N.C. A&T Students Carefully Planned a Candidate Forum. Then Mark Robinson Crashed.

It should have been simple.

In the run-up to election day, the N.C. A&T University chapters of the NAACP and Kappa Alpha Psi Inc. planned an on-campus candidate forum for October 9. They’d hoped to get the candidates for both governor and state superintendent of public instruction.

Mo Green and Michele Morrow, the Democratic and Republican candidates for superintendent respectively, confirmed they would attend. Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, had a conflicting event but suggested having a student serve as the campaign’s surrogate.

The groups heard nothing from Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who by early October was trailing Stein in the polls and watching his campaign come apart after reports of his years frequenting Greensboro porn shops and making lewd and racist comments on a porn website.

Under the circumstances, the student organizers said, they thought it best to just feature Green and Morrow. They advertised them on event posters and social media and planned accordingly.

Then, on the morning of the event, they got a call. Mark Robinson’s campaign suddenly said he was coming.

“This is all at 10 o’clock in the morning,” said student Emily Wilson, president of the campus NAACP chapter. “This is the day of the event.”

‘Whether You Want Him There or Not’

The prospect of Robinson suddenly dropping in threatened to throw a carefully planned event into chaos and sent the organizers into action.

Could they accommodate an unplanned drop-in from a lt. governor, especially one as controversial as Robinson, on so little notice? Weren’t there parking and security concerns? Should they expect protests? A&T is the nation’s largest HBCU. Robinson had spent years posting insulting comments online about the Black community, the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr., and even the A&T Four—the students who kicked off the sit-in movement for desegregation.

The student organizers reached out to their campus advisor and state and national chapter leadership for advice. What they got was a flurry of conflicting opinions.

Some suggested canceling the event altogether rather than hosting Robinson without Stein, who was under the impression his GOP opponent wasn’t attending. It didn’t seem fair to make a student surrogate face off with Robinson, whose history of controversial and inflammatory statements might be met with hostility that could derail the entire event.

“Mark Robinson, they felt, bullied his way into our event and, like, forced our hand so it was kind of unfair,” said Quentin Clarke, NAACP chapter vice president.

Others said to press on, seize the moment and the spotlight to engage students, and show what their organizations could do even under these adverse circumstances.

In the end, student organizers decided to disinvite Robinson. Signaling his intent to come only on the day of the event was just too little notice. He could send a surrogate, as Stein planned to do, they told the campaign. That seemed to settle the issue.

Then, at 4:30 p.m., during the social hour before the 6 p.m. event, Clarke got another call.

“Mark Robinson’s wife calls me,” Clarke said. “His wife and the campaign manager are on the phone with me and they’re just going off. They’re like, ‘We’re going to call your Kappa nationals, we’re going to call your NAACP nationals, call your chancellor’s office. Mark Robinson will be there, whether you want him there or not.’”

The Assembly reached out to the Robinson campaign for comment on the specifics of this conversation. They did not respond.

Feeling backed into a corner, the student organizers began planning for Robinson’s inevitable arrival.

“We thought that it was best for the organizations we’re a part of to have him on the stage versus, like, just him arriving and telling him he can’t be on stage,” Clarke said. “Because he’s going to start a whole mess and make national news, make our organizations look bad.”

Clarke grabbed some paper and rewrote the evening’s script, crafting new questions for the gubernatorial candidate. Others found more chairs and reconfigured the staging in the campus’ Harrison Auditorium. Everyone involved worked furiously to salvage the event even as the audience began lining up.

Stein’s campaign was still under the impression Robinson wasn’t coming and they wouldn’t need a surrogate. The students worried the event would look imbalanced with two Republicans—Morrow and Robinson—and just one Democrat, Green. Then, about 15 minutes before the event was to begin, State Sen. Gladys Robinson (D-Guilford) arrived. She’d spoken to Stein about what was going on, she said, and was prepared to act as his surrogate for the event.

“I think the lieutenant governor did this last minute thinking he could come to A&T and Josh wouldn’t be here,” she said in an interview after the event. “And it would look like he didn’t care to be here. That wasn’t what happened. They were under the impression the students had decided to just have the superintendent candidates, and abided by that decision. We weren’t going to let him come in and make it look like something else.”

Mark Robinson was last to arrive. While the other guests were dressed professionally, the students said, Robinson arrived in sneakers, jeans, a t-shirt, and a windbreaker. They wondered if he’d brought a change of clothes. He hadn’t.

At A&T students are encouraged to do all things with “Aggie Pride”—that includes a professional appearance that reflects positively on their university and community. The students and their advisors said Robinson’s dress and demeanor seemed disrespectful to the institution. Even the way he sat on stage throughout the forum seemed off.

“Leaning back, not even sitting up professionally,” said Wilson, the chapter president.

“It was very disturbing and very telling,” she said.

Clarke, who also co-moderated the event, said he thought about the incongruity of the lieutenant governor slouching in his jeans and sneakers and the dignity of the A&T Four, depicted in a large statue just across from the Harrison Auditorium.

“There’s no reason why he should have come in here all comfortable,” Clarke said. “And Mark Robinson, a self-proclaimed Black Nazi… he should not feel comfortable at this school.”

When the event finally began, the students did their best to keep cool under pressure and roll with the unfolding events. They were disappointed to see the auditorium half filled and thought about the crowd they might have been able to draw had Robinson signaled his intention to come even days earlier.

Laughing, Boos, and Denials

Robinson has spent much of his campaign for governor speaking before friendly crowds at conservative political events and churches. The A&T crowd was something else.

Students asked pointed questions about his history of outrageous social posts and reports of his sexually and politically shocking statement on the site Nude Africa, which was spoofed in a sketch on Saturday Night Live.

Robinson strenuously denied the details of all the reports, saying he would be filing a lawsuit over them.

“Look, I have not been shy about what I’ve said and taking responsibility for what I said and standing up for what I said,” Robinson said. “But I will not be accused of things that I did not say.”

Robinson and Morrow were both met with murmurs, boos, and laughter after many of their responses.

As Gladys Robinson predicted, the lieutenant governor attempted to insult Stein for not coming to an event which he himself only muscled his way into at the last moment.

“Political folks will tell you don’t go to events like this, because they may not be a ‘friendly crowd,’” Robinson said. “I don’t buy into that.”

“Why would I not come and listen to your concerns?” Robinson said. “Why would I not come in here and let you lay eyes on me? If I become governor, there will be no surrogates.”

After the event, Green and Gladys Robinson stayed to take photos with students and answer their questions one-on-one. Morrow and the lieutenant governor quickly exited before they could be asked anything further.

The organizers said the reception Robinson received from the students wasn’t unexpected. They also weren’t surprised when his campaign contacted them after the event to say he was upset by the event and that they should expect “repercussions, regardless of the outcome of the election.”

Leadership Under Pressure

Students who attended said they were not shocked by anything Robinson had to say.

“I was only surprised that he showed up and showed out to face a crowd of HBCU students,” said Foster Vestal III, a second-year biology student. “I feel like it’s disgusting that we could have our first Black lieutenant governor, maybe our first Black governor, be him. I feel that he’s a disgusting individual, he has no integrity, and he’s a puppet.”

Student organizers said they were proud of how they handled the rollercoaster of the event, even in the face of those suggesting they cancel or postpone it.

“A lot of people would have folded under that pressure,” Wilson said.

There’s a lot of talk about “performative activism” on college campuses, Wilson said—A&T included. By not backing off their planned event and navigating forces pushing them throughout that hectic day, she said, demonstrated the true spirit of the NAACP, Kappa Alpha Psi, and A&T.

“Our ability to pivot under those circumstances just shows who we are as leaders,” Wilson said.

Joe Killian is The Assembly’s Greensboro editor. He covered cops, courts, government and politics at Greensboro’s daily paper, The News & Record, for a decade. He joined us from NC Newsline in Raleigh, where he was senior investigative reporter.

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