Gender: Male - Starting with R

Robinson, John Henry “Rube”

Arkansas native John H. Robinson was an outstanding minor league baseball pitcher in the early part of the twentieth century. Following a brief time with three major league teams, he emerged as one of the best pitchers to play for the Little Rock Travelers (later Arkansas Travelers). He spent nearly twenty-two seasons in professional baseball and was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1962. During his playing career, he often just walked away from baseball for a time if he did not want to play for his assigned team, sometimes feigning illness or just refusing to report. John Henry Robinson (sometimes referred to as Roberson), with the nicknames Hank or Rube, was born in Floyd (White County) …

Robinson, John Marshall

John Marshall Robinson was a prominent physician, civic leader, and co-founder and president of the Arkansas Negro Democratic Association (ANDA). As a physician, Robinson performed pioneering medical surgery and was involved with a number of medical institutions and organizations in Little Rock (Pulaski County). As a politician, Robinson was the main voice in the state demanding equal black participation in the Arkansas Democratic Party between 1928 and 1952. Born on July 31, 1879, in Pickens, Mississippi, John Robinson was one of eight children of Isabell Marshall and Amos G. Robinson. Robinson attended Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1904. While in Nashville, Robinson met and married India Cox. Robinson’s only …

Robinson, Joseph Taylor

Joseph Taylor Robinson was governor only a short time before taking office as a U.S. senator. He became Senate majority leader during the Great Depression, after his nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for vice president—the first Arkansan ever on a major party ticket. Joe T. Robinson was born on August 26, 1872, in Concord Township of Lonoke County to James Madison Robinson—a doctor, farmer, and lay preacher from New York—and Matilda Jane Swaim of Tennessee. Usually attending the local one-room schoolhouse during the summer, he received fewer than forty-six months of formal education. He augmented his schooling by reading classics from his father’s extensive library. In his childhood, he chopped cotton and tended to his father’s apple orchard. During …

Robinson, Samuel Dunn

Samuel Dunn Robinson was a lawyer and horseman whose long and colorful life mixed the two passions in nearly equal proportions. He was a criminal lawyer, prosecuting attorney, justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court for sixteen years, soldier, rancher, cowboy, and professional equestrian. When he died, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette called him “a cross between the Marlboro Man and Clarence Darrow”—a reference to the cowboy icon of cigarette advertisements and the famous lawyer in the 1925 Scopes evolution trial. Sam Robinson was born on March 21, 1899, in Greenville, Mississippi, but lived on the Deerfield Plantation in Chicot County, one of the biggest farms in the most prolific cotton-producing county in Arkansas after the Civil War. He was one of four …

Robinson, Tommy Franklin

Tommy Franklin Robinson made a statewide name for himself as a controversial Pulaski County sheriff, won a seat in Congress as a Democrat, switched to the Republican Party while in office, and then lost in a 1990 Republican primary race for governor of Arkansas. Tommy Robinson was born on March 7, 1942, in Little Rock (Pulaski County), an only child. His father, Hoover Robinson, was a fireman, and his mother, Esther Robinson, was a state worker. He grew up in the Rose City area of North Little Rock (Pulaski County), with future Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as a childhood friend. He married Carolyn Barber of Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties); they had six children. Robinson graduated from the University …

Robinson, Willis (Lynching of)

On December 18, 1918, an African-American man named Willis Robinson was hanged by a mob in Newport (Jackson County) for allegedly murdering police officer Charles Williams and wounding Chief of Police Gus C. Martin. Reports indicate that Robinson was a resident of Little Rock (Pulaski County), and the 1910 census listed nineteen-year-old Willis W. Robinson as living in Owen Township with his parents, Charley and Martha Robinson. According to newspaper reports, by December 1918, Robinson, who was described by the Arkansas Democrat as “a very large black negro, weighing about 240 pounds,” was living with his wife at 1003 Jones Street in Little Rock. Robinson was reportedly well known to local authorities. In defiance of a 1917 Arkansas statute forbidding …

Robison, Fabor Allen

Fabor Allen Robison (mistakenly referred to as “Robinson” in some sources) was an influential record producer, label owner, and music promoter from Arkansas. Called “one of the most enigmatic figures in country music” by scholar Michael Streissguth, Robison managed prominent country acts in the 1950s, including Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves, and the Browns. But while he wielded great power in the music industry in the 1950s, his dubious and exploitative business practices—not to mention egregious personal behavior—have tarnished his legacy. Facts about Robison are sketchy. He refused to give interviews, and he did not have a reputation for honesty. Robison was born in Beebe (White County) on November 3, 1911, though later in life he sometimes gave his birthplace as …

Rockefeller, Winthrop

As governor, Winthrop Rockefeller brought economic, cultural, and political change to Arkansas. “W. R.” or “Win,” as he was known, brought an end to the political organization of former Governor Orval E. Faubus and created a political environment that produced moderate leaders like Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and Bill Clinton. Rockefeller’s personal belief in racial equality became well known, and he ushered in an era that saw large numbers of African Americans elevated to high positions in state government. Rockefeller was a “transitional leader” in the sense that he helped discredit the “Old Guard” domination of the Faubus years and, in so doing, made Arkansans more receptive to political and social change. Winthrop Rockefeller was born on May 1, 1912, …

Rockefeller, Winthrop Paul

Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, known in his adopted state of Arkansas as Win (or Win Paul to differentiate him from his father, Winthrop Rockefeller), was a scion of Rockefeller family, which made its fortune with Standard Oil. Like his father, who was the first Republican to be elected governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller abandoned his East Coast roots and established a life in the more rural environs of Arkansas before making a name for himself in Republican politics, eventually being elected lieutenant governor. However, his political career was cut short when, at the age of fifty-seven, he died of complications related to a rare blood disorder. Win Rockefeller was born on September 17, 1948, in New York, the …

Rodgers, James Ronald, Sr.

James Ronald Rodgers Sr. was the nation’s first African American to be appointed manager of a major commercial airport, the first Black head of a major independent city agency in Little Rock (Pulaski County), and the state’s first Black commercial loan officer. James Rodgers was born on March 15, 1947, in Little Rock to Homer and Ruth Rodgers. The fifth of six children, he spent his childhood in the Tuxedo Courts housing development south of Roosevelt Road. Rodgers grew up working with his mother, brothers, and sister for his father’s janitorial service. After graduating from Horace Mann High School in 1965, Rodgers attended Little Rock University—now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UA Little Rock)—for a year and a …

Rodriguez, Dionicio

Dionicio Rodriguez, recognized as one of America’s foremost faux bois sculptors, created works that resembled wood, though made of concrete, with its peeling bark, wormholes, and signs of decay. Arkansas was a major beneficiary of his work, which was an outgrowth of a Mexican folk tradition known as el trabajo rustico (rustic work). Under the designation “The Arkansas Sculptures of Dionicio Rodriguez,” his Arkansas work was collectively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1986. Dionicio Rodriguez was born in Toluca, Mexico, the son of Catarine Rodriguez; his birthdate is a matter of some dispute, usually stated as either April 11, 1891, or April 8, 1893. With little formal education, he began, at the age of …

Roe, “Preacher”

aka: Elwin Charles Roe
Elwin Charles “Preacher” Roe played professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Brooklyn Dodgers. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Roe was one of the top pitchers in the game. Preacher Roe was born on February 26, 1916, to Charles Edward Roe and Elizabeth (Ducker) Roe in Ash Flat (Sharp County). The Roe family, which included six boys and one girl, moved from Wild Cherry (Fulton County), where they had moved in 1918, to Viola (Fulton County) when Roe was six. Roe’s father played for a semi-professional team in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) but gave up baseball as a career and became a country doctor. Roe got his nickname at about three years of age when …

Roescher, Gustavus

aka: Gus Rusher
Gustavus Roescher, who later went by the Anglicized version of his name, Gus Rusher, was a leading figure in the town of Brinkley (Monroe County), serving as an alderman, restauranteur, hotelier, and banker. Little is known about the early life of Gustavus Roescher. Born in 1860, he immigrated to the United States with his father, Charles Roescher (1833–1890), from the German town of Baden-Baden in the mid-1800s. They settled on a farm outside of Brinkley. Gustavus Roescher owned the Arlington Hotel, which was struck by a cyclone in 1909. Roescher also purchased the Brinkley House, which burned down in 1914. This event prompted Roescher to begin construction on a new hotel with three stories and sixty rooms, which was christened …

Rogers, Anthony Astley Cooper

Anthony Astley Cooper Rogers was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He represented the Second District of Arkansas in the Forty-First Congress, serving from 1869 to 1871. Anthony Rogers was born on February 14, 1821, in Clarksville, Tennessee. He received only minimal formal education and worked as a clerk in a dry-goods store from age fifteen to twenty-two. Looking for new opportunities, Rogers relocated to Arkansas in 1854, apparently settling in the Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) area, where he bought land and slaves and joined the ranks of planters. With the possibility of civil war on the horizon, and supported by pro-Union forces, Rogers sought election as a delegate to the state secession convention in 1861. Although …