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6 Things You Should Know About Warren Clay Coleman, the Man Who Built the Country’s First Black-Owned Textile Mill

Posted byBy Ricky Riley | Published on: CommentsComments (1)

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The Mill

One of Coleman’s goals was to build a mill that would be owned and operated by Black people. He started to lay the foundation, but money issues arose and the process came to a screeching halt. According to Cabarrus County Superior Court Judge Clarence Horton for Charlotte, North Carolina’s NPR, “Frederick Douglass suggested they form Black textile mills, so efforts were made in two or three places,” Horton said. “Booker T. Washington tried in the mid-1890s in Huntsville, Alabama but they didn’t get off the ground. There was one in Houston. All [of] these experiments had failed, but he felt he could make one succeed in North Carolina.”

To make his dream work, Coleman had to compromise on some of his goals for the greater good.

 

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The Deal

To get financing for the mill, Coleman partnered with Washington Duke to persuade white investors. Duke was a famously wealthy industrialist and railroad man. His money helped fund many North Carolina colleges and local businesses. Coleman’s association with Duke allowed him to bring in white investors and also get insurance companies to sell policies. At the time, Black-owned businesses could not get policies alone. The mill’s equipment was refurbished and required lots of maintenance because Coleman could not secure loans for new machinery. But even with setbacks, the mill opened in 1901, according to NPR.

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