The World Was Not Worthy of Them: Lucy Craft Laney

Lucy Craft Laney was born on 13 April 1854 in Macon, Georgia to free parents Louisa and David Laney. Her father was a Presbyterian minister and a carpenter who purchased his and his wife’s freedom about 20 years before Lucy’s birth. By the age of four Laney could read and write although it was illegal for Blacks to learn to do so in Georgia at the time. By the age of 12 she was translating Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War and other Latin texts. She attended Lewis (now Bullard) High School a school run by the American Missionary Association, an abolitionist organization from New York. She was part of the first class at Atlanta University (now Clark University) in 1869. In 1873 Laney graduated after completing the teacher training program.

Laney began teaching shortly after graduating and for the next ten years she taught in Macon. Milledgeville, and Augusta, Georgia. In 1883 she opened her own school in the basement of Christ Presbyterian Church in Augusta. The school was initially intended for girls but when some boys showed up, she accepted them as well. Her first class had only six students but by the second year there were over 200 children at the school. By the third year the school was licensed by the state and named after one of the benefactors, Francine E. H. Haines. The Haines Normal and Industrial Institute became the first school in the state of Georgia to offer kindergarten for Black children in 1890. Because of Laney’s work in education, she became one of the first Black Americans to have their portrait displayed in the Georgia state capital.

Beyond Laney’s work in education, she was instrumental in the founding of the Augusta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She assisted in the integrating the community work of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in Georgia. 

Lucy Craft Laney died on 23 October 1933 in Augusta, Georgia