Margaret Morgan Lawrence

Margaret Cornelia Morgan Lawrence (August 19, 1914 – December 4, 2019) was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, gaining those qualifications in 1948. Her work included clinical care, teaching, and research, particularly into the presence and development of ego strength in inner-city families. They lived in Richmond, Virginia but traveled to New York City for Lawrence's birth, as their first child had died in the local segregated hospital. After Lawrence's birth, the family returned to Virginia, then moved to heavily segregated Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Education Because she wanted to become a doctor, Lawrence moved to Harlem, New York City as a teenager in the 1920s to attend Wadleigh High School for Girls and live with family.

Lawrence described her work with children and families in inner-city New York as integrating psychoanalytic wisdom with spirituality. The HFI presents the Margaret Morgan Lawrence Award to honor outstanding service to the children and families of Harlem.

She is the author of two books, The Mental Health Team in Schools (1971) and Young Inner City Families: Development of Ego Strength Under Stress (1975). The Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society honored her with its Outstanding Women Practitioners in Medicine Award. In 2003 Swarthmore College awarded Lawrence the honorary degree of Doctor of Science at Swarthmore College, and she gave the Commencement Address. Lawrence also received the Episcopal Peace Fellowship's Sayre Prize in 2003, in recognition of her work to promote peace, justice, and non-violence. In 2004 she was awarded the Virginia Kneeland Frantz Distinguished Women in Medicine Award by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.

Personal life Born in New York City, Lawrence grew up in a series of Southern towns. They shared a deep commitment to religion and pacifism. Their other daughter, Paula Lawrence Wehmiller, Their son, Charles R. Lawrence III, is a professor of law.

One of the founders of a cooperative community called Skyview Acres

Lawrence-Lightfoot wrote a dual autobiography and biography of her mother, Balm in Gilead: Journey of Healer (1988). Reviewed by H. Jack Geiger in The New York Times, the book chronicles "seven decades of struggle, change and achievement," including the accompanying emotional scars and conflicts. She died on December 4, 2019, at the age of 105 in Boston.