Flavia Colgan

Flavia Monteiro Colgan (b. October 18, 1977) is a Democratic strategist, who is an active political contributor on MSNBC and serves as a special correspondent for Extra. She resides in Los Angeles.

Family

Her mother, Maria, is a native of Brazil and her father, Kevin Colgan, is Irish-American. They divorced two years after her birth. Shortly thereafter, Colgan's mother wed William T. Coleman III, a lawyer and partner at the law firm of Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz. Coleman's father, Flavia Colgan's step-grandfather, is William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr. (former Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald Ford, the second African American to hold a cabinet post, and winner of a 1995 Presidential Medal of Freedom).

The Colemans moved from Philadelphia to Detroit. Later, Coleman would become General Counsel to the United States Army when his law school roommate, Bill Clinton, was elected president. She is the step-niece of both Lovida Coleman Jr., a former Justice Department lawyer and Deputy Independent council who currently serves on the board of RAND, and Hardin Coleman.

Colgan's father taught in the School District of Philadelphia. Every weekend she flew from Detroit to Philadelphia to be with him. At age 11, Colgan's mother moved to the Dominican Republic where they lived in Santo Domingo.

Returning to Detroit when she was 13, she attended four different high schools. She spent her sophomore high school year in Fairfield, Iowa. Colgan returned to school in Michigan for...
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