William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr.

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.

Early life and education Coleman was born to Laura Beatrice (née Mason) Coleman and William Thaddeus Coleman Sr. in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 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, failing in his attempt to join the Tuskegee Airmen. graduating first in his class and magna cum laude in 1946. Fellow clerks, including Elliot Richardson, would have difficulty finding a restaurant where they could eat together. 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.

William Coleman joined Philadelphia based firm, Dilworth Paxson, in 1951. Eventually becoming the first African-American lawyer admitted as a partner in a Philadelphia law firm. Mr. Coleman worked on libel suits within Dilworth Paxson's Litigation Department for The Inquirer and beyond. At this time, he also becomes a member of the Board of Directors of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. before leaving the firm in 1971.

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.

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.

Cabinet post William T. Coleman in 1976, speaking at a press conference discussing supersonic transport President Gerald Ford appointed Coleman to serve in his Cabinet as the fourth Secretary of Transportation on March 7, 1975. 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.

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.

In June 2024, the William T. Coleman, Jr. Foundation, Inc. honored the legacy of William T. Coleman, Jr., Esq. with the unveiling of a sculpture that is now permanently displayed at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

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, a professor at 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.