Vernon Lucious Robinson III

The son of a Tuskegee Airman and a nurse, became an Eagle Scout before graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a B.S. in Middle Eastern Affairs and the University of Missouri with an M.B.A. Robinson served on the Winston-Salem North Carolina city council from 1997 to 2001 and has run for office in North Carolina several times. He received less than 1,000 votes in a 17-way GOP primary in North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District in 2016. Robinson also ran for the U.S. House in North Carolina’s 8th district in 2012 and was the Republican nominee for state superintendent of public instruction in 1996. Robinson was ranked as the nation’s 18th-most influential African-American in 2017 by Newsmax. He led a pro-Ben Carson super PAC in 2014 with aim of getting Carson to run for president in 2016.