Robert Romer

A Quest for Civil Rights

Retired Amherst College physics professor Robert Romer remembers how he joined a dedication to teaching young people about science with a quest to transform hearts and to change minds. His journeys brought him from a laboratory on Long Island to the March on Washington, a 1963 civil rights demonstration at the nation's capitol. He moved his family to rural South Carolina so that he could teach at an all black college. Back in Western Massachusetts, he speaks of participating in Vietnam era anti-war protests at Westover Air Force Base. He concludes that despite the optimism of the civil rights demonstrators who gathered in Washington on August 28, 1963, the promise of that day has not been realized in the United States.

View a timeline of Robert Romer's life