Interview with Melvin Robinson

Cultural Narrative: 

Melvin Robinson was born in Louisa County in 1935 and lived in a log cabin with his 12 siblings during his childhood. He loved school and attended Cuckoo School until 7th grade. Mr. Robinson started working at a sawmill at the age of 13. He decided to go into business for himself and started out with one truck and one chainsaw loading the wood by hand. He briefly moved to Maryland but eventually returned to Louisa County in 1956 when his daughter was born. Mr. Robinson remembers picking fruit for extra money, catching the bus to watch movies in Charlottesville, and Jim Crow-era segregation, which felt like a “touch of slavery.”