson of her brother’s home in Chicago Heights greatly affected Yvonne Robinson, her son said.
“Chicago Heights and Park Forest, even though they’re right next to each other, were really two different towns,” he said.
Visitation for Yvonne Robinson is set for 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022, at New Faith Baptist Church, 25 Central Ave., Matteson, followed by an 11 a.m. service.
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In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by two sons, Wayne and David. In addition to Leonard Jr., survivors include sons Charles and Carl.
Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.