William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. (July 7, 1920 – March 31, 2017) was an American

attorney Attorney may refer to: * Lawyer ** Attorney at law, in some jurisdictions * Attorney, one who has power of attorney * ''The Attorney'', a 2013 South Korean film See also * Attorney general, the principal legal officer of (or advisor to) a gove ...

and judge. Coleman was the fourth

United States Secretary of Transportation The United States secretary of transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to transportation. The secre ...

, from March 7, 1975, to January 20, 1977, and the second African American to serve in the United States Cabinet. As an attorney, Coleman played a major role in significant civil rights 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, Pennsylvania. Coleman's mother came from six generations of Episcopal ministers, including an operator of the Underground Railroad.

W.E.B. DuBois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...

and

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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, where he was a double major in political science and economics. He graduated

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in history in 1941. There, he was elected to the

Phi Beta Kappa Society The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ar ...

. He was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society in 1941. Coleman was also a member of

Alpha Phi Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved int ...

fraternity. Coleman was accepted to the

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

but left in 1943 to enlist in the United States Army Air Forces, failing in his attempt to join the Tuskegee Airmen. Instead, Coleman spent the war defending the accused in courts-martial. After the war, Coleman returned to Harvard Law, where he became the third black staff member accepted to the ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

'', and graduated first in his class and

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

in 1946.

Career

He began his legal career in 1947, serving as

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

to Judge

Herbert F. Goodrich Herbert Funk Goodrich (July 29, 1889 – June 25, 1962) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He was also Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Education and career Born on J ...

of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1948. He was the first African American to serve as a Supreme Court law clerk. Fellow clerks, including Elliot Richardson, 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 in 1949. Thurgood Marshall, then the chief counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, recruited Coleman to be one of the lead strategists and coauthor of the legal brief in '' Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held racial segregation 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

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(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 Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...

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 Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...

, 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 Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presided over a major shift in American constitution ...

, 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

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, 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

appointed Coleman to serve in his

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

as the fourth Secretary of Transportation on March 7, 1975. During Coleman's time at the 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 Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound ( Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...

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 election.

Post-Cabinet service and honors

On leaving the department, Coleman returned to Philadelphia and subsequently became a partner in the Washington office of the Los Angeles-based law firm

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. 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 American Academy of Achievement. In December 2006, Coleman served as an honorary pallbearer during the 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 Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

at his home in Alexandria, Virginia on March 31, 2017, aged 96.

References

Notes

External links

*

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060221005439/http://www.americanpresident.org/history/geraldford/cabinet/transportation/transportationCopy1/ Biography at AmericanPresident.orgbr>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