Wynne D. Robinson

Wynee Delece Robinson was born Wynne Franks on June 22, 1947, to Deacon Tommie E. and Leila Beatrice (Mama B) Franks. She was the youngest of four siblings and the oldest of two cousin/siblings that her parents took in and raised. She was born, wide-eyed and ready for the world, in a rural town, Fayette, Alabama, a tiny town that she would return to often to see her beloved family and friends who called her Neen. She was raised in a God-fearing household where faith in Christ and walking in his word were modeled. She accepted Christ at an early age and was baptized in a creek near her home church, Unity Grove Missionary Baptist Church (MBC). 
Wynee’s education continues to be an inspiration and is her legacy. Her life motto was-- “good better best, never let it rest, until your good is better and your better is best.” She embraced this whole heartedly as she became the first in her family and one of the firsts in her community to graduate college, becoming an inspiration to the generations to follow. Later in life she revealed that her severe allergies kept her from picking cotton on her parents sharecropping farm like her siblings, so she instead taught the younger children under a nearby tree. She also shared how unsatisfied she was with her first job babysitting the children of white moms in the south: “There has to be something bigger out there,” she dreamed, and with full support from her mother who encouraged her dreams, bigger she accomplished. Wynee graduated from West Highland High School in 1965 as the class chaplain and went on to receive her Bachelor’s of Business Education from the Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Alabama A & M in 1969. College is a time of reinvention for most and in keeping with this, Wynee decided in her junior year that she would help people pronounce her name correctly by changing the spelling from W-y-n-n-e (often pronounced Winnie) to W-y-n-e-e (pronounced Y - Nee). And while she was at it she added a middle name of her choice since she wasn’t born with one, Delece.
After she graduated from college, she married George Nalls in 1969, and birthed her first child and only daughter, Wytrice on November 8th of 1970. Like many new Black families during the Great Migration, she moved north with George and Wytrice in 1973 for the auto industry, and began her life in Detroit, Michigan!George and Wynee separated and subsequently divorced not long after the move. In 1981, she married her life partner, Clyde Robinson, also a Great Migrator, from Mississippi to Detroit. They were married for almost 40 years, and in their union created her only son, Torry, who she birthed August 14th, 1979.
Wynee spent her career as a brilliant educator, spreading her wealth of knowledge to students in schools, Sunday schools, women’s fellowships, Bible Institutes and to anyone, really, who had the ears to hear and mind to learn, especially her children and grandchildren. EVERY moment was a teachable moment to her and if you ever sat in conversation with her you would definitely learn not to end a sentence with a prepositional word. Professionally, she taught typewriting and shorthand at the Payne Pulliam School of Trade and Commerce, a trade school founded by two Black women in 1973 still in operation today. She also worked as a bookkeeping secretary at the American Red Cross where she took early retirement in her early 50’s to become a part of the village for her new twin grandbabies.

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