William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. (July 7, 1920 – March 31, 2017) was an American attorney and judge. Coleman was the fourth United States Secretary of Transportation, from March 7, 1975, to January 20, 1977, and the second African American to serve in the

United States Cabinet The Cabinet of the United States is a body consisting of the vice president of the United States and the heads of the executive branch's departments in the federal government of the United States. It is the principal official advisory body to ...

. As an attorney, Coleman played a major role in significant

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

cases. At the time of his death, Coleman was the oldest living former Cabinet member.

Early life and education

Coleman was born to Laura Beatrice (née Mason) Coleman and William Thaddeus Coleman Sr. in

Germantown, Philadelphia Germantown ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Deitscheschteddel'') is an area in Northwest Philadelphia. Founded by German, Quaker, and Mennonite families in 1683 as an independent borough, it was absorbed into Philadelphia in 1854. The area, which is ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. Coleman's mother came from six generations of Episcopal ministers, including an operator of the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. ...

. W.E.B. DuBois and Langston Hughes would visit the family's home for dinner. One of seven black students at Germantown High School, Coleman was suspended for cursing at a teacher after she praised his honors presentation by saying, "Someday, William, you will make a wonderful chauffeur." When Coleman attempted to join the school's swim team he was again suspended, and the team disbanded after he returned so as to avoid admitting him, only to reform after he graduated. Coleman's swim team coach wrote him a strong letter of recommendation and he was accepted into the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where he was a double major in political science and economics. He graduated summa cum laude from the

with a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in history in 1941. There, he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He was elected to the

Pi Gamma Mu Pi Gamma Mu or (from Πολιτικές Γνώσεως Μάθεται) is the oldest and preeminent honor society in the social sciences. It is also the only interdisciplinary social science honor society. It serves the various social science dis ...

international honor society in 1941. Coleman was also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Coleman was accepted to the Harvard Law School but left in 1943 to enlist in the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

, failing in his attempt to join the

Tuskegee Airmen The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army ...

. Instead, Coleman spent the war defending the accused in

courts-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

. After the war, Coleman returned to Harvard Law, where he became the third black staff member accepted to the '' Harvard Law Review'', and graduated first in his class and magna cum laude in 1946.

Career

He began his legal career in 1947, serving as law clerk to Judge Herbert F. Goodrich of the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * Ea ...

and

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Justice

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...

in 1948. He was the first African American to serve as a Supreme Court law clerk. Fellow clerks, including

Elliot Richardson Elliot Lee Richardson (July 20, 1920December 31, 1999) was an American lawyer and public servant who was a member of the cabinet of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. As U.S. Attorney General, he was a prominent figure in the Watergat ...

, would have difficulty finding a restaurant where they could eat together. Coleman was hired by the New York law firm of

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (known as Paul, Weiss) is an American multinational law firm headquartered on Sixth Avenue in New York City. By profits per equity partner, it is the fifth most profitable law firm in the world. ...

in 1949.

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

, then the chief counsel of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

, recruited Coleman to be one of the lead strategists and coauthor of the legal brief in ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'' (1954), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

in public schools to be unconstitutional. He served as a member of the NAACP's national legal committee, director and member of its executive committee, and president of board of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Coleman was also a member of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Committee on Government Employment Policy (1959–1961) and a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1963–1975). Coleman served as an assistant counsel to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (1964), also known as the Warren Commission, on which then-Congressman Gerald Ford was a commissioner. During the Warren Commission's investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Commission received word via a backchannel that Fidel Castro, then Prime Minister of Cuba, wanted to talk to them. The Commission sent Coleman as an investigator and he met with Castro on a fishing boat off the coast of Cuba. Castro denied any involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy during Coleman's three-hour questioning. Coleman reported the results of his investigation and interview with Castro directly to Commission Chairman Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States. Coleman was co-counsel to the petitioners in ''McLaughlin v. Florida'' (1964), in which the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a law prohibiting an interracial couple from living together. In 1969, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the twenty-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly. Coleman was also a member of the National Commission on Productivity (1971–1972). Coleman served in the boardrooms of PepsiCo, IBM, Chase Manhattan Bank, and Pan American World Airways. He was senior partner in the law firm of Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Levy & Coleman at the time of his appointment to the Ford Administration.

Cabinet post

Flag of the United States Secretary of Transportation

President of the United States, President Gerald Ford appointed Coleman to serve in his Cabinet of the United States, Cabinet as the fourth United States Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Transportation on March 7, 1975. During Coleman's time at the United States Department of Transportation, Department of Transportation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's automobile test facility at East Liberty, Ohio commenced operations, and the Department established the Materials Transportation Bureau to address pipeline safety and the safe shipment of hazardous materials. In February 1976, Coleman authorized a testing period for the Supersonic transport, supersonic Concorde jet, and flights began on After the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey banned the jet, the U.S. Supreme Court restored Coleman's authorization. In December 1976, Coleman rejected consumer activists' pressure for a federal mandate on automobile airbags and instead announced a two-year demonstration period favored by the auto industry. Coleman's tenure ended in January 1977, after Jimmy Carter won the 1976 United States presidential election, 1976 election.

Post-Cabinet service and honors

On leaving the department, Coleman returned to Philadelphia and subsequently became a partner in the Washington, D.C., Washington office of the Los Angeles-based law firm O'Melveny & Myers. Colman argued a total of 19 cases before the Supreme Court. He appeared for the respondent in the argument and reargument of ''Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority'' (1985). In 1983, with the election quickly approaching, the Reagan administration stopped supporting the IRS's position against Bob Jones University that overtly discriminatory groups were ineligible for certain tax exemptions. Coleman was appointed to argue the now unsupported lower court position before the Supreme Court, and won in ''Bob Jones University v. United States''. Coleman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993. On September 29, 1995, Coleman was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton. After the July 17, 1996, crash of TWA Flight 800, he served on the President's Commission on Airline and Airport Security. Coleman received an honorary LL.D. from Bates College in 1975. Coleman was also awarded honorary degrees from, among others, Williams College in May 1975, Gettysburg College on May 22, 2011, and Boston University in May 2012. Coleman was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2001. In September 2004, President George W. Bush appointed Coleman to the United States Court of Military Commission Review. In June 2006, Coleman received the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement, American Academy of Achievement. In December 2006, Coleman served as an honorary pallbearer during the death and state funeral of Gerald Ford, state funeral of Gerald Ford in Washington, D.C.

Personal life

In 1945, Coleman married Lovida Mae Hardin (1923–2020). They had three children: Lovida H. Coleman, Jr. (1949–2018); William Thaddeus Coleman III, a General Counsel of the Army under President Clinton and stepfather of Flavia Colgan; and Hardin Coleman, dean, Boston University School of Education. Coleman Jr. died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria, Virginia on March 31, 2017, aged 96.

References

Notes

External links

*

*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060221005439/http://www.americanpresident.org/history/geraldford/cabinet/transportation/transportationCopy1/ Biography at AmericanPresident.org]
William Coleman's oral history video excerpts
at The National Visionary Leadership Project
"Remarks by the President in Presentation if the Presidential Medal Of Freedom" – September 29, 1995
* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Coleman, William Thaddeus Jr. 1920 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American politicians African-American lawyers African-American members of the Cabinet of the United States American civil rights lawyers Ford administration cabinet members Guantanamo Bay captives legal and administrative procedures Harvard Law School alumni Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Lawyers from Philadelphia Military personnel from Philadelphia Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison people Pennsylvania Republicans Politicians from Philadelphia Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients United States Secretaries of Transportation Warren Commission counsel and staff Burials at Arlington National Cemetery Members of the American Philosophical Society United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II Judges of the United States Court of Military Commission Review Black conservatism in the United States