Educator And Social Worker

     Sue Bertha Coleman's mother was working as a cook for a Huntsville, Alabama family when she decided her daughter should have a college education, something few Alabama women received at the turn of the century.
     Coleman graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. She began her career as principal of a Tennessee Coal and Iron Company (TCI) school at Muscoda, a large ore mining camp near Bessemer, Alabama. At the end of her third year, she remained on the company's payroll to conduct social work, Coleman was designated as a community supervisor in charge of social services for black miners and their families. Initiative and dedication set her apart from her peers. In 1918, she borrowed $300 from a bank, left her husband in charge of their children, and went to Chicago to study with Jane Addams, the most noted social worker of the day.
     On her return, Coleman took over a schedule of regular weekly duties at the "Colored Community House" that kept her busy from dawn to dusk. Whether it was teaching children to read and write, or their mothers to cook and sew, Sue Bertha Coleman helped the people in the one mining camp of Muscoda learn the responsibilities of neighbors and community.