A Lifelong Activist: Isaac Coleman

by Cathy Holt

Isaac Coleman
Photo by Cathryn Shaffer

Isaac Coleman is one of those soft-spoken activists who seem to show up everywhere-canvassing for city council candidates, speaking up at meetings of progressive Democrats, strategizing over dinner on African American and Latino unity, or planning how to involve area businesses in the Kindness Campaign. He works part time for the Environmental Quality Institute at UNCA and serves on the boards of Clean Water for North Carolina, the Education Coalition, and the Kindness Campaign.

In the 2005 election, he served as campaign manager for Terry Bellamy
and as a campaign volunteer for Robin Cape and Holly Jones.

Coleman\’s activism began in 1961 at Knoxville College, a small African
American college in Tennessee, during sit-ins aimed at integrating
public accommodations. “I was in jail practically every other day,” he
recalled. “We college students created such an uproar in Knoxville that
the city officials negotiated with the college officials to try to make
us stop demonstrating! They threatened us with expulsion, and a lot of
the group dropped out at that point.” But Coleman was just getting
started. Knoxville was supposed to receive an “All-American City”
award. “We were all set to picket, to let people know it wasn\’t an
All-American City. We arrived with our picket signs in a van, but the
police were waiting for us and just carted us off to jail. At 5 am we
were taken to court and sentenced to thirty days at the County Farm.

“When we got there, they told us to take a shower, but provided no
towels, telling us to just dry off with our undergarments. This was in
the wintertime. So we refused the showers and got put into “the hole\’:
tiny cubicles, solitary confinement. When it came suppertime, all they
fed us was cold cornbread and water, even though we could smell the
beef stew they were serving the other prisoners, and we were starving.
So we refused to eat that. They gave us a coffee can to urinate into.
One of the men said after awhile that his coffee can was full. So one
of the guards said he was coming in to get it, but they jumped on my
friend and started beating him; it was a joke for them.”

In 1964, at the end of his junior year in college and shortly after the
murders of Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner, Coleman went to Mississippi
with the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) to work on
voter registration projects in Columbus and West Point, where they held
a “Freedom School” with tutoring and a library for youth. Next, he went
to Tupelo and was project director of a campaign to elect one of Medgar
Evers\’ brothers for governor.

“We were working in the housing projects,” he remembers. “The police
started coming after us so we skipped town.” He rode with other civil
rights workers, a white man and two white women, sitting in the back
seat next to a white woman. “We got arrested in the next town. When the
cop looked into the car and saw me there, he grinned and said, “Nigger,
you\’re in big trouble!\’”

“They took us to the jail and a crowd of white people started throwing
rocks at the windows. A policeman came to my cell and told me to come
to him. I refused at first, but after several threats, I came to the
door of the cell and he grabbed me by my goatee and slammed my face up
against the bars. All of us were taken to the chief of police office
one by one where we were questioned. I was told that if it had not been
for the publicity around the recent deaths of Cheney, Goodman and
Schwerner, they would have let the mob have us. But they let us make
one phone call, so we called SNCC; they called the Justice Department.
Finally, with the intervention of the Justice Department, the state
police escorted us out of town.”

After the Freedom Summer of 1964, Coleman took a break, spending time
in New York and New Orleans, then returned to Jackson, Mississippi,
where he joined the Nation of Islam and helped found a mosque, serving
as minister and prayer leader there until he moved to Asheville in
1971. The Southern Poverty Law Firm offered him a job as an organizer
for black leadership in the Appalachian states for a leadership
conference. For two year he worked for the Black Appalachian Commission
funding economic development projects and then, when funding ended,
took a job with the Model Cities program under President Lyndon
Johnson\’s War on Poverty.

Recalls Coleman, “We had a strong employment program; we got Asheville
Transit Authority to hire its first African American drivers, and we
were active in finding jobs that were not traditionally hiring African
Americans. An African American became Human Resources director for the
city – that was a first! There were quite a number of African Americans
who were the first to work in an administrative capacity for the city –
not menial jobs. By this time I needed a job myself, and I got a
position as a Housing Code inspector.”

In January 2005 Coleman got involved with the progressive Asheville
Coalition. Optimistic about electing progressives to City Council, he
volunteered with Robin Cape\’s campaign committee. “Also,” he says, “I
talked with Terry Bellamy and encouraged her. Her previous run for
Mayor had been unsuccessful, but I sensed that her time had come. She
asked me to run her campaign and I did. For the African American
community to make progress, it depends on leadership; people need
someone to identify with and then, change is possible. Having Terry win
the election is a big step forward!”

“Education and employment” are two key issues in Asheville, says
Coleman. “One-third of African Americans in Asheville live in public
housing, and in those projects the unemployment rate for African
Americans is 80-90%. There is an achievement gap in the schools,
between African American and Caucasian students, which is now beginning
to close at the elementary level. The Education Coalition is helping to
close the gap, but it remains wide in middle school and high school,
and the high school dropout rate for African American males is high. We
need to help African American children be successful in the schools.
They are still not teaching African American children to read, and
that\’s a tragedy. The education system must become more sensitive to
all people of low wealth.”

A cofounder of the African-American-Latino Coalition, known as
“Afro-Tina,” Coleman says: “Many of the problems that Latinos face are
similar to those of African Americans. We need cultural understanding
between the two groups. There is already some conflict among young
people, due to lack of understanding. We need to unite to overcome the
socio-economic barriers both groups face. Afro-Tina is still in its
infancy, assessing programs that address the problems in the school
system. We don\’t want to duplicate efforts, but to see where there is a
need we can address.”

Coleman believes that successful change always depends on political
representation, and he hopes to see a Latino elected to City Council in
2007. Among the changes he seeks are improved employment opportunities
and a decent living wage. “We need to emphasize both college and
technical schools in preparing youth for the new jobs. I\’m hoping to
see more unity among all people in Asheville. I think we\’re making
great progress, as shown by the overwhelming interracial vote for
Bellamy. If we can keep that kind of spirit going, we can be
ambassadors for unity and progressive change.”

Describing his involvement with the Kindness Campaign, Coleman said,
“The Kindness Campaign can play a very important role in all of these
issues, spreading the philosophy of kindness in the social, economic,
and political spheres. The Kind & Safe Schools program will help
relieve tension between socio-economic and racial groups, by decreasing
bullying and heading off gang activity, and promoting better
understanding. I believe that the Kindness Campaign will also have a
positive effect on how employers treat employees and how service people
treat their customers, as the campaign reaches out to the business
community. Asheville is a great place already, and it can be a lot
better.”