What exactly is Critical Race Theory? Join us for a conversation on the topic with Michael Coard Esq., criminal defense attorney and professor. It will be moderated by Mark Hayes, Real Times Media National News Director and CEO of Mark Hayes Consulting. Scroll down to see their bios.
If you missed the event, watch it below on our CommonBondz YouTube page!
Michael Coard, a criminal defense attorney with more than 25 years of state and federal trial experience, specializes in murder cases and worked at the Charles W. Bowser Law Center after serving as Legal Counsel for State Senator Hardy Williams.
He received his degree in law from Ohio State University and his undergraduate degrees in English Education and Political Science from Cheyney University. While in law school serving as president of the Black Law Students Association, he led the activism that compelled Ohio State University (which is the largest university in America) to divest all of its funds from companies doing business with or in apartheid governed South Africa.
He is an adjunct professor in the Africology and African-American Studies Department at Temple University and a volunteer instructor of the Criminal Justice course and the Hip Hop 101 course in the university’s Pan African Studies Program.
As an attorney, he successfully litigated at trial a historic Private Criminal Complaint that sought a murder prosecution of a white police officer who killed an unarmed Black teen. Furthermore, he is certified by the Court of Common Pleas to represent indigent defendants in death penalty cases. Also, he has served as local co-counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal whose death sentence was vacated. Moreover, nearly half of his criminal cases in general are pro bono. And he is a recipient of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s prestigious Thurgood Marshall Award as well as both the NAACP’s and the Barristers Association’s prestigious Cecil B. Moore Award. In addition, he is a recipient of Cheyney University Alumni Association’s Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Award.
As a community activist, he is a founding member of Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC). ATAC is the organization that helped lead the historic and successful battle to force the federal government to agree to commemorate the African descendants enslaved by President George Washington at America’s first “White House,” which was located at the current site of the new Liberty Bell Center. And as a member of the Friends of Bethel Burying Ground, he is working with activists to have that South Philadelphia cemetery- where the remains of more than 5,000 African-Americans from the 1800s are desecrated under a trash dump and city playground- officially memorialized.
He has served as a Pennsylvania board member of the ACLU and the Philadelphia chapter of the National Lawyers Guild as well as a member of the Occupy Philadelphia Legal Defense Team and the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Also, he is a founding member of Judging The Judges as well as “F(ilm) The Police.”
He serves as one of the attorneys for Heeding Cheyney’s Call, which is a coalition of Cheyney University supporters who are using the federal courts in a major civil rights battle to compel the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to end its decades-long racial discrimination against the oldest African-American institution of higher learning in America.
In addition, he hosts the “Radio Courtroom” show on WURD96.1FM and the “TV Courtroom” show on Comcast/Verizon. He also writes columns for the Philadelphia Tribune and Philadelphia Magazine and can be followed on Twitter and Instagram
Mark Hayes has spent nearly three decades bringing news viewers in major cities across the country their news and information of the day. Some of his stops include Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Baltimore. However, his proudest accomplishments came during his tenure in the great city of Atlanta, GA. For more than a decade, Mark was a staple of early morning television on Good Day Atlanta. He believes his most noteworthy achievement, was the nearly 20 hours he spent on air during the Fulton County Courthouse shootings and the subsequent capture of Brian Nichols.
After 2 Emmy nominations and highly coveted National recognition for spot news coverage from the National Press Photographers Association, Mark is now currently the President and CEO of his own media training and strategy company. Mark Hayes Consulting, LLC was founded in 2010. The goal is to help everyone from CEO’s to small business owners make the most of their opportunity for media exposure. He has been a passionate supporter of Boys and Girls Clubs in every city he has been a part of. He has also been a fervent supporter of Drug Abuse, recovery & prevention efforts with different organizations. He was one of the earliest supporters and assisted Simply Grace House in Dallas, TX as they began their efforts to help recovering addicts of drug and alcohol addiction.
Mark and his college sweetheart, Latonya, have been together since they met in 1988 at Howard University. Mark and his wife are members of the classes of 1989 and 1990 respectively. They’ve been married for 25 years and have two children, Malcolm and Kenny. He is also a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. and loves to travel the world over. His favorite stop to date has been the most amazing week his family spent on the beautiful island of Kauai, which they described as “paradise on earth.”