One morning when Justin Robinson was 7, he woke up his mom on her birthday to surprise her with breakfast he had made himself — breakfast that included a side of biscuits.

There was only one problem: Yasmin Florence, his mother, knew they hadn’t had any biscuits in their Atlanta home.

“So I asked him, ‘Where’d you get biscuits from?’ He said, ‘Mama, I made them.’ From scratch! And I couldn’t even do that,” Florence said.

It was a reminder to Florence that Robinson, even at a young age, had a love for food and cooking. And that was only one of several passions that filled Robinson’s life before the Syracuse University senior died unexpectedly Sunday at his home. Robinson, whose friends described him as an always-cheerful person, was also an avid traveler, had a devotion to music and prided himself on empowering other people of color.

Robinson frequently talked about his desire to open his own restaurant in downtown Atlanta sometime after graduating from SU in May, Florence said. He had become known within their family for his Jamaican food dishes, particularly his specialty of jerk chicken.

His fondness for food was born around the age of 4, when he would only use the microwave at his then-home in Miami because he couldn’t reach the stove, Florence said.

It wasn’t long after that when he first picked up music in elementary school. He started by playing the clarinet and in high school, added the French horn to his arsenal, Florence said.

“He was always very musically-inclined,” Florence added.

When he came to SU, Robinson didn’t continue playing instruments, but he discovered a way to express his love for music in a different form: as a member of the Black Celestial Choral Ensemble (BCCE), a gospel choir that sings at events on campus, such as the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, and at churches in the city of Syracuse.

Robinson joined BCCE as a freshman and served as the leader of the choir’s tenor section as a junior, said Maya Lobban, the public relations chair of BCCE and a senior public relations major who was a close friend of Robinson’s. Robinson served as the group’s treasurer last semester.

In addition to BCCE, Robinson was a member of the Juvenile Urban Multicultural Program and the Multicultural Empowerment Network — organizations at SU that, like BCCE, are tailored toward students of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

And Robinson made it a point to do what he could to empower those students. Lobban said he worked part-time at Delta Airlines during breaks in the academic year and often shared insights about what he learned at the company with other minority students at SU.

“He wanted to make sure the people behind him knew those things before they left school,” Lobban said, “so when they left school, they weren’t like, ‘Oh man, what do I do now?’”

If Robinson didn’t open up his own restaurant after college, he was going to continue working for Delta and attempt to work up the ranks there, Lobban said.

She added that Robinson’s desire to keep working for Delta was inspired largely by his fervor for travel — Robinson visited every continent except Antarctica during his life.

“And he would always say that Antarctica was next,” Lobban said, laughing. “But I’d be like, ‘With whose coat? It’s too cold.’”

Lobban added that she would miss Robinson for his ability to brighten others’ days, even when he wasn’t having a particularly good one himself.

Within the choir, Robinson often served as comedic relief, Lobban said.

“He would just say the funniest things,” she said. “He had all these catch phrases, like ‘Dass it!’ and ‘Sip yo tea.’ … He always left a smile on our faces.”

Vivienne Quow, another friend of Robinson’s who graduated from SU last year, said Robinson had the ability to enter a room and immediately become everyone’s friend “because he was so energetic and ready to talk to everyone.”

“He was just an overall good person,” Quow said. “It’s hard to find anything bad to say about Justin.”

Published on March 8, 2016 at 11:29 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu