ALUMNUS MAKES GOOD:  HARRY ROBERSON JR. '50


Roberson walks the red carpet heading into the Celebration Banquet at the 2009 Alumni Reunion Weekend.

“You will make good.”  

When those words were written more than 60 years ago, high school teacher Henretta Fanning was addressing a scrawny college-bound athlete from Malvern, Arkansas. The hope and promise that guided the young man to Philander Smith College would prove to become a recognizable signature as he made his way into the world.

Harry Roberson Jr. has enjoyed a wonderful life and stellar career, but his beginning wasn’t easy.

After losing his father in 1941, Roberson’s family, including his mother and four siblings, dealt with their own version of the Great Depression.  Carrying the weight of being the eldest child, Roberson’s focus was unwavering as his family somehow managed to survive during extremely difficult times.

Despite the hardships, Roberson flourished in academics and athletics. For those reasons, not only did the opportunity to attend college present itself, but the red carpet -- or in this case, the Philander Smith ‘green and gold’ carpet -- was first rolled out by a PSC graduate, his Malvern High School teacher Ms. Fanning, who was so impressed with Roberson that she contacted Philander Smith College President M.L. Harris regarding a scholarship for her prized pupil.

Not long after, Roberson was headed for Little Rock, Ark., following in the footsteps of two relatives who had attended the private, historically Black college. 

Once at Philander Smith, Roberson would report to President Harris’ office to fulfill his agreement to work there in order to pay for his tuition; athletically gifted enough to make the football team, he used his physical prowess to pay for his room and board.  For four years, he was at the beck and call of President Harris.  Understanding that the investment in him by others would require peak performance, there was no way Roberson was going to disappoint. This safety net of education was a far cry from his childhood when losing his father threatened the security of his family.

Through perseverance, Harry Roberson Jr. graduated in 1950 with a business degree and immediately set out to find work. Not long afterwards, he was hired as a salesman with the Dunbar Life Insurance Company in Cleveland, Ohio.

He wouldn’t be able to settle his job, however, as the draft called him into service and a 21-month tour of Japan and Korea. Thousands of miles away from home, the tenacious Arkansan found his way back to the Buckeye state and attended Ohio State University in Columbus for a brief period before returning to Cleveland.

Roberson’s career portfolio includes a range of professional positions. He served with the Ohio Turnpike Commission, the U.S. Postal Service, the Cleveland Urban League, frozen pie distributor Soul Foods Inc., Singer Sewing Machine Company, Crayton Food Processing Company, and Cuyahoga County Community College.

Along the way he also returned to school and earned a master’s degree in Urban Housing and Finance from the University of Pittsburgh in 1967 where, just three months after graduation, he was summoned by a Dean to counsel a group of Black students on how he successfully completed his thesis on time since many had been unable to do so.

Five years later, the nation’s capitol called to recruit Roberson to work as a senior manager in the Program Planning Office in Washington, D.C. After Congress fail to pass legislation of a training program for welfare recipients, he was transferred to the U.S. Department of Labor where he worked tirelessly -- notwithstanding a two-year stint in which he returned to his home state to work on the Arkansas Manpower Council from 1975 to 1977 -- until his retirement in 1999.

Though it all, Roberson has never lost sight of the foundation that prepared him, which is why in 1998 he established a $26,000 endowed scholarship fund at Philander Smith College and has given thousands to his alma mater every year since. Named a Philander Distinguished Alumnus in 1989, Roberson’s lifetime giving also earned him induction into the College’s newly established pinnacle giving club, the M.L. Harris Society. 

While this trailblazer built his career, he also immersed himself in local politics as well as serving as a trustee on a couple church boards. A proud member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated, clearly Roberson has upheld its cardinal principles of manhood, scholarship, uplift and perseverance at the highest level.

Someone once said, “You can tell a Philanderian by the way he walks.”   If so, the saunter of Harry Roberson Jr. should speak loud and clear.

                                                                                                                 -by Reginald L. Hameth