Carlotta Stewart Lai

Carlotta Stewart Lai (September 16, 1881 – July 6, 1952) was an educator and administrator in the Hawaiian public schools for four decades. She was the first African American school principal in Honolulu. Lai, an African American from New York, worked as a teacher and educational leader at a time when these occupations were largely closed to African Americans on the U. S. mainland, and she achieved professional success at a time when African Americans represented only 0.2 percent of the population of Hawaii.

Early life 1907 photo of (from left to right) Carlotta Stewart Lai's brother, McCants Stewart, along with his daughter Mary Katherine Stewart, Carlotta Stewart Lai (standing), McCants Stewart's wife Mayme Delia Weir (seated), and McCants Stewart's sister-in-law Harriett Anna Weir. Lai was born in 1881 in Brooklyn, New York to Thomas McCants Stewart and Charlotte L. Harris Stewart. She was the third child and the only daughter, and she attended public school in Brooklyn. Her father, Thomas McCants Stewart, was an attorney and writer in New York, who was also involved in party politics in the field of voting rights. Her mother was a graduate of Wilberforce University. Lai's maternal aunt was Verina Morton-Jones, a physician, charter founder of the Brooklyn NAACP, and co-founder of the Urban League. which qualified her to teach in Hawai'i's public schools.

In 1909, when she was 28 years old, Lai was principal of Ko'olau Elementary School in Kauai, where she taught children from many different races and ethnic backgrounds. At Hanamaulu School, Lai was not only the principal, but she also supervised the library and cafeteria, and taught English.

Correspondence and other papers related to Lai's family history is archived at Howard University, pursuant to a donation by Katherine Stewart Flippin, Lai's niece and longtime special education teacher in San Francisco, California.