On the morning of January 20, 1960, Jim Robertson awoke at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where no one – including himself, the doctors or any of the hospital staff – was sure whether Robertson would live or die after being involved in a devastating automobile accident earlier that day.
Even after it was determined that Robertson would indeed survive that incident, he still faced an earth-shattering piece of news: at only 20 years old, he would be blind for the rest of his life as a result of injuries sustained in the accident. At that point, many people would have given up on life in general, but that wasn’t in Robertson’s makeup – and indeed, he persevered to live a life with enough accomplishments to impress even the most determined and hard-working individual, including earning a PhD, serving a stint in the Mississippi Legislature, becoming a husband and father, authoring several books and heading up a charitable organization, among other measures.
“Of course, it was a traumatic experience,” said Robertson, a native of Liberty who now lives in Hattiesburg. “Until the accident, of course, I was normally sighted, had pretty decent health, had generally a pretty good attitude about things so far as life was concerned.
“When I realized, finally, that I was blind, quite naturally that was extremely difficult to accept.”
Robertson, who was born December 8, 1939, was on his way to take a final exam at Hinds Community College in Raymond, when he fell asleep at the wheel and collided into the side of a dump truck on Forest Hill Road just outside of Jackson. At the time, Robertson was employed during the night shift at General Electric’s Jackson Lampworks – which, combined with his school schedule, left him exhausted more often than not.
As a result of the crash, every bone in Robertson’s face was broken, his nose was crushed, his sinuses were shattered and eight of his teeth were knocked out. His right eye was burst, his right kneecap was crushed, his head had swollen to the size of a basketball, and his left eye had sustained major damage.
The resulting surgery took approximately 10 hours, followed by a three-and-a-half-week stay in the hospital.
In order to readjust to life after being struck blind, Robertson attended what is now known as the Arkansas Enterprises for the Developmentally Disabled in Little Rock, Arkansas, which is dedicated to improving the quality of life for individuals with those circumstances. Among other offerings, the center provides community-based services designed to maximize individual choices, personal development, community inclusion, independence and contribution to society.
“That was a critically important decision, because when I went there – having been recently blinded and still, of course, not being anywhere near being well – I was pretty close to helpless,” Robertson said. “I felt awfully low, as you would imagine.
“But at that facility, there were several other people who were fairly close to my age, and what I discovered in a fairly short period of time was that they were living fairly independently and were able to manage life pretty satisfactorily. Eventually, I reached that point myself.”
After spending approximately approximately six months at the Arkansas Enterprises for the Developmentally Disabled – from June to December of 1960 – Robertson had gained what he refers to as “reasonable independence” and regained his self-confidence to a certain extent.
“Learning to live, knowing that I could at one and the same time be blind, and well-adjusted to life, and have a reasonable expectation of living life fairly successfully, it truly was a life-altering experience,” Robertson said. “The people I met, the people with whom I was associated at that adjustment facility, set good examples for me and helped me to make not only the physical adjustment to being blind, but the emotional adjustment as well.”
One of the most important things Robertson learned at the center was the skill of walking again, with the use of a cane.
“(It was extremely important) to learn how to go from one place to another independently, and I learned to do that (via) cane travel,” he said. “That was one of the main skills taught at that facility … if you can get up and go fairly satisfactorily from one place to another, that is a liberating experience.”
While attending the center, Robertson made up his mind to go back to college, in more ways than one – he wanted not only to earn a degree from a college, but to become a professor at one. One month to the day that Robertson left the Arkansas Enterprises for the Developmentally Disabled, he re-entered Hinds Community College, where he graduated during the following spring semester.
Following that, Robertson enrolled at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree, both in political science.
During this time, Robertson met Linda McSwain while taking a course together at the university. The two married in 1964, and by October 1968, the couple welcomed their first child: Margaret Estell, who is now an administrator at Indiana University in Indianapolis.
Margaret, or “Margie,” as she is better known, is a widow with a son named Duncan.
After earning the degrees at USM, Robertson began his teaching career there, where he stayed for three years leading classes in American government.
In addition, Robertson completed graduated work at Louisiana State University and Tulane University.
From 1968 to 1972, Robertson served in the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he represented Amite, Franklin and Wilkinson counties. During his time there, he helped to establish Mississippi Educational Television – now known as Mississippi Public Broadcasting – which provides educational and instructional professional growth and public service programs for the students and citizens of Mississippi.
“I had always enjoyed anything pertaining to politics, so that really could have been almost predicted, I guess,” Robertson said. “Public television and public radio were provided by us, by law, and I did play a role in that.
“Both of those are award-winning public service institutions.”
In June 1974, Robertson and his wife welcomed their second child, James Arthur Robertson III, who works for Volunteers of America in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is married to his wife Shannon, with whom he has a daughter named Lyla.
Robertson earned a PhD in the field of higher education in 1979 from the University of Mississippi in Oxford. After he earned that degree, he did some additional teaching at Southern Miss, he decided to earn experience teaching and living in another location.
To that end, he applied for a position at Northeast Texas Community College in Mt. Pleasant, Texas. He ended up teaching there for 10 years, from 1988 to 1998.
While living in Mt. Pleasant, Robertson became an active volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, and helped to establish a chapter in that city. That stint led to him coming back to Hattiesburg and heading up that chapter for five years.
“By the time we left Mt. Pleasant, which was in May of 1998, I had served as president of the board of the Habitat Chapter there,” Robertson said. “So when we came back to Hattiesburg, I became a volunteer with the chapter here, and soon I was elected president of the board here.
“While I was holding that position, the board, under the leadership of the vice president of the board, decided to offer me the position of executive director. So I started doing that in 2001, and I did that until toward the end of 2006.”
In addition, along with his wife, Robertson has taught Sunday school off and on for 55 years at Parkway Heights United Methodist Church on Hardy Street in Hattiesburg.
Robertson also is the author of five books, including one autobiography and four novels.
“When I first read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, I thought, ‘oh man, this is wonderful and I wish I could do that,’” Robertson said. “I sort of decided that maybe, one day, I would reach the point where I too would like a book.
“But up until the year 2002, I had never come up with what I thought was a compelling idea for a book, so I just never really could get started. But about this time of the year, almost literally 22 years ago to the day, I was sitting up at my breakfast table – thinking about nothing in particular – and for whatever reason, the idea for a book occurred to me. Once I had that idea, other ideas occurred to me in rapid succession.”
Those books include:
- Jimmy’s Hope, published in 2004, a story about the friendship between a troubled old man and the child of his racist neighbor;
- Beyond Darkness, published in 2009, Robertson’s autobiography;
- Sweet Alice, the story about a young Black woman in southwest Mississippi;
- Jay Stevens, published in 2013, the story about a man making the decision to keep a Black baby that someone abandoned on his front porch; and
- Abandoned, the story of a strange phone call that caused a Liberty woman to up and leave the town.
All the books can be found on Amazon.
One final note: sixty-two years after his fateful accident, Robertson returned to Little Rock to retrace the first steps he took after learning to walk while attending the academy there.
All of these accomplishments would no doubt be extremely impressive for any individual, but doubly so for someone in Robertson’s predicament. But as he says in his autobiography, the human spirit is difficult to extinguish.
“If I was looking at someone who had had these things happen to him, I would wonder ‘well, the guy did those things, so how exactly could that have played out – how did that play out?’” Robertson said. “Going to that adjustment center was absolutely critical for anything and everything that I was able to do, so that was number one – nothing could have happened of any real consequence in my life had I not made those adjustments (made there).
“If I had not been able to manage being blind – both from a physical standpoint and from an emotional standpoint – I’d have just stayed home and that would have been it. But I acquired some ambitions there, and I would never have been content with myself if I hadn’t given myself the opportunity to get out there and see what I could do.”
