 Born in Staunton, Virginia to a factory worker who had become a minister and his wife, Coleman attended grammar schools during Virginia's Massive Resistance crisis.In 1951, he was shocked to find his father, who had become badly injured in an automobile accident the previous year, had committed suicide in their basement.Coleman finished his schooling nonetheless, graduating from the University of Virginia with a B.A., in 1964, and received his J.D.