Negative taken of group including Dr. Hugh A. Browne of McRae Sanatorium (left) and A.M. & N. College President Lawrence A. Davis, Sr. (second from left) in the late 1950's. Born in McCrory, Woodruff County, Arkansas in 1914, Lawrence A. Davis graduated from Merrill High School in Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, Arkansas in 1933. He received an A.B. Degree in English from the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College in Pine Bluff (later called Univ. of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) in 1937, and a M.A. degree from the University of Kansas in 1941. Davis was president of the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College in Pine Bluff from 1943-1972 and became the first Chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Dr. Davis became the President of Laney College in Oakland, Alameda County, California in 1975. Born the son of a physician in Kansas City, Dr. Hugh A. Browne was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a teenager but recovered in two years. Browne attended four years of undergraduate studies at Kansas University at Lawrence, two years of medical training at University of Kansas and completed his medical training at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., because UK did not offer the last two years of training to African Americans. Due to fellow physicians leaving Kansas City, Browne was able take over a practice and became the examining physician for Kansas City's open-air school program and Negro division of that city's tuberculosis division. After persuasion by Dr. G.W.S. Ish of Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas, Browne decided to close his private practice and move to Arkansas to run a new Sanatorium. In 1931, Browne became the first superintendent of the Thomas C. McRae Sanatorium at Alexander, Saline County, Arkansas, which was especially built for the African Americans with tuberculosis in Arkansas. After 31 years at the McRae, Browne retired October 1, 1962 and soon after passed away at age 62 in his home in Kansas City on Nov. 14, 1962.
