LAURINBURG — In 1904, Emmanuel and Tinny McDuffie, a teenage, newly married couple who had just graduated high school, walked 468 miles from southern Alabama to ScotlandCounty.
While walking, day and night, they had to hide from nightriders and the KKK, who would harm or kill them just because they could.
Those were terribly troubled times for black people.
The McDuffies arrived to educate black students in the tiny hamlet of Laurinburg. They built a school in one place, were forced to move the entire school brick-by-brick to another place, and the Laurinburg Institute has been successfully educating students for over 116 years ever since.
Laurinburg Institute alumni include John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, legendary jazz trumpeter; Sir John Swann, former premier of Bermuda; Sam Jones, one of the 50 greatest NBA players of all time; Charlie Scott, UNC basketball legend and the South’s first black scholarship player; Dr. Frances Foster, leading female ophthalmologist; Jamaican track Olympian, Beverly McDonald; andNorthCarolina’s newly-appointed District Court Judge FrancesMcDuffie.
In the 2021 school year, at least 300 North Carolina-based ninth- through 12th-grade students will be able to attend the elite Laurinburg Institute — long known for college prep curriculum, small, exclusive classes and excellent teachers — virtually
As an accredited school and a North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship participating school, state scholarship funds are available to financially qualified students. No high school still operating in America or the state of North Carolina has educated minority students as long as Laurinburg Institute.
Frank “Bishop” McDuffie, Laurinburg’s president and the third-generation leader of the school his grandparents founded, said, “We already know the devastating impact the pandemic has had on all high school students, most particularly African-Americans. Excellent teaching in tough times is what we’ve always done very well at Laurinburg. We have master teachers who are tremendous at taking students from where they are and elevating them to where they need to be.”
Education experts across America agree that for students to recover as well as to get back on their academic preparation levels and tracks, extra investments of time and instruction are necessary.
“My appeal is to parents who know their children better than anyone else and know their students are struggling,” explained Bishop McDuffie. “Parents, you also know that finding better academic options and opportunities for a better life for your children is not the child’s responsibility or the school’s responsibility … it’s yours. I hope you will allow the Laurinburg Institute to help. It’s private school education at a public school cost.”
Scholarship requests for enrollment and placement of new students into Laurinburg Institute for the 2021 school year are open. The application for the NC Opportunity Scholarship program will become available on Feb. 1. For information, go to laurinburginstitute.org or contact the admissions office at 910-276-0684.