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Children William Thaddeus Coleman III, William Coleman Books Counsel for the Situation: Shaping the Law to Realize America's Promise Similar Gerald Ford, Edward G Biester Jr, Frank J Williams, Ray LaHood | ||
William Thaddeus "Bill" Coleman Jr. (July 7, 1920 – March 31, 2017) was an American attorney and politician. 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 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 U.S. Cabinet member.
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Early life and education
Coleman was born to William Thaddeus Coleman Sr. and Laura Beatrice (née Mason) Coleman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended local public schools before graduating summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in history in 1941 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1946. He was elected to the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society in 1941. Coleman is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Coleman was awarded an honorary degree from Williams College in May 1975, Gettysburg College on May 22, 2011, and Boston University in May 2012, among other honorary degrees.
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 and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1948. He was the first African American to serve as a Supreme Court law clerk. Coleman was hired by the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in 1949. Coleman was 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), a senior consultant and assistant counsel to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (1964), and a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1963–1975).
During the Warren Commission's investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy, the committee 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 Chief Justice Earl Warren.
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). He was senior partner in the law firm of Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Levy & Coleman at the time of his appointment to the Ford administration.
Political career
President Gerald Ford appointed Coleman to serve as the nation's fourth Secretary of Transportation on March 7, 1975. During Coleman's tenure at the department, 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.
Post political career
On leaving the department, Coleman returned to Philadelphia and subsequently became a partner in the Washington office of the Los Angeles-based law firm O'Melveny & Myers. On September 29, 1995, Coleman was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton. In 1996, in the wake of the July 17 crash of TWA Flight 800, he served on the President's Commission on Airline and Airport Security. Coleman earned his LL.D. from Bates College in 1975.
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.
In September 2004 he was appointed to the United States Court of Military Commission Review.
In December 2006, Coleman served as an honorary pallbearer during the state funeral of Gerald Ford in Washington, D.C..
Personal life
In 1945, he married Lovida Mae Hardin. They have three children: Lovida H. Coleman Jr., William T. Coleman III, lawyer; stepfather of Flavia Colgan, and Hardin L. Coleman, dean, Boston University School of Education.
Coleman, Jr. died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at his home in Alexandria, Virginia on March 31, 2017, aged 96.