Accomplishments:
- Plaintiff’s attorney on Brown vs. Board of Education
- First Black American to serve as a Supreme Court law clerk
- First Black Transportation Department Secretary. In 2020, the department’s HQ was renamed in his honor
- First Black associate and then partner of a White law firm
Final word: “Bill Coleman was a rare and inspiring figure who devoted his own ambition and his own propensity for hard work not just to making his own good luck, but to making life better for his fellow Americans, both in his own time and for generations to follow,” wrote Ajay Raju, former Dilworth Paxson chair and Citizen board member.
Reporting by Aly Kerrigan and Ethan Young.