The Year of Roosevelt Franklin (1971) | Matt Robinson and Rosalind Cash

Full album THE YEAR OF ROOSEVELT FRANKLIN (1971 | Music by Matt Robinson and Joe Raposo), plus bonus clips of Matthew Thomas "Matt" Robinson Jr. (January 1, 1937 – August 5, 2002), the first actor to portray the character of Gordon Robinson on the long–running PBS children's TV program Sesame Street.

Presented for historical purposes.

Track listing
Side One

Roosevelt Franklin Counts - Roosevelt Franklin and Roosevelt Franklin's Mother
Days of the Week - Roosevelt Franklin and The Kids
Mobity Mosely's Months - Mobity Mosely
Keep on Trying - Baby Ray Franklin and Mary Frances Franklin
The Safety Boy Blues - Roosevelt Franklin
Just Because - Roosevelt Franklin
Side Two

The Skin I'm In - Baby Ray Franklin
A Bear Eats Bear Food - Roosevelt Franklin and Mary Frances Franklin
Halfies - A.B. Cito
Me and You - Roosevelt Franklin and Mary Frances Franklin
Old King Midas - Roosevelt Franklin
Roosevelt Franklin's Alphabet- Roosevelt Franklin and Roosevelt Franklin's Mother

Take from bio at https://alchetron.com/Matt-Robinson-(...)

While with CTW, Robinson also played the voice of a reddish-magenta puppet named Roosevelt Franklin. Robinson worked closely with Jim Henson to accurately design the character, the first black-influenced Muppet. Other minority-based Muppets created by Henson and Robinson were Baby Ray Francis, Mobley Mose and a Hispanic Muppet, A.B. Cito. Roosevelt Franklin promoted ideals such as family, pride, respect and geography while also showing a passion for rhyming and blues music. By both creating the character and performing Franklin's voice for three seasons, Robinson helped his puppet become one of the show's main characters. In addition, Franklin continued to make appearances until 1975.

The puppet was pulled from the show because a negative perception of the character among African-Americans began to grow. This resulted from Franklin's frequently unruly behavior at the fictional elementary school, which was deemed a bad example for the audience. Additional arguments for the character's departure were rooted in its overly excessive black image, or lack thereof. Dolores Robinson has stated that Roosevelt Franklin became a televised vehicle for her then husband's anger with racism and pride in the black race.

Robinson recorded and released the first Sesame Street album to be focused on a single character, The Year of Roosevelt Franklin (Gordon's Friend from Sesame Street). Released in 1971, and then re-released in 1974 under the name My Name is Roosevelt Franklin, the album dealt with many appropriate behaviors for children; aside from basic topics such as numbers and letters, it also touched on traffic safety, sharing and getting along with others. All tracks were co-written with the help of Joe Raposo.

#####
Reelblack's mission is to educate, elevate, entertain, enlighten, and empower through Black film. If there is content shared on this platform that you feel infringes on your intellectual property, please email me at [email protected] and [email protected] with details and it will be promptly removed.