For University professor Dr. Edwin Coleman, segregation has been a way of life, not just a term describing racial separation.
While he didn’t partake in the Montgomery Bus Boycott or march for civil rights in Washington, D.C., Coleman has seen how black stereotypes are still entwined with past and present American culture. “It doesn’t matter if you are in New York, Mississippi or Chicago,” Coleman said. “A certain element of people don’t see me. Even if I wore my academic gown, that wouldn’t matter.”
Coleman retired in 1998 from a full-time position at the University after 33 years, but he continues to bring his stories to students on campus, and he can’t seem to keep himself away from teaching English classes. As the eldest of four children, Coleman grew up in El Dorado, Ark., surrounded by poverty and racism.
“You learned to live with prejudice and made sure you didn’t walk on the same side of the street as a white man,” Coleman said.
Coleman said his father was a barber and his mother cleaned a house for a white family. Coleman remembered how they combined their wages every week for a total of only $30 to $40. His parents never finished high school, but they taught Coleman right from wrong.
He learned how to read at Fairview School in Arkansas. The all-black school was strengthened by teachers who were dedicated to improving student knowledge and reading skills, despite often not having proper teaching credentials. Coleman said his teachers used education as a way to help black people move up in the world.
Coleman’s family later moved to the segregated Alameda housing projects in California. The housing complexes consisted of tiny square rooms with one bathroom and thin walls.
“They were like cracker boxes with holes in them,” Coleman said. “They were supposed to be temporary housing until the war ended.”
But even after World War II, the buildings remained full of families.
From about 1940 to 1948, Coleman lived in Oakland, Calif., where he learned how to navigate the streets without showing fear.In the 1960s, Coleman found his place in the civil rights movement in San Francisco and Berkeley, where members of the Congress of Racial Equality perfected civil disobedience tactics.
“You learned how to protect yourself and the back of your head,” Coleman said, describing the tucked non-violent position sit-in activists would use to guard themselves from arrest and police assault.
He also learned how different the racial climate was on the West Coast compared to the East and the South. Coleman said Berkeley and San Francisco were both liberal towns, but Berkeley had an advantage for black people.
“If you were out late at night and didn’t want to be hassled, you made sure you stayed in Berkeley,” Coleman said.
Despite Berkeley’s progressive environment, Coleman and many other black people were denied acceptance to University of California, Berkeley. But Coleman still managed to beat the odds. He completed his college education at San Francisco City College, went into the Air Force and later earned his doctorate in theater arts at the University of Oregon.
For three years, Coleman played the bass violin and traveled with folk groups such as Peter, Paul and Mary.
“Music has been a way of connecting with good mental health in a real unstabilized world,” Coleman said.
According to Coleman, America is still unstable in terms of equality.
“America is supposed to be what our Constitution talks about,” Coleman said. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — that’s all black people want.”
Coleman said the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. is an important reminder of what this country has been through to achieve civil rights. Coleman said King has become a symbol of the struggle of black people.
King “was not a saint,” Coleman said. “His message and his preachings were representative of the lives of African-Americans and touched the lives of white people.”
Coleman has applied King’s teachings to his own life.
“I have been fortunate enough to have made some roads out of the trenches,” Coleman said. “But I am not free until everyone is free. That’s what King is saying.”
Coleman’s insights are respected by students and faculty alike. In Coleman’s name, the Multicultural Center created the Dr. Coleman Speaker Series to ensure Coleman’s legacy would not fade on campus. Guest speakers, educational institutes and facilitated workshops will be featured at this year’s conference, set for April 18-22.
Coleman “has a tremendous wealth of information and lived experience that, as we get further and further away from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, we tend to lose sight of,” said John Shuford, Martin Luther King Jr. planning coordinator.
Shuford and Mark Tracy, assistant dean of students, said the campus community can learn from Coleman’s wisdom.
“He brings to campus a historical perspective of events that this generation only knows about in books,” Tracy said. Coleman “gives a personal account of the steps that we [took] to get where we are today.”
From the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to MTV special reports on hate crimes in 2001, Tracy said black people have waited patiently for change.
“White, male society needs to step up and start taking responsibility for situations,” Tracy said.
Coleman also said change in society must be prompted by white people.
“Minorities don’t have that power. It’s the privilege that makes the power,” Coleman said. “The power structure in this country is still in the hands of white men.”