- Creator
- McLaurin family
- Call number
- Sc MG 522
- Physical description
- 2 folders
- Preferred Citation
- McLaurin Family collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library
- Repository
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division
- Location
- Sc MG 522
- Access to materials
- Advance notice required. Request access to this collection.
The McLaurin Family collection comprises a dismantled scrapbook of newspaper clippings on segregation in Oklahoma schools and higher education, the McLaurin (George W.) desegregation case, the drive to end segregation in the educational system throughout the United States, the relationship between U.S. politics and civil rights, Southern reaction to Supreme Court desegregation rulings, and related information, 1948-1973. There are also obituary notices and funeral programs for the McLaurins (1966-1972); personal and career information (e.g., resumes and curriculum vitae) for Dunbar McLaurin; and letters, newspaper, and magazine clippings by and about Dunbar McLaurin.
Biographical/historical information
The McLaurin family - George M. McLaurin, (n.d.-1968), Peninah S. McLaurin (1893-1966), and Dunbar Simms McLaurin (1920-1973) - are regarded as one of Oklahoma's history-making black families in the areas of civil rights, desegregation and economics.
George and Peninah McLaurin were a husband/wife team of civil rights pioneers. George McLaurin, a retired professor, was the first African American to break the color barrier and 56-year segregation policy at the University of Oklahoma. Following a lawsuit filed by McLaurin in 1948, a decision rendered by a federal three-judge panel resulted in his admission to the graduate college of the university. Peninah McLaurin, an educator for 33 years, first spearheaded the move to overcome segregation in Oklahoma's institutions of higher learning when she applied for admission to the university in 1923, but was refused.
Dunbar Simms McLaurin, businessman, professor, lecturer, attorney, and economist, was widely known as the principal founder of Freedom National Bank in Harlem-- the largest African-American-owned bank in the United States. In addition, he also specialized in economic development in minority communities and served as president of Ghettonomics, Inc., a Harlem-based firm of economic consultants. An ardent proponent of black capitalism, he perfected the Ghetto Economic Development I ndustrialization P lan, or "GEDI" Plan, which was designed to assist African-American businesses via small business loans.
Administrative information
Source of acquisition
Gift, Elizabeth McLaurin, June 2000
Using the collection
Location
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Second Floor