Coleman, William T. (William Thaddeus), 1920-2017

Variant names

Dates:

Birth 1920-07-07

Death 2017-03-31

Birth 1920-07-07

Birth 19200707

Death 20170331

Gender:

Male

Nationality: Americans,

Language: English

Biographical notes:

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. 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.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Germantown High School before earning a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Coleman was accepted to the Harvard Law School 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, and graduated first in his class and magna cum laude in 1946.

He began his legal career in 1947, serving as law clerk to Judge Herbert F. Goodrich of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and clerk to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1948. Coleman was one of the lead strategists and coauthor of the legal brief in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) in which the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in public schools. He served as a member of the NAACP's national legal committee, director and member of its executive committee, and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Coleman was also a member of President Dwight 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 John F. Kennedy (1964), and a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1963-1975).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 from 1971 to 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.

When President Ford appointed him as secretary of Transportation, Coleman became only the second African American to serve in a cabinet post. At Transportation, Coleman was the point man for the administration's changes to the regulations governing the transportation industry. His most controversial decision was in allowing limited transatlantic service for the supersonic transport plant, the Concorde, a decision which angered the majority of environmental groups concerned largely with the effects of noise pollution. Close on the heels of the Concorde decision in terms of controversy was Coleman's decision to defer the mandatory installation of airbags in all new automobiles.

At the end of the Ford administration, Coleman returned to practicing law. He died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at his home in Alexandria, Virginia.