Stanley Eugene Tolliver, Sr. (October 29, 1925 – January 3, 2011) was an African American attorney, school board president, civil rights activist, and radio talk show host.[1]
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Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Tolliver graduated from East Technical High School in 1944 where he won the state championship in the 440-yard dash and the Ohio State Vocal Contest. His early hobbies were playing the violin and heavyweight boxing. After graduation, he went on to earn his Bachelor of Laws degree at John Marshall School of Law in 1951. During his time there, he majored in opera, ran on a relay team with Olympic gold medalist Harrison Dillard and was the founding president of a pioneering interracial fraternity that merged into Pi Lambda Phi. Tolliver went on to pass his bar exam in 1953 and to earn a Legum Doctor degree in 1968 and a Juris Doctor degree in 1969. In the interim Tolliver was drafted into the U.S. Army, served in the Counterintelligence Corps from 1951 to 1953, and served as legal counsel for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..[2], the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Congress of Racial Equality. In 1968, he represented Fred Ahmed Evans, who was convicted of murder in a Glenville Shootout with police. During the case, Ahmed Evans' brother William "Bootsie" was shot to death in the doorway of Tolliver's Quincy Avenue office. Police did not charge the shooter and said he was thwarting a robbery. Tolliver occasionally had a contentious relationship with law departments and often accused police of misconduct and prosecutors of selectively pursuing convictions. He also believed that police who killed someone should undergo alcohol tests as promptly as possible - as civilian suspects are required to. In 1968, shotgun blasts from a drive-by shooting barely missed family members in the living room of his house.
In 1970, Tolliver became the only African American attorney involved in the defense of the students charged in the Kent State shootings. Together with other Ohioans, Tolliver also led the call for the Cleveland Public Schools to desegregate. In 1977 he was admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. After state and local boards of education were found guilty of operating a segregated school system,[3] Tolliver was appointed to the Committee on the Office of School Monitoring and Community Relations in 1978. From its inception, Tolliver's law practice was characterized by an audacious defense of underdogs. Sometimes Tolliver met with failure, as with Melvin Bay Guyon, who killed FBI Agent Johnnie Oliver, or Mark DiMarco, who kidnapped and slew Mary Jo Pesho in the 1990s. In 1981 he was elected to membership on the Cleveland Board of Education and in his twelve years of service, was elected board President twice. Beginning with this appointment, he often spoke on the value of more parental involvement in the lives of Cleveland schoolchildren and was firmly entrenched in the issues of civil rights in the community. He was also a life-long member of the NAACP.[4]
Tolliver chaired the trustees at Antioch Baptist Church, was elected president of the Norman S. Minor Bar Association and the local chapter of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. For his work with the NAACP, he was awarded the coveted NAACP Freedom Award and for his life's work in Cleveland a street was named after him.[5]
Tolliver hosted the weekly radio show, “Conversations with Stanley E. Tolliver Sr." on WERE-AM. The show took telephone calls from listeners and continued a dialogue about politics and events in Cleveland, with emphasis on the plight of poor people and strove to hire minorities and include black history in school curriculum.
A lifelong runner, Tolliver completed a marathon in Hawaii in his 50s, won a 400-meter race at a Senior Olympics and jogged through University Circle in his 80s. Tolliver was married to the late Dorothy Olivia Greenwood Tolliver for 50 years and was the father of three children. He also sported a large collection of wide brimmed hats and sang solos at Antioch Baptist Church.[6]
Tolliver died on the morning of January 3, 2011 at the Stokes Cleveland VA Medial Center. He was 85 years old