MAN?

"WHAT MANNER OF MAN?" When pondering "What manner of man is this?" as Lerone Bennett,Jr. did in his biography of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it may well be well to review a definition of man. This man, this woman, is unique. These suffer much but do not hate ; have been robbed of so much but are not jealous; been down so long but keep on rising! What manner of man is this? Ask rather is this really a man or a god? Is this really a man or a god; who have already acceded to sermon on the mount precepts in dealing with their oppressors? Who have been crucified by the thousands on lynching trees, but do not die; but who live on, like Jesus, return to life like the Christ? What manner of man is this? This is not a man at all! no man in the least, appearances aside. This is a god bound in iron chains. This is the cosmic miracle made manifest in flesh blood bone! https://biblehub.com/matthew/8-27.htm

AMERICAN COUNTERREVOLUTION

AMERICAN "COUNTERREVOLUTION" United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, the nation's fourth , is fondly favored with the sobriquet, "The Great Justice," by we lawyers and judges, as though he were a demigod or a legal titan. However, after reading his 1813 ruling in an appeal from a freedom suit from Prince George's County, Maryland, "Mima Queen and Child, Petitioners for Freedom v. Hepburn," (7 Cranch C.C. 290), I now have a considerably different opinion and conception of the man, who wrote so many of our nation's earlier iconic legal decisions . In a powerful, carefully researched, 2018 book, APPEALING FOR LIBERTY FREEDOM SUITS IN THE SOUTH by Loren Schweninger the following observation appears: "One of the lawyers for the Boston plaintiffs, Gabriel Duval, who by 1813 had become an associate justice of the Supreme Court, had fought for many years against the counterrevolution following the American Revolution, as white Marylanders sought to solidify the 'peculiar institution ' of slavery in the Upper South . In his minority dissent to Marshall 's opinion, Duval pointed out that in Maryland many claims for freedom could be proved only with hearsay, because 'no living evidence' existed. The admission of such evidence in freedom suits had thus been affirmed by the unanimous opinion of the high court of appeals after full and fair argument by the ablest counsel at the bar. 'If the ancestor neglected to claim her right , the issue could not be bound by any length of time, it [freedom] being a natural inherent right,' Duval reasoned , and therefore found the argument for admitting hearsay evidence more compelling in freedom suits than it was in cases concerning pedigree or land boundaries: 'It will be universally admitted that the right to freedom is more important than the right of property.'" P. 24 Justice Marshall saw matters quite contrarily . He therefore perfected the American "counterrevolution" by ruling against Mima Queen and her child in their bid for freedom . That he hid behind hearsay in the plaintiffs' case, while deeming it to be efficacious and admissible in a variety of other cases, shows how much he devalued human freedom; especially that of African slaves! We were not introduced to the "Mima Queen" case even at the Howard Law School, rightly renown for its historic civil rights legacy. Our curriculum was essentially the same as that in white law schools. Nor in the middle 1970s, were we made privy to any semblance of similar cases to "Mimi Queen's reflecting the virulent American "counterrevolution," which surely would have changed our conduct. Given the foregoing, one may now have a better appreciation for the fact that Roger Taney of Maryland (Dred Scott fame) succeeded John Marshall of Virginia on the court !

APPEALING FOR LIBERTY & TORT REFORM

Tort reform has an undistinguished history of descent from slavery. While reading "African American Women and the Genealogy of Slavery," in APPEALING FOR LIBERTY: FREEDOM SUITS IN THE SOUTH by Loren Schweninger (2018), I read: "Slaves in Maryland continued to sue slaveowners for their freedom in subsequent years , but even as the Boston slaves' trial was drawing to a close the Maryland Assembly in 1796 passed a law altering the process of such suits . No longer, it stipulated, could such suits originate in the General Court of the Western Shore, considered by many to be 'the most prestigious judicial body in the state.' Rather such future contests would be adjudicated in the county of plaintiff's residency. In addition both plaintiffs and defendants could request a jury trial, and appeals could be made only 'as to matters of law.' Further, if a freedom suit was dismissed and brought again by the same party, the court could order a stay until the court costs of the first case had been fully paid. Lastly, free blacks could not henceforth testify against whites." P.22 Of course, the Legislature in Missouri replicated the Maryland Assembly, in tightening the terms of its own Freedom Suits, after its 1821 statehood. These fetters followed an earlier more hopeful period of victorious prospect at common law. That was when the McGirks were lawyers and judges. By 1850s such statutory strictures had produced the infamous Dred Scott decision. But. I digress . Tort reform strictures also follow venue, juries, costs, witnesses and other regulations to limit the prospect of plaintiffs ' prevailing, as was done in Maryland and Missouri with respect to slave Freedom Suits. https://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=120760

EMANCIPATION MAKING OF BLACK LAWYERS

"The year 1944 had a dual significance for black American lawyers because it marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of Howard University School of Law and the centennial anniversary of the admission of Macon Bolling Allen, the first black lawyer, into the legal profession. In addition to these benchmarks, between 1871 and 1944 the law school had graduated more than one thousand students, many of whom had achieved distinction, as Dean [John Mercer] Langston and Professor [Albert Gallatin] Riddle had forecasted. "In addition to being the first American law school to open up its doors with both a black dean and a white professor, Howard University's law school was the first to declare a nondiscriminatory policy in 1869. White male and female students were admitted to Howard University from its inception... "Mary Ann Shadd Carey, a black woman, claimed that she was admitted to Howard University's first class in 1869; if her contention is true, this makes her and Lemma Barkaloo, who entered Washington University's law school in Missouri in the same year , the first women admitted to an American law school. However, the honor of being the first black woman to receive a law degree and the first to be admitted to the bar in the nation belongs to Charlotte E. Ray, who was graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1872. She became the first black woman admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia. Only three other white women had graduated from a law school prior to Ray." P.54-55, "Black Students in the Law Schools, EMANCIPATION THE MAKING OF THE BLACK LAWYER 1844-1944, by J. Clay Smith, Jr. (1993) http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1790.html 

GOD IS & WAS

GOD IS & WAS BEFORE THERE IS & WAS TIME, SPACE, MATTER, ENERGY & AFTER THEY CEASE TO BE. AMEN .

LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL DELIGHTS

LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL WAS A LABOR OF LOVE One of my most savoring experiences was being a volunteer in education instructor at Lincoln High School KCMO, 1977-1978, when I was employed by the U.S, Dept. of Labor. As a new Missouri lawyer, I had applied to teach at Lincoln, in a joint program with the KC Bar and the school district, when Dr. Charles Wheeler was Superintendent. Mrs. Katherine Smith was the teacher to whose room I was assigned. The students were bright, eager, attentive and disciplined. While we were supposed to talk about juvenile delinquency, I knew better then to bring that mess into my context. it was not me! So, me being me, I brought in black history, spirituality, and upward mobility to these all-black students. Consequently, I brought in stock brokers, commodities dealers, real estate brokers, insurance agents, physicians. and others, after explaining to the class how these people interacted with their lives, and showing them, how they, too, come become such. The program lasted just one year. The students showered me with gifts in the end, and with a surprise classroom party. A few years later, a young woman came to work in the United States Attorney's Office, in KC, where I then worked, as a clerk. I was delighted! she regaled in my tutelage at Lincoln. After that, a former male student, sent his sister to me with a worker's compensation case, when I was in private practice; that male student had become a railroad executive in France. Finally, a few years later, another of my students, a Senior V.P. with Charles Schwab & Co. retained me to represent him in his legal case. in KC, while he lived and worked in Florida. At a concert in KC, a young man in a gas mask approached me, with marijuana smoke seeping from its seals. Turned out to be another of my students! "Mr. Coleman! Mr. Coleman!" he said, "I'll bet you didn't recognize me, did you?" No indeed! I conceded. I took this example to talk about drugs and chemistry, relative to obtaining "utilizable skills" in life, rather than being victimized by any public, scurrilous conduct. No names were mentioned. I later learned he had eared a degree in chemistry from a Missouri university. Praise God! All of these wonderful experiences rewarded me for my work, as a volunteer- educator. All rewards are not immediate; nor cash. Feelings of love, joy, communion, hope are rewarding !

RULER AND SUNDAY SCHOOL BOOK

A RULER, A SUNDAY SCHOOL BOOK A ruler and a Sunday School book were our late Uncle Emmett Love's emblems, symbols, stock in trade. Uncle Emmett Love Coleman was our father's younger brother, who went to trade school in Mississippi, who built a house at age 16, who became a licensed bricklayer and stonemason of note in St. Louis from the 1950s-2000s. He was an artist with his trial, a magician with his creative artistic imagination in construction and homebuilding. At age 4 or 5, I walked about in a big house on Big Bend Boulevard in Meacham Park, Kirkwood, Missouri, that he and other skilled workers, including Daddy, were repairing and rehabilitating prior to moving his family from Electric Street, where they resided down the street from us. A bit of plaster nearly splashed in my face, as I was watching one of the Ward brothers plaster the ceiling. He told me to "get back out of the way", lest I be hurt, accidentally injured! I have never forgot plaster's near-miss! My brother Harold recently recalled Uncle Love to mind, in a phone call. Harold reflected upon our uncle's ruler and Sunday School book, that he carried around with him as he traveled. His being a brick and stone mason explains the ruler. The Sunday School book was from church. For like all our Coleman clan, Uncle Love loved the Lord! Uncle Love was a vested member of the Olive Chapel AME Church. A stained glass window bearing his name is still in the church. He was a delegate to the AME Church's 1984 General Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, that I briefly attended just in time to receive a "Discipline" that was distributed freely to delegates. I was not a delegate, but at Uncle Love's behest, I went down to the gathering of colored folks in KC to witness the wonder of it all, and to see our beloved Uncle Love! So. I got a Discipline too in their mass distribution, being colored myself! Ten years later, I would be first a member, then a preacher then an ordained itinerant elder at Brooks Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, myself, after joining Allen Chapel KCMO, under Rev. Alvin L. Smith; then being assigned to the Butler, Missouri, 1871 facility by then Presiding Elder, W. Bartallettte Finney, in September 1995. But whenever I was in St. Louis, I especially enjoyed attending Uncle Love's Sunday School class at Olive Chapel AME Church in Kirkwood, Missouri. It was taught by the late Harold Whitfield, Esq., an older black attorney, who may have been the first such in St. Louis County, a testament in itself to a lowly status. Though in my 40s-50s by this time, I was still viewed as a pup by these elders. But a bright and active pup! In a way, then, Uncle Love's ruler and Sunday School book led me straight into the AME Church from a period of religious uncertainty as what followed my fellowship in the St. Matthews CME Church, also in Meacham Park, Missouri, our family Church, where Daddy and Mama raised all of us; where also Mama's named is etched in its cornerstone. More broadly, then, having some command of the technical and the spiritual is a winning family ticket! Get you a ruler and Sunday School book! You will see! wonders, when you put them to their naturally intended uses!