Abstract Laing School was founded January 29, 1866 by Cornelia Hancock (1839-1926), under the auspices of the Friends Association for the Aid and Elevation of the Freedmen of Philadelphia. The school began with 50 African American students in the damaged remains of the Mount Pleasant Presbyterian church in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. At different times, Laing served as an industrial school, a high school, middle school, and elementary school. In the early 1970s, the Charleston school system...