Richard B. Fitzgerald

Richard Burton Fitzgerald (circa 1843 – March 24, 1918) was an African-American brickmaker and business man in Durham, North Carolina. After building his enterprise, he became president of the black-owned Mechanics and Farmers Bank in Durham, and was involved in other business ventures throughout North Carolina. He served as first president of Coleman Manufacturing Company, established in 1897 as the first cotton mill in the United States to be owned and operated by blacks. His bricks were used for major construction projects in the state's largest cities, including the capital.

Born free in New Castle County, Delaware to a white mother and mixed-race father freed from slavery, Fitzgerald and siblings moved with their family in 1855 to Chester County, Pennsylvania to reduce the risk of being taken by slave catchers and sold into slavery under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. After the Civil War, in which he served, Fitzgerald rejoined his family, who had moved to Hillsborough, North Carolina. There they set up a brickyard at their farm. He moved with a brother into Durham, building his business and becoming a major figure in the city's black community.

Fitzgerald was born free about 1843 in New Castle County, Delaware, to Thomas and Sarah (Burton) Fitzgerald. His father Thomas was mulatto or mixed race, of African and Irish ancestry, and manumitted from slavery, likely by a white father and master. His mother was white and of English ancestry; she decided to raise her sons proudly within the community of free people of color, rather than "passing" as white, although they were of majority European ancestry. Growing up, Richard was described by his great-niece Pauli Murray as a "sturdy, rough and tumble fellow... who could work hard but cared more for good times" than he did for studying.

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