One People, One House: Out of despair can come hope for healing

I’ve always been an optimistic person.

I look back on family photos when I was little, and I always see a trace of optimism in my eyes. Even in the photos of a scorchingly hot trip to Washington, D.C., with my parents, Rose and Carroll Robbins, and sisters, Carolyn, Chris and Jo in the summer of 1963, I see it.

But in the photos of a family with four young and overheated children, I see myself as happy.

I never felt the emotion of despair throughout my life. Ever.

Then, my mom died.

For those who knew my mom, she was a pretty amazing person – humble, the daughter of Polish immigrants who had settled in upstate New York, did not complete high school and, instead, went to work in the Polish market to help the family survive, loyal, devout in her faith in God, unwavering in her support for her children and grandchildren. I always saw in her eyes the optimism of the world, and she subtly lit up every room she entered.

Rose B. Robbins died in January of 2001. The morning of her funeral, where I was to deliver the eulogy for my beloved mom, I remember getting ready to go, and I stopped. I recall sitting on my bed and saying out loud, to myself, I can’t do it. I can’t go on. Despair. Fist time I ever felt that.

After a few minutes of reflection and telling myself my mom deserved my best effort, I gathered myself and headed to the funeral.

With the brutal and senseless killing of George Floyd, a lot of people felt betrayed and hopeless. Despair. I felt it, too.

In the early 1990s a Springfield police officer shot and killed Benjamin Schoolfield who was unarmed. The incident ripped apart our community. It wasn’t the first time our city came apart over race.

I am old enough to remember the “race riots” in Springfield in the early 1970s. Many don’t remember, but I do, the staggered dismissal times of my high school, Classical, and those of Commerce, Tech and Trade to avoid or minimize the violence in the streets. I remember seeing a story about it on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.



I also remember that high school basketball, a possible trigger to more racial violence, was played for a season without any fans in the stands. It was a time many felt a profound sense of despair. I think that may be one of the reasons no one ever talks about those times in Springfield. It almost seems removed from our local lore.

The Schoolfield shooting was not a one-off. Springfield, if we are being honest, had labored in trying to achieve racial harmony for a long time. I was on the Springfield Chamber of Commerce Board at the time, and Paul Doherty was chair. With racial strife swirling about as a result of the Schoolfield shooting, and the rumor that CBS’ “60 Minutes” was possibly doing a story on race in Springfield, Paul asked if anyone had any ideas about bringing together the community.

Around that time, I had become involved in a grassroots movement of like-minded people who had formed Institutes for the Healing of Racism in a few localities around the United States. So I raised my hand and Paul, as a white male icon in the region, had the gravitas to start a process of racial healing.

A conference was held, the Institute for the Healing of Racism was established in Springfield, and sometime later the community came together for a retreat in the Berkshires on race, attended by Springfield’s mayor at the time, Michael Albano, and other leaders in our community. Harvard’s Roger Fisher and his Conflict Management Group even heard about the Springfield initiative and served as facilitators for the weekend retreat.

We were on a roll.

There was reason for great hope. The institute, with the provided curriculum from other communities, began to meet at Springfield Technical Community College, and attendees stayed after the weekly sessions were over, developing deeper bonds with those of a different hue to their skin.

So what happened? The bottom fell out. We were not able to sustain the effort with enough local support. Being ever the optimist I prayed another opportunity would come.

Over 20 years later that opportunity to do something meaningful to understand racism, how it hurts people and institutions and what we can do about it emerged again.

As part of the City2City Pioneer Valley group that traveled in 2012 to Grand Rapids, Michigan, we discovered their community’s Institute for the Healing of Racism embedded in the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce.

Recalling and reprising the leadership of Paul Doherty, John Davis, former business owner and director of the Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation, stepped into the breach, pulled me aside and said, “We’re doing this in Springfield.”

Thanks to John and other stalwarts like Erica Broman, Ray Berry, Steve Bradley, Ellen Freyman, Steve Huntley, Frank and Dora Robinson, our first director, Waleska Lugo DeJesus, and original board member and now interim director Vanessa Otero, the Healing Racism Institute of Pioneer Valley has become part of the local landscape in bringing our community together with the lofty goal to ultimately overcome racism.

It’s hard work, but none of us are giving up.

And just as I gathered myself to go to my mom’s funeral to tell her story, and to heal and to go on, we take the message from George’s Floyd’s death and go forward with a new sense of hope and affiliation.

We can do it. We can make the world as we envision it.

Paul Robbins, who grew up in Springfield, is the principal of Paul Robbins Associates Strategic Communications and co-founder of the Healing Racism Institute of Pioneer Valley.