Maryland Industrial and Agricultural Institute for Colored Youths
The Maryland Industrial and Agricultural Institute for Colored Youths was a school in North Laurel, Maryland, United States founded in 1901 by Ernest Lyon for the education of African-American students in central Maryland. History In 1901 Ernest Lyon, the pastor at John Wesley Church in Baltimore, Maryland and a professor at Morgan College, purchased of land located near the city of Laurel, Maryland and the Patuxent River for the establishment of a school dedicated to the education of African-American students, and served as the institution's first president, with agriculturalist R.J. Pollard as principal. Lyon was inspired by Booker T. Washington's advocacy of industrial education for African American children, and Washington later wrote in support of the Maryland Industrial and Agricultural Institute and similar institutions to the Maryland State Commission of Education. Pollard described the aims of the mission of the institute's founders as "the establishment of a Hampton or Tuskegee in Maryland-in the Black Belt of Maryland-as we have styled it." The school was also known as the "Laurel Colored Agricultural and Industrial School." The school merged with Bowie Normal School. In January 2010, the Laurel Historical Society gave a lecture about the school, describing the event as "unraveling one