Charles Beard, Authority On Cable TV Rules, 60

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Charles J. Beard, the first African-American to be named a partner by
a major Boston, Massachusetts, law firm, died of multiple myeloma
Tuesday, March 30, 2004, in Youville Hospital in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, at the age of 60.

A nationally recognized authority on cable TV regulation and business
law, Mr. Beard was an administrator at the Boston Model Cities program
before joining the Boston law firm of Foley, Hoag & Eliot in 1973. He
was named a partner of the firm six years later.

"He was the type of guy who could take command of any situation,
whether it was an interview, a meeting, a reception, or a birthday
party," Paul Murphy, a partner at the firm, now Foley Hoag, said. "He
was a great listener, able to identify the real issues involved in any
situation, and bring people together to resolve any disagreement they
might have."

Earlier this year, when Mr. Beard's wife arranged a surprise birthday
party for him at the office, it fell on Murphy to get him to the
firm's large conference hall. Murphy told Mr. Beard he would be
speaking to a gathering of African-American Amherst College alumni. He
was confronted instead by 200 friends and colleagues shouting
"surprise."

"But he never skipped a beat," said Murphy, "and proceeded to deliver
a history of African-Americans in Boston. It was off the cuff and it
was perfect, and it was pure Charlie."

A resident of Lexington, Massachusetts, Mr. Beard was chairman of the
board of trustees of the WGBH Educational Foundation, the television
station's management board on which he had served for 15 years. He was
also a trustee of Phillips Academy and Emerson College.

In a statement, Jacqueline Liebergott, president of Emerson College,
said Mr. Beard was an advocate of "high academic standards and a more
diverse campus community," and was "among the leaders who helped
transform the dream of a new campus into a reality."

The son of a self-employed realtor, Mr. Beard was born in Detroit,
Michigan.

"We weren't even middle class, we were dirt poor," his sister, Carolyn
Beard Whitlow of Greensboro, North Carolina, said yesterday.

The Rev. John Thomas Walker, the family's minister, became the first
African-American teacher at St. Paul's School in Concord, New
Hampshire, and thought Mr. Beard should attend the school. But,
because he needed too much financial support, Mr. Beard attended
Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachuswetts, instead.

"They pulled my best friend away from me," his sister said yesterday.
"It was a big step. His parents were sending him to an unknown entity
in Massachusetts. It was very frightening, but I don't think they ever
regretted it."

Mr. Beard said he was "stretched along every axis, academically,
physically," and "grew, and grew and grew" while at Phillips.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1966 and Harvard Law School in
1969.

He became manager of the health and social services division at the
Model Cities Program, a federal effort to relieve the plight of the
urban poor, and started a neighborhood health and day-care center, and
a drug treatment center.

When he turned 30, he decided, "If I was ever going to practice law, I
had to do it then," he wrote in the 25th anniversary book for his
Harvard class, so he joined Foley, Hoag & Eliot and became a
communications law specialist. He represented Boston when it awarded
its original cable TV franchise to Cablevision Systems Corp., and he
also provided cable TV advice to several other cities in
Massachusetts, as well as Detroit and Washington, D.C.

"He had what I call the half-cup-full mentality," his wife, Vivian
(Cromwell), said yesterday. "He was always an optimist, the cup was
always half full; that helped him to be a great conciliator, a person
who brought people together."