William Coleman Jr., transportation secretary and civil rights lawyer, dies at 96

William T. Coleman Jr., 96, a Philadelphian who helped draft the landmark 1954 legal case in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was illegal and who later became the country's second black cabinet officer after President Gerald R. Ford named him transportation secretary, died Friday at his home in Alexandria, Va.

The cause was complications from Alzheimer's disease, said a daughter, Lovida Hardin Coleman Jr.

Throughout his long career, Mr. Coleman was often at the forefront of major public events, legal battles and significant social advances. In 1948, he became the first African American to serve as a law clerk to a Supreme Court justice, and within two years he was working alongside Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund on major desegregation cases.

In the 1960s, Mr. Coleman was a staff lawyer for the Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He defended young civil rights activists known as Freedom Riders and successfully argued a Supreme Court case that helped eliminate prohibitions against interracial marriage.

A progressive Republican, Mr. Coleman was an adviser to every president, Republican and Democrat, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush.

"He opened many, many doors and, by example, showed how absurd discrimination really is," Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told the Inquirer in 2010. "It is important that people who don't know him understand what he has done."

Mr. Coleman began working with Marshall on the Brown case in 1950, coordinating research efforts in 37 states. Ultimately, five cases - from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia - collectively came to be known as Brown v. Board of Education. Mr. Coleman helped write the legal briefs, which formed the basis of Marshall's arguments before the Supreme Court in December 1952 and again one year later.

The high court unanimously ruled in May 1954 that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place."

Ten years later, in the case of McLaughlin v. Florida, Mr. Coleman argued against a Florida law that barred "any negro man and white woman, or any white man and negro woman" from living together. The Supreme Court overturned the law and, three years later, declared all prohibitions against interracial marriage unconstitutional.

In all, Mr. Coleman appeared before the Supreme Court 19 times, including a 1982 case, Bob Jones University v. United States, in which he argued that private schools practicing racial discrimination should not receive federal tax exemptions. The court agreed by a vote of 8-1.

While working at the Philadelphia firm of Dilworth Paxson, he developed a specialty in transportation law. That background helped lead Ford to nominate Mr. Coleman as transportation secretary in 1975.

His oath of office was administered by Marshall, by then a Supreme Court justice. Mr. Coleman became the second black member of the cabinet, after Robert Weaver, who was secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968.

William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. was born July 7, 1920, in Philadelphia. His father, director of the Germantown boys club, introduced his son to civil rights leaders, including W.E.B. Du Bois.

When Mr. Coleman tried out for the swim team at Germantown High School, the team was disbanded. He graduated in 1941 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

After a year at Harvard Law School, Mr. Coleman joined the Army Air Forces, where he served as a defense counsel in court-martial cases during World War II.

In law school, he was one of the first black students to serve on the law review's editorial board. He graduated in 1946, ranked No. 1 in his class. He spent a year of postgraduate study at Harvard before clerking for a federal judge, then in 1948 became a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

After serving as transportation secretary, Mr. Coleman joined the Washington office of the O'Melveny & Myers law firm.

Survivors include his wife of 72 years, the former Lovida Hardin of Alexandria; three children, Lovida Hardin Coleman Jr. of McLean, Va., William Coleman 3rd of Penn Valley, and Hardin Kennedy Coleman of Boston; and four grandsons.

In 1995, Mr. Coleman received the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Bill Clinton - a law school roommate of one of Mr. Coleman's sons.