Oral History Interview with Robert Coleman

BETSY BRINSON: Today is August 18, year 2000. This is an abbreviated interview with Commissioner Robert A. Coleman. The interview takes place in City Hall, Paducah, Kentucky and the interviewer is Betsy Brinson.

BRINSON: Thank you Mr. Coleman for agreeing to talk with me today. Could you give me your full name please, so I can get a voice level.

ROBERT A. COLEMAN: Uh, my name is Robert A. Coleman.

BRINSON: Okay, and does the A. stand for. . . ?

COLEMAN: Alfonzo.

BRINSON: Alfonzo, okay thank you. [pause] I was asking you about the A. in your name. Can you tell me more about that?

COLEMAN: Yes. I became curious and I wondered why I had the name Alfonzo because as a small child it was odd. I preferred name like John, Joe, and common names. [laughing] And I asked about the name Alfonzo, and ah, my parents told me that a I was, when I was born in 1932 either somewhere around that date, the King of Spain was Alfonzo, and a, they decided to give me that name [laughing]. I don’t know whether they intended to lift my character or encourage my achievement level, but a my father was a graduate of Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, and my mother attended West Kentucky Industrial College here in Paducah, and ah I don’t know exactly how that came about. But . . .

BRINSON: I noticed from your biographical statement though, that you have a son named Dominic and a grandson, Di’Angelo.

COLEMAN: Right.

BRINSON: Does the family carry on Spanish surnames, or . . .

COLEMAN: Uh, I um, picked some names for my son, and a his mother selected the Dominic. Now Di’Angelo—I had nothing to do with that.

BRINSON: Right, your the grandfather there.

COLEMAN: Right, I said what’s his name, and they told me. I said fine, that’s Okay with me [laughter]. They call him D.J. I like that. [laughing]

BRINSON: Okay, well thank you for that story. Um, thank you also for agreeing to talk with me. I know this has been rather difficult to get this interview together, and if we don’t finish today, I will be back in Paducah at some point and we can pick up there. But we’ll um, you mentioned to me that you were born in 1932.

COLEMAN: Yes.

BRINSON: Could you give me your complete birth date, and also where you were born?

COLEMAN: I was born on February the 8th, in 1932, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

BRINSON: Okay, and tell me a little bit about your growing up. Who was in your family . . .

COLEMAN: Um, my father was from Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Um, my grandparents had roots in Hopkinsville and Christian County Kentucky. As a matter of fact, my grandfather owned land in Christian County, only thirty years after slavery, he bought land in Todd County which is adjacent to Christian County. And so, that’s where I was born. My mother was from Paducah, McCracken County, but she went to--when she married my father she moved to Christian County; and a that’s where I was born. I have two brothers, one is deceased. He was a school administrator in Gary, Indiana. And um, I used to talk with him about his classroom work and the school system in Gary, and one of the interesting things he told me is, he taught some of the, some of Michael Jackson’s siblings. I don’t know whether he taught Michael or not, but they are from Gary, Indiana, and that was one of the interesting things about . . . He subsequently became a school administrator, but he had a birth defect that affected his bones, and he pre-maturely died at the age of forty-eight, back in 1982. I have another brother whose name is George. George was one of the first two African-American police officers hired in the City of Paducah, Kentucky. He and a gentleman named Edgar Stratton were hired at the same time back in, I believe 1962 or three. And uh George subsequently became the first Director when we set up the 911 emergency system here in Paducah, Kentucky. And my mother and father divorced so I had four other siblings who were all girls, uh they were all born here in Paducah after my mother remarried.

BRINSON: And of the three brothers, where were you?

COLEMAN: Number one. I’m number one . . .

BRINSON: Your the oldest of them all.

COLEMAN: In a group of seven.

BRINSON: Okay.

COLEMAN: Yes.

BRINSON: Um, so you grew up in Paducah.

COLEMAN: Yes, I grew up in Paducah. Attended school in Paducah, graduated from High School. When I graduated from high school, less than thirty days following my graduation, ah they had a war to break out. They didn’t call it a formal war, they called it a conflict in Korea. When the North Koreans crossed what was called the thirty-eighth parallel into South Korea, ah, termed as aggression, and we entered into that war. I call it war because men fought and died. And so I was draft age at that time, and there was segregation at that time. We had a junior college here, but I couldn’t attend that junior college because of the segregation here in, across the state, across the country as a matter of fact, in 1950.

BRINSON: And let me ask you, you graduated from high school in . . .

COLEMAN: Nineteen fifty.

BRINSON: Nineteen fifty. And of course the legal challenge to the Paducah Junior College was in process, as I recall, but it took until about 1953 before the federal court . . .

COLEMAN: It actually, I believe it may have been longer than--extended beyond fifty-three; I’m not certain, I don’t have those facts in front of me. But I do know that at the time of my graduation I was unable to attend, and I lived here in Paducah and could have walked to Paducah Junior College. And so, I elected to go into the United States Air Force. I was going to be drafted into the military anyway, and I decided to go into the Air Force because I could pick my own choice if I volunteered. Ah, after returning from the Air Force in the mid-fifties, I subsequently went to Paducah Junior College. By that time the legal process had cleared the way, and in the mid-fifties and the late-fifties, I went to Paducah Junior College before it became part of the community college system.

BRINSON: Let me stop you and go back and ask a few questions here. At the point that you enrolled um, in the junior college, tell me what, please, what you planned to study, and also how many other African-Americans were attending at that point? Just an estimate.

COLEMAN: Well, at that time I enrolled in evening classes. The reason I enrolled in evening classes um, I spent four years in the military beginning October 1950. Upon returning to Paducah in October fifty-four, within six months after I returned, my mother passed away. I was the oldest of seven children, I had a brother who was going into his first year in college at Kentucky State; and that was the one who passed away pre-maturely, he was handicapped. And ah, I had four sisters who were still in secondary school, secondary school system. So I looked at the economic situation and I felt it necessary that I hold down a job to help my siblings and my family. I grew up with a sense of responsibility. So I enrolled, but I went to evening classes, and ah, I studied basically liberal arts courses because I wasn’t really focused on what I was going to do. Some business courses, I studied, but at that period in time, I did not sense a clear direction as to what I wanted to do.

BRINSON: And at the time that you were there, how was the African-American enrollment?

COLEMAN: Uh, statistically at the age of twenty-three your not sensitive to the point where you--especially when your going in the evening--I did not have a sense of how many, I know there were several African-Americans enrolled. I do say this, that everything seemed to be running smoothly, I did not encounter hostilities, um, the teachers were very cordial and um, I enjoyed school.

BRINSON: And Paducah Junior College is now Paducah Community College.

COLEMAN: Right. It’s part of the University of Kentucky Community College System now.

BRINSON: Well it’s a part of the Kentucky Community College System that separated from the University of Kentucky a year or so ago.

COLEMAN: Right. Absolutely correct.

BRINSON: Um, you said that you were working during the day, and going to school in the evenings. Can you tell me about that please?

COLEMAN: Yes. I um, I went to work, I had a cousin--I said had a cousin because he has since deceased. As a matter of fact, he eventually became Administrative Assistant to Governor Edward T. Breathitt; and at that time he was working for the Illinois, what was the Illinois Central Railroad System, which was the largest employer in the area. And um, realizing that I needed a job, he helped me get a job with the railroad system; and um I went to work for the railroad system. That was my first employment following discharge from the military.

BRINSON: And what were your responsibilities then?

COLEMAN: At that time, it was a transitional time for the railroads. They were moving from steam locomotives to diesel locomotives. The Paducah shops had been the Illinois Central Systems facility where they built and repaired steam locomotives. What happened is in this transitional period they brought the steam locomotives various areas to Paducah, and we had a facility on the railroad that the railroad shops were--we literally dismantled these steam locomotives engines. They were huge monsters weighing tons, and they had all kinds of metal in them: and copper, and brass, and all kinds of iron, because they had steam boilers; and some of the wheels were four feet high, five feet high. The driving wheels that these--that carried these locomotives, and so they were huge--huge giants of monsters--iron monsters is what they literally were. And um, our basic method for dismantling these locomotives was an acetylene torch that had enough heat in it to burn through perhaps eight inches of steel--if you--of course that’s with the skill of knowing how to use these torches; and by them being--the locomotives being basically metal, the acetylene torch was the primary method for cutting this metal up and dismantling them. One of the things that I noticed, around the boiler of these steam locomotives-- they were coal fired--was on, it was a round cylinder, if you can visualize a steam locomotive, and uh, it had a sheet of metal around it, like a huge tube, and uh, that was a boiler, but underneath that metal next to the boiler, right next to the metal, was two or three inches of asbestos. These things were coated with asbestos, and so we stripped these engines, cut off all the sheet metal and then we encountered asbestos around them.

BRINSON: And of course at that time no body was concerned about . . .

COLEMAN: No body was concerned, and I don’t know how much asbestos those men -- including myself, I only worked about two and a half, three years, but I don’t realize how much asbestos those persons working in that facility took into their body. We were not environmentally conscience, nor environmentally correct.

BRINSON: Let me go back and ask you, when you were in the military, where were you stationed?

COLEMAN: Most of my time I was, part of the time I was stationed in the Continental United States, from Texas to New England, and um, at that time, I got into an area called air traffic. We handled and monitored air traffic, similar to what air controllers do now. And uh, I was trained as an, what is called an Air Traffic Control Technician, and . . .

BRINSON: Okay, let me stop you there because where I’m going with this is, you were serving in the military during a period of a very segregated society.

COLEMAN: Right.

BRINSON: Both in Paducah and other places. And I, I wonder first off, if you can tell me when you first became aware that you were growing up in a segregated society?

COLEMAN: I was always aware of it. I was always aware because uh, everything was separated when I grew up. I grew up as a small child in the thirties as a teenager in the forties. Separate schools, separate, but unequal. I later in history learned of the, I believe it was the 1898 decision by the Supreme Court, Plessey vs. Ferguson, that established the separate but equal, as being acceptable, but in truth it was separate and very, very unequal. And I was always aware of this and it was almost inhumane. But we were not as sensitive to it as we became later on, as society began to--these walls began to fall--and we realized some of the things that we had been denied, and a, actually when I look back over it, it was a very, very uneven playing field. Very, very severely handicapped young people growing up. I can testify to that now because when I look back and look at the facilities of the segregated schools that I attended, uh as compared to the schools that the white people were able to attend, and the privileges that they enjoyed, I can see how it really hampered the African-American population for years and years to come.

BRINSON: Although you knew that there were separate facilities of all kinds, separate restaurants, um uh probably bus station waiting rooms, um things of that sort . . .

COLEMAN: Waiting rooms at that time, the railroad was the primary mode of long transportation across a considerable number of miles, and they were segregated waiting rooms even in the railroad station.

BRINSON: But growing up as a little boy in Paducah, um and the teenager, did you ever try and resist that in any way?

COLEMAN: Um, not as a teenager. Because during the period that I grew up, there the movement toward integration in terms of public demonstrations, in terms of public attention, a had not reached that level.

BRINSON: I’m looking for even smaller instances, and I’ll give you an example. Some individuals will tell me that when they were children, even though they knew they weren’t supposed to drink out of the white fountain, they would anyway.

COLEMAN: Oh, yes. We did those things.

BRINSON: They’d take a seat at the drug store counter until their mother made them get down.

COLEMAN: Yes, as a youngster we did those things. I, because of our ages, of my age, I didn’t look at it as I look at if I had been an adult. Yes we’d do those things, and we would even go into restrooms marked white, until someone would run us out. Yeah, yes we did those things, because we were fully aware that something wasn’t right.

BRINSON: Okay, okay. When you were in the military, in traveling the way you did, did that give you any insight into the way things might be back in Paducah?

COLEMAN: Well, my first experience in integration was in the military. President Harry Truman had issued an Executive Order, it was either in forty-eight or forty-nine, uh, desegregating the military by the stroke of a pen. When I went into the military in 1950 the military was already very much into the process of desegregating, and by it being the military and under the jurisdiction of the President, it was not a snails-pace process. Some places there might have been some bumps in the road, but they didn’t have to go through all this judicial process, the order was signed and that was it. This is what we do. So I went into a desegregated military, still unequal though. Still unequal.

BRINSON: And did, that was a new experience for you. . .

COLEMAN: The desegregation, the living in same quarters with various nationalities, that’s when I encountered Hispanics, we lived in the same barracks with Caucasians, Hispanics, uh, first generation Europeans, uh . . .

BRINSON: How was that for you?

COLEMAN: It was a learning experience. Very enlightening learning experience. I first realized then that there is no difference in us except our physical appearance. We bleed the same blood, we’re here in the military for the same reason. I looked at myself and we all have the same characteristics, except we have different ethnic backgrounds. And I, sometimes as a kid I used to shut my eyes and I said if I couldn’t see, everybody would be the same. It was called coping.

BRINSON: Now, at some point, I know from your biographical information, that you had a long career with the Postal Service.

COLEMAN: Yes.

BRINSON: How did that come about?

COLEMAN: I, as I said was in a segregated society, I worked for the railroad. I enjoyed working for the railroad, but as a young person I was not aware that this was dead-end. This was going to change. I was in my early twenties, afterwards I later realized that even what I was doing at the railroad was bringing about a change because we were going from one system in the railroad to another and eventually the railroad would not be that huge employer that it once was. Nor was there opportunities there for African-Americans. It was segregated, even the work place. When I went to work for the railroad, we reported to work in the same building, but the whites were on one side of the building, in a small square building with a wall petition, they were on one side of the building reporting to work, and we were on the other side of the petition. And we would go out on the same yard and do the same work. Terrible, terrible. And so what happened, I experienced several lay-offs, that’s what was, what happened when you worked for the railroad. For almost any reason the railroad would have a lay-off. For instance, I remember the first lay-off, it was because they had a strike in the steel industry and uh, the railroad experienced an effect from the nationwide steel strike, and so some people working on the railroad were laid-off. Maybe because of the lack of transporting certain materials, or whatever, I don’t know the reason, but I know for certain that in a two and a half year period I experienced about two, three lay-offs, and I said I need to get a job. . .

BRINSON: I’m interested, did the black employees receive more lay-offs than the white employees?

COLEMAN: Uh, when I went to work for the railroad, in the department that I worked in, they literally had two rosters of employees; and they were listed on that roster by seniority, but they had one roster that all the blacks were listed on and another roster that all the whites were listed on. The railroad was very, very segregated because African-Americans did not get opportunities for jobs that paid higher levels of pay. For example, the railroad had a lot of craft workers, they had machinist, they had boiler makers, they had blacksmiths, they had pipe fitters, they had locomotive engineers, they had various types; they had a big office in Paducah. That building is still at, on Kentucky Avenue around the fifteen hundred block. Now the only black person in that building was doing the cleaning work while they had a large office staff there. Some people doing just basic clerical work, but we had no opportunities for any of that. And the craft work, like machinist, boiler maker, blacksmith, pipe fitter, these kinds of jobs young white males would come to work for the railroad; and they would on many, many occasions, depending upon the need, assign them as apprentice tradesmen. Meaning they were in the process of learning to become a machinist, in the process of learning to be a blacksmith, in the process of learning to become a boiler maker, in the process of learning to become a whatever type of skilled trade that required a period of training, and black employees could not, and were not assigned to these apprentice positions. Apprentice boiler maker, apprentice machinist, apprentice blacksmith, whatever that craft trade, they were not given those assignments. So what happened on the railroad, the most glaring form of, of inequities; and I believe that our struggle as a people--I would rather focus on the economic than the socials of the struggle; because, the white employee, young man, would be assigned to a machinist apprentice, he would ultimately become a journeyman machinists, a journeyman blacksmith, a journeyman boiler maker, and his salary would rise accordingly. Now what happened, he was able to support his family at a higher standard of living, he was able to send his sons and his daughters to college. The African-American never reached that level with the railroad.

BRINSON: So really the only jobs for African-Americans were the sleeping car quarters?

COLEMAN: There were a few, for example, uh my cousin, who I mentioned and several others became what they call locomotive crane operators. Uh, so they were able to make a few cents more on the hour. A few African-Americans became locomotive crane operators, but they could not become engineers. And a so, the economics of that struggle was: is the white employees were able to raise the standard of living for their families, give their children educational opportunities, because of the economics of society; and therefore placed them in a higher level of achievement and, and a position to subsequently support their families, and it was passed from one generation to another. So, while you often hear, and you have heard down through the years, well I didn’t, I wasn’t part of that, I did not do that. They are absolutely correct when they say that, but they benefited from it. Because John’s son was able to go to Paducah Community College, and Joe’s--whose black, son couldn’t go--and when John’s son, and John was a machinist at the railroad; when his son finished two years, and wanted to go to Murray or U K, or whatever college, his dad had the money to send him, because his dad drew more money from the railroad because he had a better job that Joe’s dad didn’t have. And not only did he experience the segregation of on-site society in Paducah in terms of the schools here, but he couldn’t even afford to go beyond Paducah because of the economics of society.

BRINSON: Right. I can tell you are a very articulate and very passionate speaker, and I wonder at what point did you decide to become involved in politics?

COLEMAN: Speaking of speaking, I um, the first college course, I didn’t ever finish college, but I always, I guess I was always taking college courses somewhere. I was in the military and I took a--I went to school through the Air Force, and took some college courses and the first college course I took was Public Speaking, and I found that I like this, and I remember to this day, and it was fifty, forty some years ago, I did research on the common aspirin. . .

BRINSON: Aspirin?

COLEMAN: Yes acetylsalicylic acid. And uh I crafted a speech around the common aspirin, I’ll never forget it.

END SIDE ONE TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

COLEMAN: I enjoyed Literature, History and English, and those type of courses, where I could have a dialogue back and forth and get beyond and explore intentions and ideas. That’s what I liked, I think one of the basic things, I think a good education is, and it’s not all in the classroom, is a good basic liberal education, that society doesn’t focus on too much. Now History, Literature, English, things like that we learn and we learn how to communicate which is extremely important.

BRINSON: So from an early day, you knew really that you enjoyed public speaking and you were concerned about the . . .

COLEMAN: Well my grandfather. . .

BRINSON: . . .issues of the time. Did that move you into politics?

COLEMAN: Fifty years before the Voting Rights Act, during the administration of Woodrow Wilson, my grandfather paid his--was a landowner--he paid his poll tax and he registered, and he voted. And I still have his voter certificate that goes back to the time, I believe that Woodrow Wilson was elected. So, my parents were--I can remember my grandmother, when I was a small child on election day, we didn’t have an automobile, but she would get ready and she would be waiting for them to come and get her to go and vote. I always seen voting in my house. Go and vote! I’m passionate about it.

BRINSON: And for the record, let me say that Mr. Coleman has just shared the receipt that his Abe Coleman, his grandfather paid in 1905 for a seventy-five dents Poll Tax.

COLEMAN: Oh, this is the one I was going to give you. That’s the one, I made a mistake there.

BRINSON: Um, here we go, the voters’ certificate to certify that Abe Coleman is a legal voter and could vote in the 1916 General Election. Thank you for. . .

COLEMAN: Yeah but I gave you the wrong one. . .

BRINSON: That’s all right, they’re both good. So voting was always important to you. You grew up knowing that that was important. Um, tell me a little bit though, um, there was obviously was a poll tax, were there any other efforts in this area, of this state that you had heard about historically that were used to diminish the black vote in any way?

COLEMAN: Now let me be clear. I never experienced, this voters’ certificate dated in 1916, eighty-four years ago, I never experienced this kind of a condition. This was a condition that my grandfather experienced, and my grandparents back in those days. As a matter of fact, when he voted, you couldn’t vote.

BRINSON: That’s right, it was before women’s right to vote. I’m asking you this though Mr. Coleman, because we really have not done much historical research about the black vote in Kentucky.

COLEMAN: Well I think the basic thing that happened back in the early days, I do not recall violence in Kentucky to discourage the African-American vote. My experience as a youth was limited to Western Kentucky, and um, I never heard of violence; I never heard of anyone who went to the polls to be turned away if they were registered. I never heard of that. Uh, what happened was, there was no encouragement. All of the elected officials were white. Society was controlled by whites, school systems, everything was separate, and um, it was not until actually my teen years that I began to experience things that indicated that there was some power in voting. Once in a while I would hear the black people saying, “Well let’s try to get some of the streets in the black neighborhoods paved; let’s try to get a street light here or a street light there. Let’s try to get some of these jobs.” And it was not until past 1950 that Africans-Americans got anything other than common labor jobs in city government, although we were taxpayers. I say it proudly, my family has been paying taxes in the Commonwealth for over a hundred years, and I got the evidence. I have the evidence. Hand written tax receipts over a hundred years old, but yet we could not experience the fruits of being law abiding, tax paying citizens. Trauma was experienced to get African-Americans into higher levels beyond the laboring stage of hauling garbage, and digging ditches.

BRINSON: At what point in Paducah, do you think that the black community became aware of the need to organize for the vote so that they could accomplish more?

COLEMAN: Best I can remember, uh, personal experiences, would be in the late forties and starting in the fifties, the fifties. And I think really we became focused in the mid-fifties when Dr. Martin Luther King began the movement in Montgomery, Alabama. My family was always involved, my extended family, there was a gentleman named Curly Brown . . .

BRINSON: Uh-hm, who was the President of the local NAACP.

COLEMAN: He was President going back into the late, I think it was the 1930’s. He was the one that filed the lawsuit to break down the barriers at Paducah Junior College at that time. So my family was always, and his son was the first African-American student, so my family, and extended family was always involved in the progressive move. My cousin, W.C. Young, who was Administrative Assistant, and Governor Breathitt really liked W.C. At the time that picture was made at the July Hall of Fame, Kentucky Commission on Human Rights Ceremonies, I was speaking with the Governor and I told him that ah, I was a cousin of W.C. Young and his eyes lit up; and I said, “He worked for you.” And Governor Breathitt said, “No. He was my Administrative Assistant.” In other words, he raised the level right then. [laughter] And I felt good about that. Governor Breathitt was a pioneer. He assigned W.C. to go out and recruit minorities and Governor Breathitt was committed to raising the level of black participation. He was a pioneer, I’ll always love him.

BRINSON: So in the forties and the fifties, and I guess your saying with the assistance of the local NAACP there was more of an emphasis on voter registration and . . .

COLEMAN: They were pioneers in those days, like one of the outstanding pioneers who worked for black voter registration, there were several of them. Ivo Boyd comes to my mind. I don’t know whether you have encountered that name or not.

BRINSON: Spell the first name please.

COLEMAN: Actually his name was Charles Ivo I-v-o, we always referred to him as Ivo, Boyd.

BRINSON: No I haven’t.

COLEMAN: He was a pioneer in getting black people registered to vote. Ivo spent a lot of time in Chicago, Illinois for better opportunities. Ivo was born prior to, just before the turn of the century, somewhere around the early 1890’s. By training, I think Ivo was a mortician who spent a lot of years in Chicago; came back to Paducah around the mid-century period, the 1950’s and registered black people to vote, worked in campaigns for various public officials, even ran for City Commissioner. Uh, W.C. Young was outstanding. His primary effort was in the field of organized labor. Curly Brown, whom you’ve heard of, . . .

BRINSON: But I have also been struck that you have had some early, it would be in the sixties here, I believe African-American elected public officials.

COLEMAN: The first one elected, it was in the sixties, the first elected member of city government, actually his first year he was appointed. But he had ran, to be a City Commissioners, Reverend W.G. Harvey. He ran, we put a major effort into that campaign, I believe it was 1967, we put a major effort into it.

BRINSON: Define major for me. What . . . COLEMAN: Well there was a good strong organization. The core of the organization was the churches. There were volunteers, uh the effort was not diluted by additional black people running for the same position. We were focused on let’s get Reverend Harvey elected as a City Commissioner. With all of that effort, and we had not began to attract white voters to our cause, except in miniscule small numbers. There have always been fair minded, white people, and I will never deny that. Always across this country we would not be where we are if it had not been. But in large numbers we did not attract white support, and so Reverend Harvey came in number five. He had to come in the top four. A gentleman named Fellers passed away. He was elected to be a Commissioner, and he passed away before the first of the year. This is in sixty-seven, so they were going to have to appoint someone to serve that first year until the next November to have a Special Election. Robert C. Cherry was the mayor. Again, the black community came together and they said look, Reverend Harvey was number five, he was the next person that would have been elected; if there is any logic, and any sound reasoning here; he will be the person appointed. And there was different discussions, there was even suggested that other people who had not sought the office, who had not participated in the election, other African-Americans, names were suggested. Now these people didn’t say they wanted it, other people would suggest their names. It was like creating confusion, and these people would step forward and say, “No, I don’t want that.” “If anybody is appointed”--and these were black people speaking—“If anybody is appointed, we are solidly behind Reverend Harvey.” And he was appointed. The next November they had a Special Election and no white candidates would run, except one. And ah, there were plenty of them, always have been, that normally would run in a Special Election, but uh, they said, “No, uh-huh, we’re not going to run.”

BRINSON: Why do you think that was? Do you think they knew they couldn’t win, or. . .

COLEMAN: No, I think that it was because that there was enough influential people who had come together and said, wait a minute, we need some African-American presence and we’re not going to get around this process by running against Harvey in this Special Election. And this one gentleman, he was I think an ex-police officer, he might have been a police officer, he was going to run anyway. But what happened is the white community supported Rev. Harvey. So he was appointed his first year, he won in that Special Election the following year, and he subsequently served for four more years, served a total of six years. Uh, 1973 was his last year.

BRINSON: And then in 1974 you were elected?

COLEMAN: I, I, yes. I was elected in seventy-three, and I served. . .

BRINSON: And you’ve been a City Commissioner from 1973 until the present without interruption?

COLEMAN: I had two interruptions.

BRINSON: Okay. I see your running again in November [laughter].

COLEMAN: I won my first election, Reverend Harvey elected not to run for re-election in seventy-three, I ran. And uh, fortunately I won. And I served seventy-four and seventy-five. And what happened, I had an interruption right after that first term. In 1975 we began to experience a large number of complaints filed with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights alleging police brutality here in the City of Paducah, Kentucky. And they reached the volume where the Commission on Human Rights decided to send down an investigator and I shall never forget the gentleman. His name was Bill Holiday and he was out of Louisville, and he subsequently became a lawyer, I believe Bill did. But, I was in my second year of my first term and I blended a career at the Postal Service, I never did tell you why I went to the Postal Service. . .

BRINSON: That’s Okay.

COLEMAN: We’ll come back to that maybe. I was working for the Postal Service and uh, the first thing I did before I ran, I had been told, “No you work for the Federal Government, you can’t run.” And I’m a little stubborn. . .

BRINSON: We had the Hatch Act didn’t we.

COLEMAN: Yeah the Hatch Act. But see the people were interpreting the Hatch Act wrongly. I didn’t ask locally if I could run, I wrote a letter to the Post Master General and he had his legal staff to write me back and they said “Yes, if it is non-partisan, you can run”. They would have told me here, “No.” And I had the documentation that I could run. And so I filed, and I was successful and I won. Now, till 1975, my second year; I was at home one evening and the doorbell rang. I went to the door and there stood a gentleman with a briefcase and an I.D., official I.D., and he said, “Mr. Coleman?” And I said, “Yes.” He said “My name is Bill Holiday, I’m an investigator with the state Commission on Human Rights, may we speak?” “Yes sir, come on in.” He said, “Mr. Coleman, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights have received numerous complaints alleging police brutality here in Paducah, Kentucky, has reached a level of concern where I have been assigned to investigate.” He said, “ I have a list of names and addresses here; I don’t know anything about your city. I need to find these people. I need to talk to them, and what I need is someone as a guide to take me to these various people; and I have been told that you would do that for me.”

BRINSON: Did you not have a local Commission on Human Rights at that time?

COLEMAN: Yes.

BRINSON: But they elected not to work . . .

COLEMAN: Well, we only had a Commission, we did not have an office, we did not have a full-time Director, we just had a structured commission.

BRINSON: Right, okay.

COLEMAN: And I think they were passing this on to Louisville because they didn’t have any other means. So I said, “Yes, I’ll do that;” after we talked. So I began the process by me working in the evenings. I would come home in the evenings and shower, change clothes, and shower and get ready, and we would go finding; I would have the clipboard, and I would say, “Okay this is John Doe, yeah I know where he lives.” And we would go. Well, it doesn’t take long before somebody says, “Something's going to be done, there was an investigator here and Commissioner Coleman brought him to my house.” Well the word leaked to the Police Department here, “Coleman has got an investigation going on.” And they launched a smear campaign on me. And I lost that election by less than a hundred votes. I would have won it, but the timing was such that I could not recover. The campaign was launched less than a week before the election, and that was my first term in office, I had not established full credibility, and it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened.

BRINSON: For you to loose the election?

COLEMAN: Yes.

BRINSON: Why do you say that?

COLEMAN: That was my first term. I sat out a term. I became so discouraged in the process of that smear campaign that I started to abandon politics completely. I said “If this is what politics is all about, I don’t want any parts of it.” But I had some good friends. I go back to the scripture when Job was experiencing his difficulty, I was going through a Job experience, except my friends came to me and said, “Your not going to quit. Your not going to quit.” Said, “You're going to gird up your loins, your going to hold your head up, and your going to work, and your going to keep your head high, and your going to fight.” And I did. I lost, but I felt good. But the reason I said it was the best thing that happened to me, I was out for a two year interval, and I came back for two successive elections I ran number one out of the whole field of candidates. I was the Mayor Pro Tem, and the only other interval I had in 1991 I elected to run for Mayor, and I lost that election, so I, beginning in 1974, to the day, I had two intervals, other than that I am in my twenty-third year.

BRINSON: Do you think you will be re-elected in the fall?

COLEMAN: I never take anything for granted. I learned that early in life. I will be out there working hard, I hope the people will judge me by my record, and by my ability, and by my preparation, and by my determination.

BRINSON: Mr. Coleman, what do you consider to be your most significant contributions as a member of the Commission for all of these years.

COLEMAN: Ahhh, I wish I would have known that this kind of question was coming, because there is so many things. When I came into office, we had numerous Boards and Commissions of volunteer people who influence and impact the quality of life in Paducah. Everything from the Library Board, we have a Municipal Water Works Board, we have a Municipal Electricity Board, we have a Planning and Zoning Commission, we have a Human Rights Commission, we have all kinds of Boards and Commissions. And at the time that I came into office, none of the things that black African-Americans were not part of, were some of these key boards that influence the quality of life. I’ll never forget it, there are always some good people, at that time the Mayor was a lady named Alice Dolly McNutt. She was affectionately known as Dolly McNutt. At my very first meeting or two Mayor McNutt says “Robert, may I, I need to talk with you a minute.” We were preparing for a meeting. I said “Sure Mayor,” and we went into her office. She said, “Have a seat and shut the door.” She handed me a legal pad with several pages, and I looked down and it had the names of various Boards and Commissions and it had the names of persons serving on these Boards and their tenure of service. She said “Robert, those are Boards and Commissions appointed by the Mayor.” Said, “That copy is yours.” Said, “ Now the Mayor has the right to make these appointments and they are certified by the City Commission.” She said, “Now I want to be fair, you study those and when term expiration evolves on some of these appointments and you have a recommendation, don’t hesitate to let me know, and I will give it consideration.” I said, “Thank you, Mayor.” Well, I looked at them and those Boards that we did not have an African-American presence, especially some of the key Boards, I started focusing on those. And one of those Boards was the Electric Plant Board. You see we have a municipal owned electric utility distribution system. We don’t generate electricity, we distribute it. It’s called the Electric Plant Board. And then, so my campaign manager at that time was the business manager of the West Kentucky Technical School, and um he was well qualified, I knew his background, and we were friends.

BRINSON: Can you tell me his name.

COLEMAN: Kinkle Anderson

BRINSON: Can you spell Kinkle?

COLEMAN: K-i-n-k-l-e. Very odd name, I’ve never seen it before in my life.

BRINSON: Okay, thank you.

COLEMAN: And I approached him and I said, “Would you consider serving on the Electric Plant Board?” He said, “Are you kidding?” I said, “No. I talked to the Mayor, and if you will consider serving I will recommend you.” He said, “ Well I’d be delighted.” I was always a stickler in some instances, formality so I drafted a letter to Mayor McNutt recommending Kinkle, for clarity I recommended Mr. Anderson. And a she received the letter and shortly after she received the letter she called me to her office. She said “Robert, I received your letter.” She says “I know Mr. Anderson, he’s a very qualified person for this Board,” and she said, “I remember what I told you, but I have a problem Robert.” I said, “What is that Mayor.” She said “I had promised this appointment to Mr. John Doe.” That wasn’t his name, but she said “I remember what I told you,” she said, “Now if you insist, I will appoint Mr. Anderson instead of Mr. Doe, but if you will allow me to fulfill my prior commitment, the very next appointment open for this Board, I will appoint Mr. Anderson.” I said, “Mayor, go ahead and appoint the person you have promised.” We had a very good working relationship in that respect. The very next appointment was the very first African-American presence on this Board. At the present time not only am I City Commissioner, of this same Board, I am Secretary/Treasurer. A member and Secretary/Treasurer on this Electric Plant Board, but subsequently I was able to get African-American presence on all of these key Boards, then . . .

BRINSON: So, in addition to helping to secure African American appointments to Boards and Commissioners, I understand that you were also instrumental in increasing jobs. . .

COLEMAN: That’s what I was getting ready--I increased--the first Personnel Director for the City of Paducah, African-American Personnel Director, I was instrumental in this. Uh, the first full-time Executive Director and office staff, and establishment of a Human Rights Commission, full-time, I was instrumental in doing that. The first African-American Police Chief, I was instrumental in that. The first African-American Fire Chief, I was instrumental in that. The first African-American Director of Solid Waste, I was instrumental in that. And it goes on, and on. Paducah has had a level of participation in high level appointments unparalleled in other cities of its’ size in Kentucky. Even other cities period, and I was right in the middle of all of these things.

BRINSON: I have one final question to ask you, and that is where would you like to go from here?

COLEMAN: I’m a Senior Citizen. I have often said that I’m winding down, but sometimes in my heart I, I don’t think I’ll wind down. It seems like I, I’ll probably continue and while I’m a Senior Citizen, I’ll probably run for office again after this time. I haven’t said that before, but I’ll put it in this context, as long as I can be effective, as long as I maintain my integrity; as long as I conduct myself in a way that no one can tell me, because they have certain controls, what to do, I will be in the arena. I just have to be there, seemingly, inside of me.

BRINSON: I told you earlier that I would come back and ask you how you became a member of the Kentucky Bar Association. [laughter] As a non-lawyer.

COLEMAN: As a non-lawyer.

BRINSON: That has to be pretty unusual.

COLEMAN: It was. The first inkling of this occurred in 1998. Um, I’m a member of a church down the street. Two blocks from here. It was organized a hundred and forty-five years ago.

BRINSON: And the name of the church?

COLEMAN: Washington Street Missionary Baptist Church. At the time it was organized, a hundred and forty-five years ago, down at 721 Washington, two blocks down the street; that was the edge if town, it was ten years before the end of slavery. It is considered a downtown church, along with four other churches, all happened to be white, it’s the Episcopal church, Grace Episcopal out on Broadway, Broadway United Methodist Church, which is the oldest institution in Paducah, uh, Saint Frances De Sales Catholic Church.

END SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

BRINSON: . . . When my tape cut off about um, the early churches and how you became involved with the Bar.

COLEMAN: We have a participation program, uh, where these five churches come together for a week of services leading up to Easter, five days. And uh, they have a noonday service, and uh, each day a different church is in charge of that noonday service. And in 1998 my minister, when it came the day for Washington Streets' participation, my minister was going to be out of the city; and so I was asked to asked to deliver the message. I'm not a minister, I am a Deacon, but I'm not a minister. And so, I said, "Well this is new," but uh, I says, "as a lay-person I'll give it my best." And the services were being held at Seventh and Jefferson at the First Presbyterian Church; and so I was the speaker for the noonday services during Easter Week, leading up to Easter. And we were having lunch following that service. We always had lunch each day following the service because people came from work during the noon hour, participated in the service and went back to work; we fed them lunch. And sitting across from me at the lunch period following the service was one of the Justices of the Kentucky Supreme Court, whom I happen to know, and he's from Paducah, Justice Graves; and he congratulated me. He said, "Robert, you did a fine job today." I said, "Well thank you, thank you Mr. Justice, thank you." And he said, "I got something I want you to consider." I said, "What is that?" He said, "Uh, I'd like to recommend you for the Bar Association Public Inquiry Commission." And I said, "But what's that?" And he said, "Well, we have decided to put four non-lawyers on the Bar Association Inquiry Commission, and they handle complaints of lawyer discipline. There are four people statewide, one from Eastern Kentucky, one from Northern Kentucky, one from the Central Areas; one from Western Kentucky, only four." And he says, "I want to recommend you as the person from Western Kentucky to serve." And within a few seconds I said, "This is a grand opportunity." And I said, "Well if I'm accepted Mr. Justice, I'd be delighted." And I got a letter back from Chief Justice Lambert, April, uh, for lawyer discipline.

BRINSON: And we have a copy of that that we will put in the record.

COLEMAN: Yeah, I gave you a copy of that.

BRINSON: Well. . . .

COLEMAN: And I am one of four non-lawyers, and I've served for over a year, and uh, it's been a challenge, it's been a new experience, and as a matter of fact I be going, we convene bi-monthly, at the Bar Center in Frankfort, and uh. it's been a wonderful opportunity and challenge, and it's good to, the lawyers, the Bar Association have complimented the lay-persons because of our input that's not attached to all of those legal terms and other opinions that lawyers seem to like to talk in that . . .

BRINSON: Well, thank you for sharing that.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

END OF INTERVIEW