Oral history with Ms. Lodie Marie Robinson-Cyrille

              Oral history with Ms. Lodie Marie Robinson- Cyrille
F341.5 . M57 vol. 747, pt. 2
Funding for this project provided by The Mississippi State Legislature, The Mississippi Humanities Council, The Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the University of Southern Mississippi.
This transcription of an oral history by the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage of The University of Southern Mississippi may not be reproduced or published in any form except that quotation of short excerpts of unrestricted transcripts and the associated tape recordings is permissible providing written consent is obtained from the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage. When literary rights have been retained by the interviewee, written permission to use the material must be obtained from both the interviewee and the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage. Please call ( 601) 266- 4574 for more information.
Biography
Born on August 21, 1951, Mrs. Lodie Marie Robinson- Cyrille was the oldest of thirteen children born to Herbert Leonard Robinson and Clara Arnell Griffin Robinson, in Biloxi, Mississippi, on the Gulf of Mexico. As a child, she remembers meeting people from various cultures, including Africans; many were studying or serving at Keesler Air Force Base. Additionally she recalls an influence from the French culture, still intact since the earliest settlement of Biloxi. She and her siblings grew up in the segregated South during the Jim Crow era.
Childhood was a time when she and her siblings sometimes earned some of their household's income by catching crabs from the Gulf of Mexico or picking pecans. During kindergarten through second- grade years, she attended parochial school. From third through seventh grades, she attended segregated public schools. During the summer of 1964, Mrs. Robinson- Cyrille attended freedom school. After 1964 Freedom Summer, she attended school in Connecticut through tenth grade. She acquired her high school diploma through GED testing, going on to California State from which she was graduated in 1979. In 1987, she was graduated from Southern University Law School.
Mrs. Lodie Robinson- Cyrille is married to jazz musician Andrew Cyrille; they are the proud parents of two daughters.
Table of Contents
I. Childhood unusual for Mississippi
II. Games
III. Sharing with twelve siblings
IV. Music of childhood
V. Main Street, Biloxi
VI. Civil Rights Movement
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