DECEMBER 23, 1950: A THUG ATTACKS JAMES S. ROBINSON JR. WHO WAS CARRYING A CHRISTMAS TREE TO HIS CAR ON ELMORE STREET IN THE HILL DISTRICT

BLACK BUZZ NEWS SERVICE
Robinson & Saunders Archives
The James S. Robinson Jr. Project
Pittsburgh PA
December 26, 2010
BBNS

PITTSBURGH.. Blogger Black Buzz was sitting in his living room on 524 Francis Street in the Hill District section of Pittsburgh when I overheard my aunt Esther tell her sister Ruth, and father that Bea ( my mother) had called her and said that "Jimmy had been attacked by a man with a knife while carrying a Christmas tree."
My parents weren't home at the time because they were busy closing up our Grocery/ Chicken store located on Wylie avenue in the Hill District, and they were also engaged in doing some last minute shopping for said Christmas.
At approximately 8:35 p.m. my parents arrived home with the Christmas tree in question. Further my dad informed all the members of the family "that some foolish thug tried to steal his Christmas tree by attacking with a knife, and that he would probably never again attack anyone else with a knife anywhere. I heard my dad state "that he worked over the thug pretty good and dragged him to the front of the Crawford Grill." " And apparently someone had called Big Blue (Sam Wilson) and Mason who arrived on the scene and they kicked the thug repeatedly until the Paddy Wagon arrived." My dad also stated the Paddy Wagon probably took the thug to either Pasavant Hospital or Mercy hospital."
I still have the knife that was used in the attack on my dad, and I also have a War World II dagger that was given too my dad by a Black GI who had taken if off of a dead German that he had killed while driving for the famous Red Ball Express in the backwoods of Germany.
That wicked and stupid Negro thug was not about to steal part of our Christmas from the baddest Black man in the City of Pittsburgh in 1950.
My dad had mercy on the thug, but that thug would never be able to use a knife on another innocent citizen again.

This post is part of the James S. Robinson Jr. Project

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR