Laurinburg Institute celebrated for 120-year-milestone

LAURINBURG — On Sept. 15, 1904, Emmanuel and Tinny McDuffie answered a call, traveling from Alabama to North Carolina to establish a “colored” school beyond the primary grades in the southeast portion of the state.

That school was named the Laurinburg Institute and just a quarter of a mile from its campus, community leaders and alumni gathered Saturday at Bright Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church for a program where speakers commemorated the school and its significance to Laurinburg 120 years later.

The program was part of a two-day long Founders Day Celebration held over the weekend, which began with a meet and greet on Friday and commenced with a ceremonious gala and dinner held on Saturday. The theme of the celebration was “Deeds Not Words.”

Earlier on Saturday, Bright Hopewell pastor and state representative Garland Pierce spoke of the barriers that the founders of the Laurinburg Institute had to overcome for the school to come to fruition and become the nationally known name it is today.

“It’s very difficult to mount the process of forming a small business or enterprise of any kind,” Rep. Pierce said. “Imagine forming a whole entire school … Just the forming of a school alone by the pioneers Emmanuel Monty and Tinny McDuffie and Booker T. Washington and others who collaborated with them was a miracle within itself.”

In his remarks, Pierce reflected on the rural south of North Carolina back in the earlier 1900s, when there was no interstate and the average wage of an American was 22 cents an hour. He went on to speak of the additional obstacles that African Americans had to overcome just 40 years after the Civil War “In an era of Jim Crow, an era of separate water fountains and restrooms; waking up each morning brought certain feelings of uncertainty that were almost always present — ‘Will I be insulted today in public? Are my children safe?’”

Among those concerns was whether they would receive a sound education. Pierce said that the answer to that concern was the Laurinburg Institute.

“The miracle in this situation was the founders’ utter commitment to their vision and their drive to see it through no matter what,” Pierce said. “We should all count ourselves fortunate that they did indeed see it through.”

The Laurinburg Institute was severely damaged by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018. The roofs on all nine major buildings were significantly damaged and rendered the buildings unusable.

“There was much struggle in the beginning of the school and struggle continues to this day as we continue to deal with issues of funding, storm damage, and the challenge of maintaining an institution but I want you to look into your own hearts and you might find that those struggles, those challenges, that blood, sweat and tears, is very much worth the deep and tremendous impact they leave upon the world,” Pierce said.

During the program, Bishop Frank McDuffie Jr. was presented proclamations on behalf of both the city of Laurinburg, signed by Mayor Jim Willis; and the state of North Carolina, signed by Gov. Roy Cooper, recognizing the 120th anniversary of the school’s founding.

“‘The institute has served for over a century as a beacon of higher learning and opportunity for the Sandhill region of North Carolina and beyond … The institute has pioneered progress in North Carolina as the first secondary education institute for African American students in Scotland County and surrounding areas,’” Garrett Whipkey, legislative assistant to Rep. Pierce, read from the governor’s proclamation.

Before reading the City of Laurinburg’s proclamation, Mayor Willis shared several anecdotes about the institute’s founders and their impact on Laurinburg, which was later reflected in the naming the McDuffie Square.

“It’s such an incredible legacy,” Willis said.