I’ve attempted to set the color both in default settings for the TextRender Component as well at run-time. In both situations the text color is shown as black.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m missing – this is for a Paper2D game with orthographic camera.
I seem to be Having the same problem… Text just renders black in Orto or perspective. I have never had this issue before. Any fixes? Or an I being DUMB?
I’m facing the same issue. The only thing i noticed is that the rendered text has the selected color on the backside. On the front it is rendered black 
In case anyone is still having this issue, see this post: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/657850/text-render-is-black-when-placed-in-shadow.html
I was able to solve the problem by creating a new material (e.g., TextMaterialEmissive), and using that instead of “DefaultTextMaterialOpaque”, which is what you get when you first create a TextRenderComponent.
I hope that helps! 
Solution still doesn’t work for me. I have set both the base and emissive colours to white and changed the material to unlit yet my text render is still black.
