Elizabeth stand to this day. During his elementary schooling, Louis Gregory attended the Avery Institute, the first public school open to both African American and white children in Charleston. George and Mary Elizabeth wanted children, but she lost many as infants. Mary Elizabeth died in 1891, three months after giving birth; that infant died soon after birth. Gregory's older brother Theodore died the same year. Gregory still graduated from the Avery Institute, and gave the graduation speech entitled, "Thou Shalt Not Live For Thyself Alone." Avery Institute honors Gregory by displaying his portrait in their preserved classroom. Gregory gained a stepbrother, Harrison Gregory, when his stepfather married the widow Lauretta Gregory. Lauretta's husband, Louis Noisette, a Civil War veteran, had died while she was pregnant with Harrison. The Noisette family became prominent in Charleston after leaving Saint-Domingue. Philippe Stanislas Noisette was the young son of a Nantes horticulturalist working for the King of France. His father sent him to Saint-Domingue to send back exotic flowers. While there he married Celestine, who was of African descent. They fled the violence of the Haitian Revolution to Charleston, together with two of Celestine's family members. Because of the miscegenation laws of South Carolina, Philippe had to declare Celestine a slave in order to have her live with him. They had six children together, who were mixed-race. In 1809 he requested manumission of one of the family members, but the legislature refused it. One of the two men fathered Benjamin who became enslaved by the Solomon family. Benjamin's children recorded in an 1893 deposition that throughout their enslavement their father made clear to them to remember their last name was Noisette rather than that of their enslaver. Harrison escaped enslavement in 1862 and joined the Union Navy on May 6, 1862, in Port Royal, South Carolina. Benjamin also escaped enslavement in 1862 and went on to the freeman's Camp Barker, as it was known then, in Washington DC. Gregory's step-brother's father Louis Noisette remained enslaved until African-American soldiers liberated Charleston in February 1865. He then joined the 33rd USCT Regiment as a drummer to help liberate his mother and sister who remained enslaved in Savannah. After the war Louis Noisette married Lauretta, and had the child Harrison Noisette who became Harrison Gregory. University and professional years Gregory's generous stepfather paid for his first year at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he studied English