Mayor Michael Coleman, Building a Lifelong Legacy in Community Service

Mayor Michael B. Coleman was the first African American Mayor of the capital city  Columbus, Ohio and served 4 terms. Mayor Coleman was born in Indianapolis, Indiana to John H. Coleman, a physician, and Joan Coleman, a criminal victim’s activist. Coleman’s family moved when he was three years old to Toledo, Ohio where his first jobs were working at the corner drug store, Kroger’s supermarket and his father’s barbeque restaurant. He attended St. John’s Jesuit High School in Toledo, Ohio and then went on to receive his B.A. degree in political science from the University of Cincinnati in 1977. Coleman obtained his J.D. degree from the University of Dayton School of Law in 1980.

As mayor, Coleman spearheaded the Columbus Downtown Business Plan and Neighborhood Pride, a program designed to engage communities to revitalize their neighborhoods. He also created the after-school program, Capital Kids, in 2001 and the Green Spot program in 2006, to encourage Columbus residents and businesses to protect the environment. Coleman has leveraged incentives to create and retain more than 92,000 jobs in the Columbus area. 

Mayor Coleman has been committed to empowering and mentoring the next generation of community leaders in Columbus, Ohio.

Transcript

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Welcome to a Be A Baller podcast where we discuss how to build a lifelong legacy. I'm your host, Coach Tim Brown. Today we'll be talking about building a legacy and community service with our special guest. Excited to have him on the show, a four-term, long-term mayor of Columbus, Ohio, Michael Coleman. Today, Mayor Coleman is going to share about how his over three decades in community service has allowed him to build a legacy, but also to empower the next generation to serve the community.

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Mayor Coleman, welcome to Be a Baller podcast. Thank you. It's good to be here. You're doing some great things for the city and for young people. I greatly appreciate it. Yeah, well, thanks for joining me today. Mayor Coleman, you grew up in Toledo. I understand your father was a physician and you also worked in the family barbecue business, you know. Did you have any interest in following your dad's career? No, I wasn't. I wasn't interested in being a doctor. My sister was, and she became a doctor. But I would faint at the sight of blood or a needle. I knew then when that occurred that I would not be a very good doctor. Yeah. How was the barbecue in Toledo? I had the best barbecue maybe in the Midwest. Folks used to come down from Detroit to eat my barbecue I would cook. Yeah. I was working there at the age of 13 or 14. I know about the child labor laws, but it didn't apply in my family. Child labor laws in my family was you work until you can't work no more. You feel mean on that grill. Can you still put it down? Oh, man, I can cook me some barbecue ribs. We had a special family barbecue sauce. Okay. And I made it. once a week and big vats of it. And man, I tell you, people would line up for my barbecue. I would cook every day after school, on the weekends till two, three o'clock in the morning, clean up, get ready for the next day. Next door was a jazz club. Part of the Chitlin Circuit. Right, right, right. So it had adjoining walls. And Bobby Blue Bland, B.B. King, many others would come through. And Everybody would come by after it was all over, after the show was over, come by and eat my barbecue ribs. Lined up down the street. It was interesting times. I really learned work ethic. That's where we're going next. So what were some of those valuable life lessons that you learned from your dad and mom growing up? You know, my dad grew up as a painter. He taught me how to paint. In fact, when I was in law school, I painted houses all over the city of Dayton and a few here in Columbus. I went to the University of Dayton School of Law. I was paid what I thought was handsomely at the time. And I worked as a law clerk for a judge. And on the weekdays, And part-time there and worked as a law clerk in a law firm. And then on the weekends, I would paint houses, both inside and out. And I was a busy dude. I'm surprised I even studied. But it was a work ethic I developed from early age. My father and mother gave me and all my... siblings uh and we weren't afraid of it it was expected it was like a coleman thing that you worked hard uh you earned your your your livelihood you set an example uh when you work you stay out of trouble you learn something in the process and if if what I wanted to do in life, which is be a lawyer, didn't work out, I had two things I could do very well. I can cook some barbecue ribs and I can paint. That would be a great career. Yeah, that's good stuff. I'm glad you mentioned that because everybody sees Mike Coleman, Mayor Coleman, a politician. It's good to hear that other side of you because when people see you on the community, I bet they never knew that you were a painter. You can paint their house if need be. Oh, man. I painted. I cut grass. I cut so much grass my shoes turned green. So much grass. Wow. I was a working dude, man. I was the oldest, too. I was the experiment on everybody. I was the point of the spear. It was As you look back on it, what sparked your interest in law and politics? Well, actually, there were two things I was thinking about doing in high school. One was being an architect.

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Mm-hmm.

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The other was being a lawyer. And I consider both of them. I ruled out architecture when I realized you had to be good at math. So I ruled that out. But I enjoyed history. I loved history. I love political science. I love current events. I read the newspaper at the age of 10 and 11 every day, cover to cover. I would just embrace the current events of the time and back in the 60s, this is the 60s, early 60s and all the way through the 60s, you know, I'm trying to figure out, you know, what I want to be in life. And I, you know, my dad, mom got us an ebony encyclopedia. I went through it just kind of learning, you know, black facts. And it just was inspirational to know of all these folks in the world that had exceeded in life through tremendous challenges. And I followed Thurgood Marshall very carefully in life. I eventually met him briefly when I was in law school, very briefly. But I saw during those days the issues of civil rights was being attacked and addressed through the course of law.

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Right.

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And I said, you know what? That seems to be an effective way of changing society. And I wanted to change society one way or another. Change something. Your time in life on this earth, I just don't want to be one of them kind of folks that is here and then goes and nothing happens in between. I wanted to have an impact some way, somehow. So I thought I could do it in law. And so I chose early on that I wanted to go to law school. And that's where I ended up, University of Dayton School of Law. I almost didn't make it though, because my best friend, one of my best friends, I have two or three really close friends. His name is Tyrone Yates. He's a former, he's a judge now in Cincinnati. He was in the state legislature and city council in Cincinnati, state legislature and state council. Well, we were roommates in college. We both wanted to be lawyers. And so you have to take a test to what's called the LSAT test. And you have to take that test and you have to score well. And so both of us were so in the notion and the mind of wanting to change the world as soon as possible. Both of us wanted to go into politics maybe, but we wanted to change the world. So what we did is back in the day when you had a reel-to-reel film and you had the big projectors. So the day before the LSAT test, instead of studying for it, going to bed early, getting up, eating breakfast, going to the test, my friend and I, Tyrone Yates, rented from the library or took from the library a reel-to-reel movie projector and rented, borrowed from the library documentaries on one and a half, two hours each on what's called, the documentaries were the making of the president. How various presidents from FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all the way to, I think it probably was Johnson, or Nixon, one of those, from a child all the way through their adult life as presidency, how they matured and how they ran their presidency and how they won the presidency. So we watched these about five or six documentaries until 7.30 in the morning from 7.30 at night the night before and so we went to the LSAT test and exhausted. He sat down and started taking the test. It's multiple choice. He started taking the test. I looked over and he had fallen asleep in the first 10 minutes. He was slobbering all over. He was asleep, knocked out. I was struggling to stay awake. I got through halftime. Right. And halfway through, and then I just started filling in, filling in. I don't know how I stayed up. I just started, I couldn't even read. I was so foggy brain. And then I fell asleep like the last, you know, hour or two. I just knocked out. And believe it or not, my tests were good enough.

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Wow.

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to get into law school, and I asked myself, what would I have done if I had actually studied, got some rest, and taken this test? But instead, I was in there foggy-brained, wanting to change the world, wanting to be inspired by these documentaries instead, went in beat and exhausted, but got through it. But got through it. That's it. Look at you now. Good. You know, speaking of politics, your first experience in in politics was being a legislative aide to a Ben Espy, a late, great Ben Espy. Can you talk about what you learned from that experience? You know, Ben is still around, and he's a mentor of mine, always has been. I've known Ben since I was 11 years old. He married Kathy Espy, who was like my sister. She passed away a couple years ago prematurely. Well, it's never really premature, but young. And uh so he was a mentor of mine for uh ever since i was 11 years old and i became uh helped him out on his first campaign running for city council he ran for city council and uh he won he was an underdog and he won he asked me to be his legislative aide and i was relatively new to columbus I think that was in, I came to Columbus in 1980. He hired me in 1982. I stayed with him a couple years. Then I went on to a law firm after that. But, you know, what it did was what it, what that experience did was, you know, let me know that Columbus had a lot of potential that it had not been reached.

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Yeah.

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and been talked about, never, never, in my mind, never achieved. He did a good job at setting standards. He did a lot of good things. He started the Columbus Youth Corps. He was focused on young people. You know, that experience showed me that you put your mind to it and nose to the grindstone, you could make a real change. And for the time he was on council, he made a change, and I learned from that. Who were some of the other mentors that helped guide you during your early political career? Gosh, I had so many. People like, well, of course, Ben was very big in my life. Jerry Hammond, he was very big in my life. Les Wright, Bob Duncan. uh supreme court judge he desegregated columbus schools you know i i tried to absorb from every adult uh fell hell failed he was a member of his church at the time we became great friends i remember uh when i was maybe uh 25 years old I didn't have hardly a dime in my pocket. I didn't have hardly any money. And, you know, he's a big jokester, you know. Failed to yell. And, you know, he said, I'm going to grow up to make all this money. And I said, oh, yeah, well, I hope so. But I doubt that's ever going to happen. He said, I'm confident, Coleman, you're going to be a bright star in the city and you're going to make all this money. I said, well, I'll tell you what, if you believe that, I'm going to write you a million dollar check today and you can cash it 20 years from now. I took out my checkbook and wrote a million dollar check. and signed it and gave it to him. He said, all right, 20, 25 years, I'm going to cash it. I said, it's on you, bro. Don't you know when he died, I understand he still had that$1 million check in his wallet. I'm told, yeah. He died maybe maybe about 10, 15 years after that, something like that. But I had a lot of strong mentors, my father, my mother. I always followed political figures. I read a lot. I read, you know, folks like Alvin Haley. I read about Malcolm X. I read and admired John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy I began to even look at historical figures from the Greek days. You know, major... I used to follow mythology, and I also followed ancient history as well. And I actually tested out of history in my first year of undergrad school and took graduate courses as a freshman.

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Wow.

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But I would follow diplomacy events from the ancient history days, generals, leadership. Not that I was trying to be like anybody. I was just interested in it. And I learned a lot from other people's experiences. And I thought about it afterwards. Yes. Yes,

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good. The courage to fight and the faith to believe. We're strong in numbers, moving with a purpose. We're not just a number, we're In The Number, the brand that counts. Visit us at InTheNumber.com.

SPEAKER_02: 18:26

You know, I grew up in East Cleveland, Ohio, 60s, 70s, and we had a mayor, Carl Stokes, Carl B. Stokes. Oh, yeah, I remember when he was elected. Yeah, and then George Forbes as well, city councilman. Oh, yeah, yeah. So he When I came to Columbus, moved here, I got so excited when you were elected as mayor, you know, as African-American mayor, because I've seen those guys and the impact that they had in the city. And so I was so excited about that. And you were the longest-tenured mayor, four terms. And the question is, what kept you motivated once you continued to lead this city? I know there were some ups and downs there. What kept you going? Well, I loved the job. I really enjoyed being the mayor of the city. It was, you Every once in a while, you get a role that you enjoy, and you start over time seeing progress and accomplishment. Not everything I did was successful, but I wasn't afraid of trying. In fact, I had probably more failures than successes. Probably as mayor, I don't remember too many failures, but I sure do remember the successes. That's right. But My motivation was my father taught me the most important word in life. He said, what's that? Perseverance. That's it. That's the word. I said, what does that mean? He said that no matter what the challenges are, you must continue to strive to be the best and try to succeed. And that there will be times when things are going to knock you down. And the question is not whether you were knocked down because you will be knocked down. The question is, how do you get back up as soon as you can? and to persevere through everything in front of him. And so that was my dad's favorite word. And that is what impressed me in my own head. Just keep going, just keep going. It's gonna work, it's gonna work. Don't fear failure. and don't fear success. Because people do both of those sometimes in Columbus. They're afraid to move because they're afraid to fail, or they don't know what success is, so they don't move. You know, I say, let's just go. Let's go. Let's figure it out. As you reflect on that, you and your administration led Columbus, and not just Central Ohio, this whole region, to a tremendous growth for projects that you're most proud of. And that's a tough one. But it'd Give me a couple projects that you're most proud of. You know, it's a hard one to figure out. I'd like to leave it to the historians, but I can tell you a couple of... efforts that were extremely successful that got very little press, very little acknowledgement. One of them was an effort I call Restoration Academy. What Restoration Academy was was an effort to take former felons, retrain them, restore their lives, and get them back into a job through a six month bootcamp. And my recollection is we have maybe 700 plus people go through Restoration Academy. And I think like 700, 690, like 95% went on to successfully complete the courses and the effort, the boot camp, and now on to successful jobs. I can tell you that over the years, I run into people that were part of the Restoration Academy and were former felons. and whose lives have been turned around, productive jobs, graduate degrees. I ran into this one dude. He went on, he had been in, he committed a felony, went through our program. He now has a PhD.

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PhD.

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And And I run into these people all the time, and they tell me how I changed not just their lives, but the lives of their families and their children. And I remember meeting with them on the first week or so of class of the academy, and I kind of leaned in them really hard and said, this is your last chance. there'll be no more chances after this. You have a chance to raise your children. You have a chance to do this. We had a long conversation. I spent a couple hours with them, every class, every single class. Each class had a camaraderie with each other that survived to this day. That was a big one. It no longer exists, but it was... extremely important to me to see that go forward and how that got started was you know i have a kind of reputation of going to uh the heritage festival and other festivals hanging out so um i like to do that meet people and be around for talking you know i'm like i'm not in a formal setting right right uh and so i go all the time to uh the heritage festival on Thursday nights King Arts and I can remember on multiple occasions a black man come up to me and say I just got let out of prison I don't know what to do can you help a brother out and I was lost for words I didn't know what to tell him or where to go I said what do you want to do I said I don't know I just want you to help me out. And so it hit me. So I went back to the office. I said, you know, we got to figure out how we could impact, start out with Black men, but it ended up with everybody. Anybody been to prison. The reality is, you know, 75% were Black men, but was open to everybody. So at any rate, I viewed it as a very successful program. You know, I think I laid a foundation for advancement in the Near East side with all the development I was responsible for on Longstreet and in that area over the years, just lots of public investment. And that's now turned into private investment, new housing, you know, turning around Northland area with the demise of Northland Mall. on at London with the Four Corners effort, you know, putting CMHA there, taking down a school, a whole bunch of stuff in that area, the South London area. Me and Clarence Lumpkin, you know, me taking his lead, actually, on much of it. Some of my work downtown, housing efforts. You know, there was a time during my time as mayor where Columbus was named by, I think, Ebony Magazine. It could have been it could have been essence or it could have been black enterprise but one of those three publications claimed that Columbus was the best city in the nation for black folks for African Americans I was very proud of that because a lot had been accomplished you know in those days and it's laid a foundation for you know going forward we got a lot of good leaders coming up here and I'm proud of you know everything that's been done in the city. When you hear the word legacy, what does that mean to you? It means how people view you. I don't know what my legacy will be until after I'm gone. Somebody will figure that out. So I don't know what it'll be because I was involved in so many things. Yeah. So it's hard to say. Yeah, that's the thing I love about you, that you, and part of this podcast is about building a legacy, you know, being intentional in that. And one thing I know you did was your legacy continues through the young leaders that you supported. You empowered and you gave opportunities to be in leadership positions. Can you talk about why you were so intentional in empowering that next generation to lead the city? You know, I think it was very important to, you know, being in leadership is not about feathering your bed. It's about preparing others for leadership. And so I identified a number of people over the years that I thought could do great in this city. Shannon Harden is a key example. And there might be a dozen others that I embraced. that say, you know, this is going to be the next generation. I'm going to do what I can do to make sure that they are successful in life. Erica Clark-Jones, I mean, it lists as significant over a period of time both white folks and black folks yeah yes uh i mean just a long list of people over the years that work for me or part of my team that have gone on to uh extend out into the community to run things to be a part of things that are still in leadership roles of the city um in probably every major industry in the city that came up during my time. You know, training them up, getting them going. And I'm proud of that. I mean, if that's a legacy, that'd be great. Creating a legacy, bringing other people up. Right. Yeah, I think that's what you've done. This has been a great conversation. To wrap up, turn the corner, I want to know, could you share a word to young people about the value of being involved in the community service? I can see a lot of things going on in today's world, even our city and our world. Can you share with young people the value of being involved, not just being on the side well let me just say this when you're on the sideline and watching the game you're a spectator and when you're a spectator you just observe right I've always wanted to be on the playing field yeah I wanted to ensure that my life would be on the playing field and I would carry the ball, sometimes pass it off, block, tackle, or it was a game of basketball, shoot, pass. But being on a playing field is important in life. And to do so, you need to outreach, reach out to others. You know, your life is truly measured by how you improve the life of others. Someone once told me that. Your life is only as good as you make the life of others good. And it's not just about you. And if you want a legacy, if you want to be remembered, on earth because you only have but a certain amount of time to be on earth you want to be remembered for providing some direction guidance support to someone other than you if you're a billionaire Ain't nobody going to remember that unless you make other billionaires. You know, if you're successful, you know, I mean, people will, that's a short memory. Your success will be how you make other people succeed. So being part of the community is all, what's that about, you know? making the community better, making people better, making our lives better. And when you do that, that makes your life better. That's good. Well, this brings us to the end of this episode. I want to thank you, Miracle, for all you've done for the city of Columbus and empowering and just being that role model, being that example. I want to thank you. I love those stories about your dad and that whole work ethic, you know, and all that barbecue and all that. That was great. But I want to thank you for that. this informative discussion on how to build a legacy in community service. And I pray the audience was blessed by this. As always, thanks for being a baller and listening to the Be A Baller podcast. So thanks, Mayor Coleman, for your time. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time and all your work. Thank you, sir.

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If you enjoy our show, please share this podcast with your family and friends. Be A Baller podcast is available on all major podcast stations. Be sure to come back next week as we continue to discuss on how to Until then, don't forget to be a baller. This podcast was created by Coach Tim Brown. It was edited by Taran Howell and produced and recorded by the video production class of Worthington Christian High School.