Coleman Manufacturing Company

The Coleman Manufacturing Company (1899–1904) was the first cotton mill in the United States owned and operated by African Americans. Organized in 1897 and operating under original leadership until 1904, it was located in the Piedmont area about two miles from the county seat of Concord, North Carolina in Cabarrus County. After its sale, the facility later became part of a Fieldcrest Cannon plant.

Photographs of the mill and a description were featured in the Negro Exhibit of the United States installation at the Paris Exposition of 1900 in France, showing African-American progress in this country. In the early 21st century, the mill building houses the production facilities of Southern Grace Distilleries, Inc.

The company was established in 1897 primarily by black capitalists in North Carolina, most based in its largest city of Wilmington. To promote economic security of people of color, they intended to establish a cotton mill to be entirely managed and operated by blacks. At the time, the cotton mills in North Carolina, and the South overall, were white owned, and managers hired blacks only for menial positions.

Richard B. Fitzgerald, a major brickmaker and businessman of Durham, North Carolina, was its first president; Edward A. Johnson its first vice-president (and was later president), and Warren C. Coleman was its first secretary, treasurer, and manager. The initial board of directors was S. C. Thompson, L. P. Berry, John C. Dancy, federal collector of customs in Wilmington; S. B. Pride, C. F. Meserve, and Robert McRae.

About $50,000 was subscribed, which soon increased to $100,000, by "several hundred" African Americans, mainly living in the Concord area. A few white philanthropists, such as Benjamin N. Duke, who subscribed $1,000 (at six-percent interest), also invested in the capital stock of the company.

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