Bill Allison is the second inclusion to my series: Activists I Love. Bill has a long, illustrious career, championing the rights of the marginalized and disfranchised. Truly, he is a Southern patriot. I am honored to call him a friend.
His life's work as a civil rights advocate is formidable. I can not give it justice in one, brief blog post. Rather, I want to paint his activism in broad strokes and tell you a bit about how and why I came to love him as a comrade as well as one of my favorite people!
I first met Bill in the mid 1980's when my university anti-Apartheid activism organically transitioned to anti-racism and gay/lesbian* activism within the Louisville community. As an established civil rights attorney, he graciously allowed groups to meet in his office after hours.
It was there that I met him at meetings for electoral work for a local progressive mayoral candidate. Little did I know who I was sitting next to. When the University of Louisville became the first US Southern university to divest their holdings from South African Apartheid, he pulled me aside to congratulate me on the student's successful intensive 2 year campaign.
He asked probing questions about my political ideas and asked what I planned to do next. Shucks, I knew I wanted to continue my advocacy for the rights of people of color, women, etc. I explained where my head was at and how that had brought me there; but I was just working campaign to campaign. I was like all university students who become politically aware. I was thirsty for an explanation (and dare, I say, analysis) of US racism, patriarchy and all the other "isms" I was seeing.
I will never forget when he looked me in the eye and commented how my mind had been exposed to the ugly realities that greed and ignorance can bring forth in the world. Whether it was Apartheid in South Africa, El Salvadoran death squads in Central America or the KKK in Louisville, Ky, he said "You have learned some hard truths. And with knowledge, comes responsibility."
Whoa. That was deep; and that truth has stayed with me to this day. Thus, a deep respect and friendship developed. We would work politically together for years, until I moved to San Francisco. But I still look him up whenever I visit Louisville and boy, does time fly when we get together.
Bill became politicized during the anti-war and civil rights struggles of the 1960s. While still just a law student, he met Carl and Anne Braden and began working with the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF). SCEF was one of the few white organizations working across racial lines at that time. You can hear Bill explain the fervor of these times in this wonderful 2000 interview. It's a truly fascinating first hand account of the South coming to grips with the civil rights movement.
He worked on cases with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) defending the rights of anti-war activists. He was one of the attorneys with the famous case for The Black Six. After that, he became know as a "civil rights attorney" (a term that had not existed before those times) and began his long law career defending the rights of marginalized people.
From electoral work for Jesse Jackson, Darryl Owens, Harold Washington and more, Bill learned how to run campaigns. He eventually ran and won a seat on Louisville's Board of Aldermen and continued to support progressive issues in Louisville as an elected official.
The next several decades saw him continue his community advocacy with his legal mind and his open heart. He joined ranks with the Louisville chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice
(LSURJ) and you could count on him to canvas and go door to door to get the word out on issues such as ending cash bail or in support of local progressive judges. As a core leader in the organization, he has helped make LSURJ one of the most effective organizations in Louisville. Bill says: "We have to reach working-class white people because they have so many reasons to stand with people of color."
In my 2023 trip to Louisville, I spent a day with Bill and his long time love, Pat.
Pat Allison, is a wonderful painter. I was lucky to visit her studio space and get a personal tour of her works. Bill and I also visited and the day ended with him taking us to his favorite eatery.
He told me how his love of jazz (Bill is a trombone musician) had led him to discovering a forgotten jazz musician by the name of Bill Coleman. Coleman hailed from Bill's own hometown, Paris, Ky. And it was that fact that flabbergasted Bill, when he realized he had never heard of this accomplished jazz musician.
Coleman was born in Paris, Ky around 1905 and lived through the racism and segregation that was small Southern towns at that time. Long story short (you can hear Bill tell the whole story in this 2023 radio interview), Coleman became a gifted jazz musician and played with the likes of Louis Armstrong and other jazz luminaries. Coleman toured, and recorded music but became disgusted with the poor treatment he received (a la "Green Book" movie); so he moved to Paris, France. Like so many other African American artists of that day, he lived the rest of his life in France, where he pursued his musical career without the hazards of Jim Crow and segregation.
Bill knew he wanted to shine a light on Coleman's music and life story. Racism and segregation had kept this great music away from us all. As Bill explains in the aforementioned radio interview, white people also suffer from racism and segregation. Their lives are not enriched with the contributions of those they neglect to notice.
In an act of cultural activism, Bill met with the mayor of Paris, Kentucky, and told him about Coleman and asked "what can we do to bring home this forgotten son of Paris, Ky?". The mayor put him in touch with the Hopewell Museum of Historic Paris and Bourbon County. They also wanted to honor Coleman. And July 14 - 16, 2023 ushered in the first annual Bill Coleman Jazz Festival. The weekend included lectures about the life and music of Bill Coleman as well as wonderful Southern jazz ensembles. Bill and Pat Allison would eventually go on to visit Paris, France to honor Coleman in his chosen country.
I could go on with fun (and funny) stories about Bill and me. The black and white photo of Bill and me was taken at the rainy March in Washington in 1987. This color picture of us was taken in 2023. We both have led interesting and impactful lives. I just count myself lucky to have shared some of my time on this planet with this man.
* In the mid 1980's the queer liberation movement used the abbreviations of GL for gay and lesbian. It would not be until later that the other initials joined the acronym to where we are today.
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