A Life Well Lived – A Rich Legacy

On Saturday, June 27, 2026, at 1:30 p.m, Dr. Ann Elvonne Garrett Robinson, 92, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her children (Angela C. and George C. Robinson) and her only grandchild (Ronald “RJ’ Jai Robinson Thomas).

Dr. Robinson was born on June 8, 1934, in Greenville, North Carolina, in a vibrant, active and supportive Black community of “Greenvillians” – many of whom relocated to New Haven as she did. She was actively engaged in this community of transplants for her entire life and proudly touted the fact that the Mamie May Heirs Farm has existed for over 100 years in Greenville. She was the daughter of the late Mamie (May) Garrett, a college educated public school teacher and the late George Francis Garrett, known affectionately as the “Old Man of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Known affectionately as “Bae” to family and friends, she was a product of the public school system in Greenville and graduated in 1950 at the age of sixteen from the Charles Montgomery Eppes (C.M. Epps) High School. It was there that she first felt the calling to a life service in psychology, an unusual one for a young Black woman teen in the forties.

Dr. Robinson earned her BA (1954) from North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina; received her MA (1957) in clinical psychology from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and completed a clinical internship in psychology at Augusta State Hospital, in Augusta Maine.

After a period of practicing as a clinical psychologist in Indiana, Maine and North Carolina, Dr. Robinson then joined the faculty at Yale University, as a research assistant in the Comer Team at the Yale Child Study Center, making her one of the first Black women on the faculty at Yale University. At the same time, she worked as a learning diagnostician and psychological examiner with the New Haven Board of Education and became coordinator for research for the Focus Project in seventeen inner city schools. She was the first Black woman certified examiner in New Haven, and probably in the state.

Dr. Robinson joined the teaching faculty of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut in 1970 as an assistant professor of psychology. In 1972 she was invited to build a psychology program at a newly established two-year college, then known as South Central Community College, and now known as Gateway Community College in New Haven. She became the first woman to be elevated to the position of Full Professor. In 1975, Dr. Robinson earned her EdD in community college education with a specialty in behavioral sciences from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

It was during her tenure as a practicing clinical psychologist that she met the love of her life, her husband of fifty years, the late Emitt Charles E Robinson, CISW, a brilliant Psychiatric Social Worker. The couple relocated to New Haven in 1967 when Charles was hired by Yale University to become a faculty member in the Psychiatry Department. They arrived in New Haven with their two- year- old daughter Angela (son George was to arrive the following year. The Robinsons immediately immersed themselves in their new community which by 1967, was rife with the Civil Rights Movement activism. In fact, the week they arrived, four days of rioting erupted in the Hill Neighborhood and quickly spreading to Newhallville, Dixwell Avenue and Fair Haven.

The Robinsons lived first on Prospect Street in New Haven, then on Clear Lake Manor Lane in North Branford, and ultimately, permanently settled in April 1970 at 406 Dixwell Avenue in New Haven, the family home for over 50 years. With love, laughter and music, the home was the residence of three pet dogs (Jessica, Puli and Ginger) pet rabbits, gerbils, guinea pigs, chicks and at one point ducklings.

The Robinson home was also a welcome place for the students, mentees and friends. It became known as a safe place for foreign students who were studying at area colleges. Parents from Nigeria, for instance would tell their children “Find Mrs. Robinson, and stay with her until you get settled.” For many years, The Robinsons hosted and fed as many as 80-100 foreign born students for dinner on Indigenous People’s Day, popularly known as “Thanksgiving Day”.

A rich and powerful chapter in the telling of her academic career would be incomplete without including her roles and leadership in Psi Beta, the national honor society recognizing academic excellence in psychology for students at two-year colleges. In 1981, while at Gateway, Dr. Robinson helped to charter one of the nation’s first Psi Beta chapters; served on the first Psi Beta National Council (1982-1983); was elected the fourth national president for three one-year terms (1987-1990); and was named Psi Beta’s first national historian (1991-1992). Under her presidential leadership, Psi Beta affiliated officially with the American Psychological Association for the first time. She received many citations and honors from Psi Beta including the creation in 2001 of the Psi Beta/ Ann E Garrett Robinson College Life Award, which has been given recognition during the annual national convention of Psi Beta.

In 1999, after having served Gateway Community College for 27 years Dr. Robinson retired. About her retirement, the New Haven Register and other local press noted her culture-conscious teaching philosophy, which included active community engagement. The New Haven Independent to wrote:

“Long time…Gateway Community College faculty member and [former] departmental chair, Dr. Ann Robinson is retiring…In our humble opinion, no other faculty member at any university, college or community college in the Greater New Haven Area has given more of his or her time, sweat and energy than Dr. Robinson. To repeat, no other teacher, lecturer, assistant professor or associate professor at the post high school level has freely devoted hours, years and more than three decades to teaching beyond the classroom. Dr. Robinson has embodied the oath of serving mankind…” Inner-City, Vol. 09, No. 17, January 28, 2999-February 3, 1999 [Front page Editorial]

Post-retirement, her next 27 years were as busy and productive as the previous 27 years had been. Dr. Robinson continued to fulfill her role as Citizen Volunteer and Community Historian. She founded and curated the Little Red Schoolhouse Museum housed in the Prince Hall Mason’s Grand Lodge building on Goffe Street in New Haven, a site listed on the Connecticut Freedom Trail. She retook the mantle of writer/ journalist, that she previously held as an “As I See It Columnist,” for the New Haven Register from 1985 through 1991, when she published more than 50 columns. She continued to present readings and excerpts from her Musical Play about the Emancipation Proclamation. With her son, George she launched and created the Public Access Television program, “B’Inquisitive,” where she and George presented episodes to highlight the challenges and triumphs of those with disabilities. She continued her work, uncovering overlooked Black history, as she did when she helped publicize in Ebony magazine the stories of the “Three Wives of Booker T. Washington,” one of her historic heroes. That work led her to begin a decades-long search for information about the life of “Lucretia,” the first known Black woman resident in New Haven Colony circa 1638. As a result of her untiring leadership, on November 20, 2022, the Board of Alders in the City of New Haven renamed the corner of Orange Street and Elm Street “Lucretia’s Corner”.

Dr. Robinson was, in every way, a true Renaissance woman. She was a social scientist, an academic, a community educator, a psychological examiner, a clinical psychologist, a newspaper columnist, an activist, a playwright, a museum curator and a television Co-producer.

For her extraordinary community service, in October 2024, mere weeks before the Pulmonary Embolism which ultimately permanently disabled her, the Board of Alders of the City of New Haven, honored her with a street naming, the “Dr. Ann E Garrett Robinson Way”, at the corner of Dixwell Avenue and Argyle Street across from her home. City leaders, friends, family, former students, fellow community members and two marching bands of local schools shared in the festivities. She loved every minute of it and danced and twirled a baton on the walk to the reception at St. Matthews Church following, proving that the high school majorette and college cheerleader she had been, was still very much alive and well.

Mere months later, in January 2025, she received what she called one of the greatest honors of her life, the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award, by President Joseph R. Biden, in one of his final acts in office. The award was bestowed for her “lifelong commitment to building a stronger nation through volunteer service.”

Among the work she relished the most was the work that engaged her as a mother and grandmother. The proud mother of the Hon. Angela Carol Robinson retired Superior Court Judge and current law professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law and George Carl Robinson, a legally blind honors graduate of University of Massachusetts.

As passionate and devoted as she was in motherhood, she was exponentially more so as the grandmother to her only grandchild, Ronald Jai (R.J.) Robinson Thomas, a visual artist and iPad artist. Affectionately known as “Grammie,” she was a fixture at every event that involved him, be it at one of the dozens of Church programs and performances; or the numerous plays and musicals within which he loved to perform; or his birthday parties, which were grand annual events during his elementary school years; or his graduations and promotions from Yale Law School Early Learning Center, Cold Spring School, from St. Aedan - St. Brendan Junior High School; from Notre Dame High School in West Haven, CT (where he enrolled in the Moreau Honors Program), and from Stonehill College, in Easton, Massachusetts (where he was Dean’s List Student), Grammie was there! Even when her incapacity prevented her from seeing R.J. received his master’s degree from the Communications Department in Quinnipiac University, she celebrated with him in person later that day. Friends and family will well remember her operatic singing and melodic speaking voice, which RJ described as “full of sunshine.”

A member of numerous civic, religious and professional organizations, including but not limited to Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (initiated in Alpha Chi Chapter in 1954); Jack and Jill of America, Inc., The Fifth Sunday Mother-Daughter Book Club, Immanuel Baptist Church (past member), where she served as Chairperson of the Deaconess Board, then a member of the Deacon Board; St. Matthews United Freewill Baptist Church, which she joined to support her son, after her husband’s death in 2012. To the end she continued to be a member of the 6 a.m. Prayer Call, among Prayer Warriors located in multi-states,

Dr. Robinson was predeceased by her parents, George and Mamie Garrett, her brother, George Douglas Garret who was murdered in a racial hate crime in the 1940s, her sister, Principal Mame Harvey, who was a well-known and respected educator in Brooklyn, New York and Charles Robinson, her husband of fifty years predeceased her in 2012.

She is survived by her two children, Angela Carol Robinson and George Carl Robinson, her grandson, Ronald “R.J.” Robinson Thomas, Jr., “Goddaughter” Trina Greene-Bostic, and a host of special cousins, love-kin and a multitude of former students, many of whom became her surrogate sons and daughters.

A celebration of Dr. Robinson's life and legacy will be held Thursday, July 9, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. at St. Matthew's UFWB Church, 400 Dixwell Avenue, New Haven. Family and friends may attend a viewing at the church from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. Burial will be held on Friday, July 10, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. at Beaverdale Memorial Park, 90 Pine Rock Ave., New Haven.