Lucy Craft Laney was an African-American educator. She was born in 1854, when it was illegal for African American people to learn to read. Still, she learned how to read with the help of her parents’ former enslavers’ sister.
She attended Lewis High School in Macon, Georgia. She went on to enroll in the first class at Atlanta University (now known as Clark Atlanta University) and graduated in 1873. She was a teacher for ten years in various Georgia schools before she decided to found her school.
She founded the first school for black children in Augusta, Georgia. Her first class in 1883 had six students but soon grew to 234 by 1885. By 1928, education was still segregated, and Lucy’s Haines Normal and Industrial Institute (named for a benefactor who paid for the expansion of the school) was the size of a city block of buildings and was teaching over 800 students.
She served as the principal for 50 years. After her death, her burial site was redeveloped as another school, Lucy Craft Laney Comprehensive High School. Haines Normal and Industrial Institute was also given her namesake posthumously, renamed Lucy Craft Laney High School in 2009.
