Send your letters of support for Dino to create an archive of letters for this intrepid archivist!
Dear Evanston,
Last Saturday afternoon, Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation held a Zoom event featuring Ald. Robin Rue Simmons and Dino Robinson to learn more about Evanston history of racism and discrimination and about Evanston’s Reparations Initiative, the first governmental reparations program in the country.
Toward the end of the meeting, Ald. Rue Simmons surprised the more than 100 attendees—and Dino Robinson even more—when she announced that she had asked for the portion of street on which Robinson and his family live, between Hartrey and Grey Aves., to be designated “Morris Dino Robinson Jr. Way.”
Please send your letters or notes of support for the honorary street naming of this historian and community leader to be included in the City record and create some archives for Dino, who started with one document and has preserved more than 350 linear feet of Black history archives for Evanston and the North Shore. Email Dear Evanston and we'll collect your messages and forward them to the City.
You can also sign up for public comment to speak your support for Dino at the Monday, February 8 City Council meeting.
[Photo: Dino with his mom in Italy; Dino at Shorefront}
The designation honors Dino’s tireless commitment to collecting and archiving stories about the Black community in Evanston and along the north shore. It honors the organization he founded in 1992, Shorefront Legacy Center, where all this incredible information resides.
So much of Robinson’s work laid the foundation for the reparations initiative—and it is work Dino has done for years on his own time while also maintaining a full-time career.
Congratulations, Dino! A truly well-deserved honor.
Please check out Shorefront’s website, Shorefrontlegacy.org and call to make arrangements to visit. You won’t be disappointed.
Read my interview with Dino Robinson here.
Contribute to the Evanston Reparations Community Fund.
