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Biography · Business & Enterprise

Warren Clay Coleman

1849–1904

United States

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Biography

Warren Clay Coleman (May 25, 1849 – May 24, 1904) was an African-American businessman in south-central North Carolina known as a founder of the Coleman Manufacturing Company, which built one of the first black-owned and operated textile mills in the United States. The Coleman-Franklin-Cannon Mill still stands in Concord, North Carolina, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. Born into slavery, Coleman learned shoemaking and barbering before he came of age as a freedman.

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Biography text · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source checked 2026-10-13

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