In Uganda Robert Robinson met and married
Zylpha Mapp, an outstanding and remarkable
African-American woman.
Dr Zylpha Mapp-Robinson
She was born on August 25, 1914, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts to Zylpha Mapp Gray and
Alexander Mapp; her mother was the first African
American woman to become a member of the
Bahá’í Faith in the U.S.A. She was herself a
devoted Bahá’í, serving in many leadership
positions within the Bahá’í community. In 1976,
she was elected to the national governing body of
the Bahá’ís of Uganda, where she lived for nine
years. When she died the Universal House of
Justice in Haifa, Israel, advised the National
Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís in Uganda, to
hold a memorial service for her in the Bahá’í
Temple in Uganda, as a Hand of the Cause of God.
She originally graduated from Bridgewater State
Teachers College with a degree in Education and
then received a Masters in Education from the
University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She also
had a Certificate in Nutrition from University of
Maryland in College Park, and at the age of 78
she received a Ph.D. in Education and Curriculum
Planning from Kensington University.
In her long career she was a teacher and guidance
counsellor, a psychiatric social worker and a
Professor at Makerere University in Uganda.
She wrote training manuals for guidance
counsellors and health workers. Her work took
her to countries around the world including
Barbados, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Jamaica,
England, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Liberia,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the
Gambia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burkina Faso,
Botswana and India. In 1990 she attended the
first SinoAmerican Conference on Women’s Issues
in Beijing, and in 1995 the U. N. World
Conference on Women in Huairou, China, with
her daughter.
In the summer of 1994 she attended the memorial
service for her husband, who had died of cancer,
at Howard University, and met the U S and
Ugandan diplomats who had organized Robert
Robinson’s departure from the U S S R and his
return to the U S A.
In 2000, at the age of 86, she moved back to
Uganda to organize an Institute for the
Advancement of Women, in Kampala, where she
experienced the joy of singing alto in the Temple
Choir and planning the celebration for the 50th
anniversary of the Bahá’í Faith in Uganda.
Zylpha Mapp-Robinson died in New York in 2001 at
the age of 87. She was a tireless worker for race
unity, the empowerment of women, youth and
children, social justice and human rights.
