As an instructor of art at South Carolina State College in the mid-1960s, I taught an enrichment class for eighth-graders from Felton, the university’s laboratory school. Eugene Robinson was in one of my classes.

I had many good students, but what I remembered about “Gene,” as we called him then, is that he was meticulous about following instructions. Yet he always found ways to use imagination and memory to create something unique. A linoleum print he did in that class won a Gold Key Award.

One day I told his father, Harold Robinson, how impressed I was with his drive and grasp of ideas. I told him he should continue to encourage “Gene,” especially in high school where many students are easily distracted.

Mr. Robinson never forgot our conversation and perhaps, in what I said or the way I said it, he sensed that I expected great things from “Gene.” And so began a conversation that lasted for almost 43 years. Each time I met him, no matter where he was, he always said hello then gave me an update on “Gene.” How he loved his son!

Mr. Robinson was a quiet man with a usually reserved demeanor, but when he spoke about “Gene,” his eyes lit up and pride hung on every word. Over the years, he spoke proudly about Gene’s accomplishments – at The University of Michigan, in San Francisco, South America and London, at The Washington Post. During each of these encounters, “Gene” had taken another step higher and he reminded me where he was last time we spoke and where he is now.

Mr. Robinson did not live to see his son win the ultimate prize in his profession. He died Jan. 2, 2009, but I know somewhere he is smiling and telling someone about his son who won the Pulitzer Prize.

“Gene” won the award for his commentary covering the historic Barack Obama campaign, and I believe growing up in Orangeburg prepared him well. He was among the first students to integrate the public schools here and the Orangeburg Massacre occurred just down the street from where he lived. These early experiences provided insights that were invaluable as he followed Obama’s historic run.

And while embracing Obama’s optimism, he understood our perpetual vacillation between cynicism and hope and recognized that often-fuzzy line between political rhetoric and racism. I believe these experiences cultivated and enhanced his ability to “feel” and, through skill and intellect, communicate them in a special way -- a prize-winning way. Because of what happened here, for better or worse, he became the right person in the right place at the right time and, in a sense, we have been a part it all.

On May 9, “Gene” was the commencement speaker at Claflin University, a place where his father worked for a short time and his mother was librarian for more than four decades. Welcome home, “Gene.”

Leo Twiggs is distinguished artist-in-residence at Claflin University.

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