Fat Rob, whose real name was Robert Allen, died Saturday of a heart attack at the House of Umoja, where he worked as head counselor with members of rival gangs. He was 38. A resident of West Philadelphia, Fat Rob suffered from heart disease and high blood pressure, friends and family members said.
The people who cared about Fat Rob remember him as a communicator, a man who had a blunt way of reaching kids who had never been reached before by parents, teachers, police officers and judges.
"He had a very special way with street-oriented youths," said Sister Falaka Fattah, president and founder of the House of Umoja - a name derived
from the Swahili word for unity. She called Fat Rob "my adopted son."
"He knew how to reach them (gang members) and they trusted him," Sister Fattah said.
At the House of Umoja, Fat Rob got through to gang members such as ''Homicide," a lean, intense youth from Mantua who was a member of the Empire street gang. "I listen to Fat Rob," Homicide said during a 1985 interview. "He's straight."
For 10 years, Fat Rob had led the Empire gang, one of the city's most notorious. During the 1970s, he was arrested for shooting at people, and he served more than a year in Graterford Prison.
"I was shot three times in one day," said Fat Rob, recalling his gang days in a 1977 interview. "I felt it was my duty to help the younger generation avoid the same mistakes we made."
With a few phone calls, Fat Rob could round up 20 "old heads," or former gang members, to march down Wallace Street and avert a gang shootout before it started. Fat Rob also had a habit of taking young men to the funerals of gang members killed in shootouts, so they would see firsthand how senseless the killing was.
