Latest / It's Just Business with Lovie™ / Preserving Family Legacy with John H. Coleman Jr
Transcript
- Lovie: In the month of February, I posted about Black History Month. And we should not only talk about Black history of others, I feel like we all have what I call my history. We all have history within our families. and we need to stop and recognize that also, not only black history, but all year round. So I wanted to recognize my dad for Black History Month as my Black History. He is the author of A View from Church Hill. woke up in my right mind, and there it is. So he is the one that introduced me into business. He is the one I worked with hand in hand learning business. and even though we owned a business together, we butt heads quite often. But I come to find out that that's because we're more alike than either one of us want to admit. the other thing about my dad is that In this area, people often called him officer-friendly because he worked with a project with the Sears Foundation to develop officer-friendly kits to go into the classrooms in Chicago. They were in the classrooms here in this area, and also I believe nationwide, but don't hold me to that. I'm gonna get him to answer those questions. And there goes. So I just wanted to turn it over to you for a minute, welcome in, Dad. I want to go ahead and give you this opportunity to tell everybody a little bit about yourself. JHC: I'm John eighty nine and I was in the Navy for twelve years. Then I went into police work, good police work. I wasn't one of the bad guys, I was one of the good guys. While on the police department, I was partners in two businesses. One was a record shop, we call it the Soul Shack record shop. And then we went into any time catering service. And after I retired, was a family deal. We went into the Cold Stone Creamery. We we we opened the first first Cold Stone Creamery in Hampton, Virginia, we live in an area called the Seven Cities. the seven cities interconnected, starting with the largest would be Virginia Beach. And the smallest would be Portsmouth. I was involved with a lot of organizations. Life member of NAACP, a member of the American Legion, a member of this disabled American veterans. I also was it's it's a church member and been involved with church work of my church, First Baptist of Hampton for fifteen years I served there as Chairman of the board of trustees. in the Navy. I worked as an electrician. After the Navy, I worked a couple of years, it was three or four years as an electrician at the with at that time it was a New Pinew ship building dry dock company. It was owned by by Tenneco at the time. I worked worked with the company. after that I left and went to the police department in Hampton, Virginia. you have to excuse me, I sometimes now my memory is not it's not as quick as it used to be. But it's all there and I thank God for that. It's great to be eighty nine Yes, I well okay. It's a funny story. I started Hampton I started Hampton in nineteen fifty six. And I graduated from Hampton. in nineteen eighty. my first semester at Hampton, I enjoyed being on my own because I've been heavily disciplined and guided by my mother and father as to what I could do and what I couldn't do. They they were Pentecostal and very Pentecostal and they believed that certain things wasn't the kind of things that young people or children shouldn't be involved in. That doesn't mean that I was a goody goody all the time. it was myself and two of my friends went into two of us who was the the Warworth five and ten. One of one of the guys stood at the I stood at the front door and one of the other guys stood at the back door. And then the third one went in and walked around and got a one of those boxes of the real shiny yo yo's we were selling them to our friends. Lovie: Was this a a take in box or a purchase box? People JHC: No, Lovie: wanna know. JHC: this was my experience with shoplifting that stopped me from We got the yo-yos and sold most of Some of we sold for the price in the store and some we sold them for whatever we get for When we got toward the end, we just anybody give us anything for because we wanted to help them get rid of them so our parents wouldn't catch us with them. So one day we were out in front of the house front of our house, yo-yoing, and my mother came out and said, Where y'all get those things from? We hauled her real now, we bought and she looked at us like, Well, where did you get put your cents to buy them? you paid your tithes and you did this. How do you get money left to do that? You wasn't supposed to have but enough to buy lunch. well, we won't eat lunch next week. That didn't bother her. She got with the other mothers. One of had already called my mother and told her that she thought we had s we had been in the store stealing something. Well What she did was two of two of the three mothers got together, took the three of us to the store, asked for the manager, we walked in. Back at that time we couldn't sit at the counter and we couldn't do anything in that because we could spend our money, but if we bought anything like sitting for a drink or anything, you had go to the end of the counter, stand up, wait, You spend your lunch lunch money for this? Well you're gonna spend your lunch money for it because you're gonna pay for And after paying for make she asked the manager how much were it and he said, Well I'll give them I'll give you the price of the wholesale and they can pay that. So gave us he gave her the price. And she says, okay. The other my other my friend's mother says, and we need to do something else too. That's just not enough to stop me from doing this. So she and my mother start talking over in the corner to each other and they came back and says, What they're gonna do after school for the next week, they'll come by. work for you do anything you want in the store. Cleaning up the front, cleaning up the counters want anything you want to do. So after that we that was our first start of shoplifting. We stopped shoplifting after that. I never did any more shoplifting after that. It was enough for me to Lovie: So is that what took you into being a police officer? Let's talk about that story. I believe you mentioned it in your book that what made you decide to be a police officer. Do you mind sharing your story? Why you became a police officer? JHC: I started off with I used to have a bad taste in my mouth for police officers. so when when I was working on the police department when we worked as football games, baseball games, all of the student activities at the school. One time I was working a football game and I walked met a police officer in one of the sister cities in Newport News. an officer named Liverett Lovett. Mr. Lovett was I said he was about ten years older than me at the time. maybe less. I told him I had a disdain for police officers But he said, Well why? I mean, you know, I said, Well every time I turned around it was stopping me. catch me walking here, they wanna know what you doing out here and you drunk. Not what he was drinking. I mean the name that didn't drink and took my food. Lovie: So pretty much the same profiling that our young men have to deal with now. JHC: Definitely. So anyway, he says, well, you know, John, the only way we're gonna change this is we get more black police officers in our cities, the cities around here, they've only had only been fine black police officers for a few years. So he he talked me into it and he he was a very likable person, very personable and had the feel of a very good police officer because he was always polite to people who we talked to and was slow to he was slow to lock up but quick to tell you where you were wrong. Well when he told you what you were wrong about, it was no yelling, screaming or or trying to punch you or kick you in the butt like the others did when I was a child. So he suggested that I try his police department. And I said, Well if I'm gonna try the police department I'm gonna try the one in my own city. Well he said, well put in put in put in the applications and Hampton called me first and I was glad because that was the city. I went on the police department and started off walking the beat and doing patrol work. And that at that time they had walking beach. You start on a walking beat, and then you move on to a a riding beach. Well, at my walking beach, I worked at for a couple of years. Then I was transferred into I was promoted to Paul and put into the youth bureau. Youth build here, we had a youth build dealt with crimes against juveniles, any family crime and and crimes committed by juvenile. That was a lot of kind of hardened work because I ran into he had I ran into young people who had done some who were involved in some of the same thing Delta was like Clayton School or shoplifting. One officer. My officer at the time were between the deal. I should deal with my office at that time. Bill told me, he says, As a policeman, you got to remember two things. You treat everybody like you would want to be treated if you were in the same situation. Lovie: Right. JHC: And it's the only mandatory that you arrest if it's a if it's a felony. Most misdemeanors you can give warnings. But you do need to bring in a fever every now and then to make su to let everybody know that you're out there. So when I was working in the fever section, that's a heavy that's a fishing report, of town. Lovie: Yeah, I can tell him a little bit about the history. So where he's talking about in Phoebus is a part of Hampton. This is right near Fort Monroe some of the first slaves came in. So this whole area was it was a party area in some corners, So this was when you were working the beat in Hampton, right? JHC: Yeah. And Lovie: Yeah, mm-hmm. JHC: When I started started Hampton I used to party a lot. chasing girls a lot and first semester my GPA was one point nine. They called me in and says if you want to keep the scholarship you got to bring your your GPA up to a two point five. I can do that, I could do that. I do that good in high school get behind catch up. Well the next semester it had dropped But when I went home for the end of the semester and got the letter, the letter said my my GPA at that time was 1.8. So instead of going up, I had blocked back. And they said I I could come back the next semester, but if my grades didn't come up to 2.5, that I would be thrown out. Lovie: So is this how you transitioned into the United States Navy? JHC: Yes, it is. Lovie: So, you know, let me come home with a with a GPA like that. I probably would have never lived it down, but but it's okay. So let's just start out about your book, A View from Church Hill. What made you write this book? What pulled on you to put your life into a memoir? JHC: Well, the idea had come to me at my sixtieth birthday party. All my kids and my close friends, my mentees and co workers, we got together And I said, I think I wanna write a book on my story. I was heavily encouraged by Especially my grandchildren and children. But I didn't get started then. it took me about two years off and on to get it finished to the point that getting it ready for publicly. Lovie: So if you have the desire to write a book, I want to encourage you to do just that. Just take your thoughts and just build a journal. just put everything you have in your heart on paper. And that's exactly what he did. He put everything in his heart on paper. And then this gentleman was able to go through and help develop the stories to help build the stories I wanted to go to the story about that really was profound and it kind of brings us back to where we are in this climate right now. The story when you traveled with my godfather from DC to was it Atlanta? and you guys got stopped in South Carolina and were temporarily held. Yeah. JHC: That story. this was a friend this was a friend of mine that was working for the the Japanese consulate in Atlanta and he had driven his boss up to BC and He stopped by on the way back to Atlanta, and says, man, it's a lonely ride. I said, you wanna ride with me, ride with me down there and I'll give you plane fare back. if I ride with you, I'll pay my own way back. I just want to ride. I like riding on a car with diplomatic tags once we got into South Carolina, we were pulled over by a trooper. And I thought it was a state trooper, but it was just a county sheriff. told us, okay, well, it's gonna cost you three hundred dollars. He said, No, we got diplomatic tags we're driving and told him who he was driving for They had us to follow them down to the precinct or sheriff station, wherever it was. But it was about twenty miles off the highway where we were. After we got down there, they was about to lock us up and we had to go through everything. And I never I never told them that I was a police officer. we were riding in a diplomatic car, we worked for diplomats. So that's it. She didn't do this. Well, can I get my phone call? He said, Yes, you get one phone call. So he called and he called his boss, who in turn got in touch with the US ambassador or somebody up there in the State Department. They put us in the cage and about fifteen minutes later they came back and unlocked us. So I come up front. somebody on the phone wanted to talk to you. And it was at the time it was Robert Kennedy, wanted to talk to him, the attorney general at that time. he asked him to the guy gave the phone to the sheriff saying he wants to talk to you. He talked we talked to him for about two minutes and the guy says, You guys can go You guys can go. Lead us back out and show us where it is? No, we can't lead you back out, but you can go. You got your car out there. Lovie: didn't know they were too scared to let y'all back out, so they wanted somebody else to catch you. We're in a climate that it it hasn't changed. You're still pulled over driving while black, but the fact that you're driving and traveling with diplomatic plags on, they still question. So that was Robert Kennedy, and wasn't it someone else you mentioned he talked to? it was the governor of South Carolina at the time. JHC: no, later later I found out that the Justice Department had talked to the governor of South Carolina about it. Mm But actually of all my days, that was the only time I ever got in jail and I never said a word. I did have my badge in my conventions when I got there and put everything in the lockers. I just kept my bag concealed and put it all in in the locker together. Fortunately I didn't have a weapon with me because actually the rule is if you cross state lines with the weapon, the first thing you're supposed to do is contact that state police when you get into that state reform and then they would have it on record. So if anybody else tried to inquire, Lovie: Right. So it was a good thing you didn't travel with it. I'm sure it would have made you guys situation a little tougher. And if we could have two black men drive with diplomatic tags and still get pulled over. They know, I don't care where they were in South Carolina, this is like something you guys are trained with from the beginning, right? To to identify these type of tags. JHC: Yes we are. Diplomats in the United States have the same type of tag. It's not a a different tag for a different country. All of the countries and they're all their vehicles get the same diplomatic tags and it says only diplomatic. we didn't really have immunity, although we were in the power. He was a employee of a Japanese embassy but yet they stop him anyway and when he's driving diplomatic behaviors he has immunity during that time. That's the only time he doesn't have immunity like the diplomats have. Lovie: So I started out the interview talking about your years working in the police department I wanted to ask you about the opportunity with this Sears Foundation. Opportunity to work with the Office of Pro Office of Friendly program that has started with the Sears Foundation. how did you get that opportunity? JHC: myself and another member of the crime prevention unit went to Louisville, Kentucky, to the National Institute of Crime Prevention and Security. there was a speaker from CIS Foundation that talked to us about the Officer Friendly program that they had out in the Midwest. He said the program was declining in popularity because they've been using the same materials for 10 years and a lot of the schools were dropping out. So he wanted something more innovative to bring people back into it and expand it all over. So he suggested anybody that was interested the foundation will will offer a grant. anybody that was interested to write and let them know what they're interested in handling and how they would go about doing it. And that from that correspondence he would select someone to try the program. So after about three weeks after writing in the program, what we wanted we got a letter back that it was confirmed that he was was accepting our offer. And he came down, talked to me, the assistant superintendent for elementary education and to my chief and my lieutenant at the time. I hadn't made sergeant at that time. when he talked to all of those people, he says, okay, get back with me with what you want to do. before we write the letter asking for the grant, the chief of police says you gotta clear it with the superintendent of schools. If he's in for it, then I'm in for it. So I had talked to the superintendent who was he was another friend of mine. We served on the Boys Club Board of Directors together at the time. And we had become good friends because we'd been on the board together for about five years. So he agreed and Raymond Washington was superintendent of schools. And he assigned the Ms. Geraldine Courtney the assistant superintendent for elementary ed. So she and I got together. We we met for a couple of times. Then I selected one other police officer and she she selected five teachers, one from each of the lower grades to be involved and we work together we build what we called a classroom kit. It was a nice little kit. I used to have pictures of it. we we built a kit with an artist with the school artist Miss Copper worked everything up and over we worked on it for about three months and we put together the kit and we got prices for getting it all priced out and developed and everything. And he gave a contract to our company. We started a company images and corpor we had it assembled by there was an institution that worked with people with disabilities. We had them to assemble it. We showed them how how we wanted it and they put it together like that. police departments. throughout the Midwest and throughout the Southeast. So we six of the seven cities work with the program. One city wasn't involved. Lovie: In the state of Virginia, okay. Which of the seven cities did not do it? JHC: It was Suffolk. Suffolk was a very large city at that time in territory, but a very small city in population. It at that time Suffolk had a population of somewhere around fifteen, twenty thousand. And the rest of the cities had more than a hundred thousand. for development and delivery was was five years. We distributed them for five years and while then we had the company start working on trying to get other contracts. Lovie: So when you mentioned the company you started images, How do images play a part? So if we could take a step back and and you can help me, bridge the gaps with what was Image's responsibility in your whole involvement in this? JHC: It was our responsibility for images to develop the kit, get the different components of the kit published printed. the toys that were had in there, you had to get the art we had to get everything. We were involved with one multimedia company because they had those tapes in there. talking about police officers and we had full-size pictures of police department. I was thinking it a man police officer and a woman police Life size on posters. We had coloring books, we had explanation books. We talked about police work, talked about what what the police were supposed to be doing and the the role of a policeman, how Our role as policemen was to to protect and serve to do things to make young people interested in really getting involved with police officers. Lovie: Awesome. JHC: we had to selectively contributors and then we had to get somebody to put the kid together. They put it together for us It was circulated to about anywhere between forty six and fifty Cities throughout the United States. Lovie: So about fifty plus cities throughout the United States, predominantly Midwest and in this area. JHC: Yeah. Well then it then it started to spread in Virginia. It went to several other cities in Virginia we started getting some cities in Maryland. we shipped to a lot to the Middle West Lovie: Yeah, I actually have someone here. Her name is E nurse and she said we used to use those kits at her grammar school in the Midwest and she's in that Chicago area. officer friendly books. Yes, they were coloring books in there. and I remember it's a life size almost picture of a police officer and it was a teacher too, right? JHC: we had we had another book had a had a following book with teachers in it. And Lovie: Okay. JHC: how teachers connect with police officers. little booklet that came with the kit. Lovie: I mentioned last week that they have the officer friendly kit that he created in the Hampton History Museum in Hampton, Virginia. they took out pieces because I had forgotten a lot of what was in the kit, but they have a couple of the pieces that's in the box. displayed so it was like a walk down memory lane when I go in there and it's like, hey, somebody I recognize, which is always good. so we talked about your business with images. We talked about your background, your education. JHC: as as a policeman during that time the salary when I started on the police department four thousand eight hundred dollars a year. Most police officers had to work extra jobs and I used putting the houses together. I was working at at four people I was working for. We rehabing houses that they had up to rent or if they were about to sell Lovie: You were subcontracted out to do that work? JHC: Yeah. and I had a friend that was a licensed electrician. I had another friend that was a licensed plumber. And we would do all the work and they would come in and inspect it and tell us what we had wrong, we'd fix that up. They would always check both the the the electrician and the plumber. We always check everything before they call the inspectors in to inspect. I did that for years. Lovie: So that was extra police work, right? When you got the extra off duty hours. Now, let me tell you guys that was probably a joy more for my brothers than me, 'cause I was way too young. But the benefits of him working those late hours is the Hampton Coliseum at the time it was one of two of the largest arenas to have concerts and shows Had the honor of meeting a lot of famous people, Muhammad Ali and you actually was a bodyguard for the for a pope at the time. JHC: I wasn't a Pope, it was a was it the Narce Archbishop for the area. Fulton Fulton J. Sheen, I'll never forget his name. we talked a lot because I had to I had to shout at him for for two days while he was in the area. I got a lot, I learned a lot from him Lovie: Can you remember one lesson you may have learned from him that you that would be good to share with the audience? JHC: he confirmed a lesson that I had learned from my father, I used to be real critical of things in in the Pentecostal church because of the things that we weren't allowed to do. And my father told me a long time ago that you don't have to live for those people. You gotta live for yourself. Because when time comes for judgment, you're gonna be judged not on What somebody else did but what you did. And when I met Bishop Sheen, he told me the same thing in a in a different way. He says, Christ was a servant of the people, and he lived among the people, and he treated the people as people wherever he went. And he talked about the story on and says, Have you been taught the story on the side of the road? I said, yeah, I had to learn all of that book. I was a kid, I had to learn 13th chapter Corinthians and the whole the whole chapter the songs we had to learn. So we talked for a while and he told me, sir, the whole thing that you get out of all of those stories is that you're supposed to treat the least of these you would want to be treated yourself. So I put all of those things together, and that's what made me go back into the church. because I had gotten away from the church, I had gotten away from organized religion. Lovie: Who was one of the most interested people JHC: Muhammad Ali. He was a very interesting fellow because when I was in the Navy I had seen in Rome during those Olympics and we got free tickets as military people to go to some and I chose to go to the boxing and I saw him in one of his earlier fights there. So I told him about that he started talking about a lot of things. But he was very interested. at that time he was very young, man. I was older, man. He said, Yeah, I like cops like you, he said, I've been someplace and they put a cop to shadow me and it was the worst thing I wanted to to see. Lovie: Wow. And we're talking about JHC: He said just he said just the way they just the way they acted. And one of the most interesting people I met was Gladys Knight. She was most she was extremely down to earth. at the time she was one of my favorite performers. Lovie: I wanted to also just ask a little bit more about your book. one of the most profound things in the book, was one of the worst investigation cases he ever had to go on. you you wanna share a little bit about that story? that's another story. Okay. Well you know JHC: But you said little girl, I had three three different cases as a police as a youth officer that really burned me to my core and made me it it made me more determined to work with young people. One was a little girl that had the thing to her throat by her father, and the other one that was abused by her Was asked. by her mother's boyfriend. both of those stories are out in real detail in the book. Lovie: Right. how old was I during that time? How did that that make you feel seeing two young ladies and have a daughter at home that level of trauma? JHC: You were about you were about four years old at the time. And my partner and I after we fought together and the partner told the guy, I said, Man, what you what you did to that kid is gonna be done to you when you get in the joint. Lovie: wow. I'm sure. I want to thank everybody for your time and thank you for supporting the author. a view from Church Hill. I woke up in my right mind. John H. Coleman Jr. at the end of every show. I like our guests to share their final thoughts. And these final thoughts could be based off of the conversations we had today, any information you wanted to share or encourage others in business. leadership or Christ, JHC: Well, first I I do thank you for having me. in business in the three or four businesses that I've been involved with, I learned two things. It's always good to have a good business plan. And business plans are just just outlines that you should go back and bring up to date as you go along. Or you'll find yourself getting in trouble with IRS. getting in trouble trouble with your state and just losing money. It's easier to build your plan and continue to build it, to make it a strong plan. The stronger your business plan, the better your business will operate. Another thing, you're gonna you're gonna win some and lose some. It's nobody that goes in business that doesn't lose money at some time. Sometimes they have to lose quite a bit before they start to make money. So you have to be cognizant of that and work hard to make sure that you get it right. You develop it to make it right. Because from the beginning, seldom do you have it right from the beginning unless you have some experience working with that type of type of business you want to go with and of working with someone else. Lovie: That's a good word to share to the business owners and it's ironically I share that a lot that, you know, once you build that business plan you gotta keep building it and we make mistakes, pick it up and keep going. JHC: one more thing from businesses too. You need to make you need to make public contacts. You need to contact people in high places, low places, and go with the idea that you're gonna meet people from all types of life, all different forms of life, and treat them like you would like to be treated if you were that way. Make sure your employees do the same thing. It doesn't hurt to Do some volunteering in your communities. That's one way to really gain support of businesses if you're volunteering in your communities and urge your employees to volunteer too and bring those experiences back to the business. It will strengthen your business. Lovie: Right. JHC: One thing, one one thought I'd like to leave you with is just I know people are are of different religions and different things. I'm Baptist. volunteering in the church, you get a lot of help volunteering in most churches because you've got people in churches from all different walks of life. And the more you work with them, the more they get to know you if you're in a business, the more your business will thrive. thank you for having me. Lovie: I thank you for being here. such a blessing to share the stage with you, Dad.