Pompano's first school for colored students, a two-room wooden building on the 400 block of Hammondville Road (today Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd), was destroyed in the 1926 Miami hurricane.
It was replaced in 1928 by a two-story, six-classroom building, with library, assembly hall, and separate office for the principal.
The Rosenwald Fund provided matching funds to those raised by the African-American community; Broward County also contributed.
Principal Blanche Ely spearheaded efforts for its construction.
In 1954, it was renamed Coleman Elementary School, in honor of Reverend James Emanuel Coleman, pastor of Pompano's Mount Calvary Baptist Church.