Charlotte Hawkins Brown was the founder of the Palmer Memorial Institute, a private preparatory school for African American children in Sedalia, North Carolina. The school prepared students to be educationally self-sufficient, religiously sincere and culturally secure. She was the vice president of the National Association of Negro Women and a founding member of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, a forerunner of the Southern Regional Council.
Today this historical site is a residential building.