Creola Katherine Coleman was born on August 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. She grew up in a South still deeply marked by racial segregation. Her father was a farmer and laborer, her mother a schoolteacher. Very early on, her mathematical abilities stood out. She entered high school at the age of ten and graduated at fourteen—an exceptional path at a time when secondary education for African Americans often ended after the eighth grade.
She continued her studies at West Virginia State College, a historically Black institution, where she took every mathematics course offered. In 1937, she earned a degree in mathematics and French, with honors. One of her professors, mathematician W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, even created advanced courses specifically for her. In 1939, she became one of the first African American women to enroll in a graduate program at West Virginia University, following the Supreme Court decision, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), which required states to provide equal access to public higher education.However, she interrupted her studies to devote herself to her family and taught mathematics in public schools.