With Richard M. Peery



CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Stanley Eugene Tolliver Sr., champion singer and athlete, Cleveland school board president and outspoken criminal and civil rights lawyer, died early Monday at the Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. He was 85.

Louis Stokes, former congressman, said, "He always called himself the ghetto lawyer. He was fearless. He stood up for whatever he believed in."

George Forbes, president of the Cleveland NAACP, whose board long included Tolliver, said, "There was no compromise with him on civil rights."

Tolliver sported a big collection of wide-brimmed hats. He hosted a weekly talk show on WERE-AM. He often sang in a rich baritone at churches and nightclubs. He often joked, telling friends in old age, "I'd rather be seen than viewed."

But many protestors and criminal defendants relied on Tolliver's serious side. In the summer of 1965, he took civil rights cases in Mississippi shunned by lawyers there. Two years later, he teamed with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the basement of a Hough church to conduct hearings on reports of police brutality.

He represented the notorious Fred Ahmed Evans, who was convicted of murder in a 1968 Glenville shootout with police. He represented students from the fatal protest at Kent State University in 1970. That year, he also defended organizers of a boycott of McDonald's restaurants in Cleveland's black community. The boycott led to the sale of fast-food franchises to black investors across the country.

He deferred to few. "A lot of so-called leaders in our community don't really represent the community," he told The Plain Dealer in 1993. "I deal with the people in the streets."

Tolliver practiced on E. 105th St., mostly by himself, and lived nearby. He joined the turbulent Cleveland school board in 1981 for a dozen years. The system was split by court orders to end illegal segregation, partly by busing. He pushed to hire minorities and include black history in the curriculum.

He once said his idol was Paul Robeson, another athlete, singer, lawyer and activist. He often sang Robeson's best-known song, "Old Man River."

Tolliver was raised an only child in Cleveland. His dad left school after third grade and worked in a lumberyard. His mother taught piano and earned a degree at night from John Hay High School at age 62.

The son played violin and boxed as a heavyweight. Before graduating from East Technical High School in 1944, he won the state championship in the 440-yard dash and the Ohio State Vocal Contest.

At Baldwin-Wallace College, he majored in opera, ran on a relay team with Olympic gold medalist Harrison Dillard and was the founding president of a pioneering interracial Greek fraternity that merged into Pi Lambda Phi.

When Tolliver took third place in the Ohio State College Oratorical Contest, he realized that his rich baritone voice could resonate as well in a courtroom as on stage. He left B-W for Cleveland-Marshall Law School. He was drafted into the Army and was serving as a private first class in Columbus when he passed the bar examination in 1953.

From the beginning, Tolliver's practice was marked by an audacious defense of underdogs. He sometimes failed, as with Melvin Bay Guyon, who killed FBI Agent Johnnie Oliver 1980s, or Mark DiMarco, who kidnapped and slew Mary Jo Pesho in the 1990s.

Tolliver often accused police of misconduct and prosecutors of selectively pursuing convictions. He said that police who kill should undergo alcohol tests, as civilian suspects do.

Along with his high profile came threats and more. In 1968, shotgun blasts from a passing car barely missed family members in his living room.

During the Glenville shootout 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 took fewer cases in his 80s but still appeared last month in cases and legal classes in federal court. He 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. He also relieved tensions by working out at the Central YMCA.

Tolliver met Dorothy Greenwood while they performed in "South Pacific" at Karamu House. They were married for 49 years until her death in 2001. He later dated Artha Woods, former Cleveland councilwoman and council clerk, who died last year.

He chaired the trustees at Antioch Baptist Church. He was elected president of the Norman S. Minor Bar Association and the local chapter of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. He won the Cleveland NAACP's coveted Freedom Award.

In 2009, a street near Cuyahoga Community College Metro Campus was renamed Stanley Tolliver Ave. On Sunday, some 30 people held a candlelight vigil for him outside the VA Center.

He outlived his daughter, Stephanie, a local actress and singer, by 13 months. Survivors include two children.

Richard M. Peery is retired.