Sugar Ray Robinson in 1989. In 2006 he was featured on a commemorative stamp by the United States Postal Service. Robinson was born Walker Smith Jr. in Ailey, Georgia, to Walker Smith Sr. and Leila Hurst. Robinson was the youngest of three children; his eldest sister Marie was born in 1917 and his other sister Evelyn was born in 1919. His father was a cotton, peanut, and corn farmer in Georgia, who moved the family to Detroit where he initially found work in construction. According to Robinson, Smith Sr. later worked two jobs to support his family—cement mixer and sewer worker. "He had
Gertrude Robinson Smith thunderstorm stopped the festival performance of Wagner’s "Ride of the Valkyries". A "Boston Globe" article recounts how Robinson Smith strode purposefully to the stage when the concert stopped and addressed the record crowd of 5,000, haranguing: “Now do you see why we must have a permanent building for these concerts?” In minutes, more than $30,000 was raised." The thunderstorm and Smith’s dramatic appeal helped secure the funds so that the Eliel Saarinen designed Music Shed opened the following season on August 4, 1938. Smith’s speech at the dedication was recorded and archived, so can still he heard. Nearly eighty years