Big Willie Robinson

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At 6'6", William "Big Willie" Andrew Robinson III — a bowler hat perched atop his head, his voice booming — cut an imposing figure among the youth of South Central Los Angeles during the 1970s. That figure both belied and contributed to his mission, which was to end gang violence and racial unrest through drag racing.

Robinson's crusade began in 1966, as LA residents and politicians were growing desperate for ideas to vent the inner-city pressure cooker. Reeling from the 1965 Watts riots, slammed with a public-relations nightmare and alarmed by upticks in organized street crime, local officials including LAPD brass and future-mayor Tom Bradley (then a councilman) noted the local street-racing scene attracted an integrated crowd. They approached Robinson — who by then had made a name in East LA's street-racing underground — to pitch a novel idea.

Subject ID: 53726

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At 6'6", William "Big Willie" Andrew Robinson III — a bowler hat perched atop his head, his voice booming — cut an imposing figure among the youth of South Central Los Angeles during the 1970s. That figure both belied and contributed to his mission, which was to end gang violence and racial unrest through drag racing.

Robinson's crusade began in 1966, as LA residents and politicians were growing desperate for ideas to vent the inner-city pressure cooker. Reeling from the 1965 Watts riots, slammed with a public-relations nightmare and alarmed by upticks in organized street crime, local officials including LAPD brass and future-mayor Tom Bradley (then a councilman) noted the local street-racing scene attracted an integrated crowd. They approached Robinson — who by then had made a name in East LA's street-racing underground — to pitch a novel idea.

At the officials' urging, Robinson, a Vietnam veteran and member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, staged a series of quasi-legal street races at midnight on Fridays, bringing community racers — "good guys and bad guys," he would later say — together with police.

Subject ID: 53726

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Subject ID: 53726