Miss Lucy Craft Laney 1854-1933
Lucy Craft Laney was born in Macon, Georgia, during slavery. She graduated in Atlanta University´s first class in 1873. Ten years later she founded Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in the lecture room of Christ Presbyterian Church of Augusta. She established the Nurses Training Institute for African-American girls, for the Nurses School of University Hospital; a kindergarten for African Americans in Augusta, one of the first in the South; the first football team from an African-American high school in Georgia, and gave Mary McCloud Bethune her first teaching job. Miss Laney also helped to establish the Augusta NAACP. Her portrait hangs in the Georgia State Capitol, and she is a distinguished member of the Georgia Women of Achievement housed at Wesleyan College in Macon. Her former home is now and African-American museum.
Augusta African-American Historical Committee
Sponsors Edward M. McIntyre, Sr.-Founder
Plaque courtesy Lat34North.com.
Original page, with additional info, here.
Photo credit: Ken Moser.