Biography
Geraldine Robinson Pointer worked with Black liberation activist and bookseller Martin Sostre at Buffalo’s Afro-Asian Bookstore. Police arrested them during a July 14, 1967 raid and prosecuted them in a narcotics frame-up. Robinson was convicted by an all-white jury and imprisoned while her five young children were separated among other households. The state’s principal witness, Arto Williams, later admitted that police had arranged the false case in exchange for relief on his own charges. Robinson spent a total of two years and nineteen days in custody.
The Sostre opinion names Geraldine Robinson as Sostre’s codefendant and describes his assistance preparing her change-of-venue motion. It says she had not yet been tried in June 1968. This passage supplies no separate actual custody dates for Robinson. Sostre v. Rockefeller, 312 F. Supp. 863 (S.D.N.Y., May 14, 1970), original PDF page 2. Source: https://clearinghouse-umich-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/doc/131347.pdf#page=2
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The November 1 issue dates Robinson’s arrest with Martin Sostre to July 14, 1967, agreeing with her biographical account but differing from the July 15 date in her structured case record. This source discrepancy is preserved without selecting an endpoint.
