The Coleman-Franklin-Cannon Mill

Concord is home to many historical sites but it has one that stands out from the rest. The Warren Clay Coleman Mill was a mill that was started, funded and employed by almost entirely Black workers. It was a large, three story building and within its walls it held 96,000 square footage. Warren C. Coleman was a former slave and indentured servant, which many people attribute to his immense drive to move up in the world and provide opportunities for Black people in the south. This building is a symbol of great pride for the Black textile community and the textile community as a whole in North Carolina.

Warren C. Coleman was the son of a white man named Rufus C. Barringer. Coleman would start his professional career at 18 when he started working as a merchant and a part time real estate investor on the side. Coleman amassed a large amount of his wealth to start his textile business through these real estate ventures. Coleman had a goal of building a mill that would be owned by a Black man and operated by Black workers. He would accomplish this goal by creating 100 rental homes for Black residents, buying properties in cities and in rural areas, and eventually owning and and operating his own general store that opened in 1879. Through all of these business ventures, he would amass enough wealth to get his business idea of owning a mill off the ground. Coleman would also need to find some wealthy investors and partners to make sure that his business would be a success. he found this in Washington Duke, who was a very affluent industrialist. With him being part of the making of the mill it would enable Coleman to get support from white investors that would have not even looked his way before his relationship with Duke.

Dukes involvement in the mill was very necessary to the business getting off the ground. It brought the white investors and got the necessary insurance companies to sell them the policies they would need. This was especially important because without Duke it wouldn't have been possible for Coleman to attain them because businesses that were owned by Black people were not able to get these policies. To get the facility ready for operation Coleman had to have all of the machinery fixed up and checked to make sure everything was in working order. This would have caused a lot of stress for Coleman and his investors. Having even more money needing to be spent before the mill even opened was anything but ideal. After all of these trials and tribulations the mill finally opened for operation in 1901. The mill employed more than 300 Black workers which made it the most unique and successful mills in the state of North Carolina.

Before Coleman had tried to make a textile mill that was Black ran and owned Booker T. Washington made an attempt at starting a Black textile mill but it was never able to get the funding so it ultimately failed. Coleman was very willing to be involved with other business owners who were white and because of this he built good relationships with people in the town which helped his business to be very successful. Coleman had a charisma and a a great work ethic that made him extremally popular among people in the town and all of his investors which was very important in the business world then and the business world now. Relationships build business empires. The mill became a symbol of the Black American dream at the time. In the Jim Crow south it was very hard for Black people to create a comfortable and productive life. It provided a look into the future about what would soon be possible for Black people in North Carolina.

The mill unfortunately had a very short life. From 1901 to 1904 the mill operated at a great capacity and was fairly successful. Then tragedy struck, on the 31st of March 1904, Coleman passed away and with his death the mill fell apart. The turn of the century was not kind to the textile industry. With the prices of cotton being heavily inflated the mill just could not keep up with the rapidly changing economy. The mill would go under and be sold off to J.W. Cannon, owner of the mill town in Kannapolis, North Carolina. The information on Warren C. Coleman is limited because when he died many of the documents about his business and life were lost or destroyed but nevertheless he is revered as a trailblazer for the Black community as a whole in the south and Black entrepreneurs in the state of North Carolina.

Aidoo , Theodora . Warren Coleman: The man who built the first Black-owned textile factory in the U.S. , January 25th 2020. Accessed April 27th 2022. https://face2faceafrica.com/article/warren-coleman-the-man-who-built-the-first-Black-owned-textile-factory-in-the-u-s.

Glenn , Gwendolyn . Country's First African-American Textile Mill In Concord Get National Recognition , WFAE 90.7. December 7th 2015. Accessed April 27th 2022. https://www.wfae.org/local-news/2015-12-07/countrys-first-african-american-textile-mill-in-concord-gets-national-recognition.

Williams, Shane. Coleman Manufacturing Company , NorthCarolinaHistory.org . Accessed April 28th 2022. https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/coleman-manufacturing-campany/#:~:text=Warren%20C.,County%20on%20March%2025%2C%201849..