Life After Dartmouth: Resisting the Status Quo
President Rawlings and Robert Bennett 1997
Robert Bennett was awarded a medal for his contributions to Ghana by President Rawlings after he attended an oil and gas conference in Accra, Ghana.
“If I had the choice of going to Dartmouth again, I think I would.”
While Dartmouth may have not been easy — especially with being one of the 17 or 18 Black students on campus — Bennett is very happy with his decision to attend Dartmouth. His experience at Dartmouth and the connections established during his time there shaped who is he today: Robert Bennett.
Travel
After Dartmouth, Bennett became an avid traveler; As soon as Bennett graduated from Dartmouth College, he took a three-month-long hitchhike journey through eighteen countries: fifteen in Europe and three in North Africa. He gave himself a budget of $650. He traveled with his then-girlfriend (now wife) and her eleventh-grade sister. During the trip, they often slept overnight on the floor of gas stations or alongside the highways. He arrived back in New York with $0.25 remaining and found his way from LaGuardia Airport to New Haven to begin his first year at Yale Law School.
After his first year at Yale, he went back and took another three-month hitchhiking trip through East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda) and Turkey. His budget for this was $600.
Just two years after graduating from Yale University, Bennett set up his own practice. He worked with the Government of Ghana and the President of Ghana, Jerry John Rawlings. He handled legal matters in ten American states and three foreign countries, Canada, Honduras, and Lesotho.
Africa
After traveling to Africa twice, Bennett fell in love with the continent. His law firm in Chicago was doing very well and he ended up merging with another consulting practice in Africa. To this day, Bennett is still practicing in Africa. He has since traveled to over 25 African countries and been engaged with politics, mostly in South Africa and Ghana.
Bennett especially worked closely with the top leadership of the National Democratic Congress political party and its governing leadership of Ghana, spending 30 of the past 40 years working with them. Because of how closely Bennett worked with Ghana, he was awarded a medal commemorating the 40th anniversary of Ghana’s independence, given to him on the anniversary date by the President of Ghana, Jerry John Rawlings for his contribution to Ghana. A photo of Bennett and the president appeared on the front page of Ghana’s leading newspaper The Daily Graphic (pictured above).
In 1970, Bennett met the Exile Leadership (for Nelson Mandela) in Dar es Salaam. He then met Mr. Mandela at a conference at West Vaal University in Durban, South Africa. This was the beginning of a friendship. In 1991 Bennett attended many African National Congress events in South Africa, including the first ANC national conference in South Africa since the banning of the ANC 30 years prior. In 1993 he hosted Mandela in his home in Chicago and continued to raise/give the ANC around $65,000 for Mandela’s 1994 election campaign.
Family Life
To Bennett, out of all the things he has done in his life, his greatest accomplishment will always be his children and family. Bennett is now married to Tamara. He also has three children and one grandchild: Kinshasa, Karega, Ayinden, and Benjamin (grandson).
Nelson Mandela Letter to Robert Bennett
To learn more about Nelson Mandela's life and his fight to end segregation in South Africa, walking away free after 27 years, click on this link to read his interview with Oprah.