Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Before The Memories Fade: William T. Coleman

It was a rainy morning in Lexington, Kentucky, on April 8, but the sun shone long enough for me to have a great shoot with the Honorable William T. Coleman, Jr., Esq. Mr. Coleman was in town this past Thursday to speak at the University of Kentucky College of Law.

For those of you who have never heard of Mr. Coleman, let's just say his work had a hand in some some really big legal aspects of the movement. Mr. Coleman worked closely with Thurgood Marshall on many cases, including as one of the lead strategists and coauthor of the legal brief in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Brown was one of the landmark civil rights cases dealing with racial segregation in which the U.S. Supreme Court held racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional.

Mr. Coleman shared some very interesting stories of his life and his time in the movement. His stories were intriguing and after hearing his personal insights, I couldn't help but leave the interview questioning the truth of some of what we were taught about situations that occurred in American history.