It was at a family barbecue that Saugus resident Les Robinson was sitting with a cousin, telling her how he knew his mother’s side of the family well — that he could trace that side “back to the slave ship” — but how he knew nothing about his father’s side, the side this cousin had come from.
Little did Robinson know, his cousin had quite a bit of information about the paternal side of the family.
“She asked, ‘Have you ever heard of Daniel Blue?’” Robinson said during a recent interview. “I’m thinking she’s playing because, you know, a Black man named Blue? She said, ‘Just Google Daniel Blue in Sacramento.’ And I Googled Daniel Blue in Sacramento, and all these articles started coming up. It was crazy. I had so many emotions running through me, I didn’t know what to do.”
Robinson, 68, had gone down the proverbial rabbit hole, digging into the history of this relative of his — his great-great-grandfather — visiting places that this man named Blue had apparently established and owned.
Daniel Blue, Robinson learned, founded the first African American church on the Pacific Coast. The church was in Sacramento, where Robinson grew up. At one point in Robinson’s life, he’d been a pool manager and a park manager at a park across the street from the church, which Robinson said is still there.
“All my training — the football and track training in that park — I must’ve run across that church hundreds and hundreds of times, not knowing that my DNA was in that building.”
Robinson, who’s a pastor at The Sanctuary Church in Santa Clarita, has had quite the life journey. It began in Sacramento in a two-story, three-bedroom home with a pool and a Cadillac in the garage. His parents’ divorce thrust him at 11 years old into the ghetto where he discovered cursing and fighting. Then he was catapulted into the film and TV industry where he shared the screen with Al Pacino and Edward James Olmos, among others. Life eventually deposited him in the Santa Clarita Valley where he founded his own church, Burning Bush Church.
There was a dark period in Robinson’s life when he considered suicide. There was another time he almost made it into the NFL. He experienced divorce, worked as a football and track coach at Saugus High School for several years, and as a coach at Santa Clarita Christian School and at Trinity Classical Academy in Valencia. He also started a local ministry called Fellowship of Christian Athletes, in which he brought Bible study to 11 campuses in the area. He’s currently married, has a son, two stepchildren and three grandchildren.
“We all ask these questions at some point in time,” Robinson said. “What am I here for? Who am I? What am I supposed to do? What can I do? What is this whole thing about? Like everyone else, I was just trying to find my place in the world.”
Robinson began learning about Daniel Blue around seven years ago, at a time when he had many bad things happening to him all at once. And what he learned about Daniel Blue over the years actually helped him deal with his own problems.
According to Robinson, Blue was a slave in Kentucky. His owner brought him out west on a wagon train, which landed in Sacramento on Sept. 2, 1849.
Robinson said that Blue was a real 49er, discovering gold in ’49. Blue used his riches to purchase property in Sacramento, some of which is rumored to be underneath the California State Railroad Museum, the county courthouse, the federal courthouse, the city jail — much land that’s about three blocks from the State Capitol.
Blue married and had five kids, and in addition to starting the first African American church west of the Mississippi, he also started a school for minority students, who, up to that point, Robinson said, were not given the opportunity to get an education.
Blue would rally African American leaders from 10 Northern California counties and form what Robinson called the “California Negro Conventions.” The group put together initiatives that would give African Americans the right to vote and the right to be able to testify in court, among others.
Robinson said it took these leaders eight years to pass the initiatives into law.
“California was established in 1850 as a slave-free state,” Robinson said. “But it was not a slave-free state. The Gold Rush actually started in 1848, and it ended in 1859. By 1859, there were over 3,000 slaves here.”
As a result of the legislation that Blue helped pass, opponents tried to burn down his school, and they succeeded in burning down one of his homes. He narrowly escaped.
As he learned more and more about Blue, Robinson couldn’t believe he hadn’t previously heard of this person in school. This was a prominent figure in California history. Robinson would share his discoveries with friends, and they’d have a similar response.
Friend and attorney Susan Christopher said that, when she heard Robinson’s story about Blue, she immediately told Robinson he needed to write a book.
“This was a part of California history that I never learned,” Christopher said. “I know my kids never learned it. I was really intrigued by the story, and I started doing some research and seeing how much legitimacy was there, and it just really resonated with me.”
Robinson was in no place in his life to write a book. Quite frankly, he said, it sounded like a lot of work.
Christopher suggested Robinson dictate it to her and she’d write it. That’s how the project began.
“As we were on that journey,” Christopher said, “I saw that it was becoming part of his (Robinson’s) own transformative journey. And I was like, ‘Hey, I think this really needs to be in your voice. It needs to be your story, because you’re carrying on Daniel Blue’s legacy, and we — our state, our country — really need to know this story.’ I mean, this guy, Daniel Blue, helped free the last slave here. I didn’t even know there were slaves in California.”
Robinson was intimidated by the idea of the project.
“I was left sitting there with this thing in my lap,” he said. “I kind of got juices flowing but was scared because writing a book is quite a process.”
But Robinson plodded forward. He told his personal story while relaying Blue’s story. Together, it’s a tale of humanity, legacy and purpose.
Over the past number of years during the process, Robinson said he’s been energized.
“It’s renewed my reason for waking up the next morning,” he said. “I’ve got purpose. Purpose is important. When you’ve got purpose, no one needs to point you anywhere. You’re jamming. You’re going. You’ve got something to live for. I think everybody needs purpose.”
Robinson’s book, “Discovering Daniel Blue: My Search for Significance, Purpose and Legacy,” is currently available for pre-order at bit.ly/3X5WGqr. It’s set to come out in mid-March.
The first-time author is excited to get the book out there. He spoke about it and shared some of his journey with a group of people at a church service in early February. He said he believes his book will answer a lot of questions people have about life. He hopes it’ll help lift people out of bad situations and encourage those in good situations to give back and to share what they have with people who are struggling.
Christopher is also excited about the release of the book. She said she hopes schools will discover it. Some time ago, she helped run a resource center at Canyon High School. There were many students she interfaced with who, she said, that kind of book would resonate with.
“I wish it could become part of textbooks in California schools,” Christopher added. “It’s important for us to look at and acknowledge the hard parts of our history in order to heal and move forward. I think that should happen everywhere, every chance we get.”
Know any unsung heroes or people in the SCV with an interesting life story to tell? Email [email protected].
