Born in Waynesville, North Carolina, Robeson moved from Wythe County, Virginia, with his parents to Cartersville, Georgia, in 1891.

He was employed with the Newport News (Virginia) Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. from 1915 until his retirement April 30, 1950, as vice president and personnel manager.

Robeson was the third head football coach at The Apprentice School in Newport News, Virginia and he held that position for two seasons, from 1924 until 1925.

[2] Robeson was elected as a Democrat to the Eighty-first Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Schuyler Otis Bland.

He was a signatory to the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.