The Williamsburg Bray School stood tall last Friday afternoon after being moved and restored throughout the last 18 months. New wood roofing made the building look almost as fresh as when it opened in 1760, but all that occurred there centuries ago is still yet to be discovered – with William & Mary playing a major role.
Hundreds gathered on the lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg for the school’s formal dedication, an event co-hosted by William & Mary. It is the oldest surviving building dedicated to the formal education of enslaved and free Black children. Nearly 400 students, ages 3-10, were taught over its 14 years as a school. The restored structure will formally open as part of Colonial Williamsburg in spring 2025. Since 2021, researchers at the W&M Bray School Lab have made significant progress toward learning more about the enslaved and free students who attended it.
As several guest speakers noted throughout the event, this historic day was not just one of gratitude, but community, knowledge, partnership, and above all, reflection.
“I’m impressed by the work of the (Colonial Williamsburg) Foundation and the commitment of William & Mary to use this structure as both a tool to remember and a tool to teach about an important chapter of our history,” said Lonnie Bunch L.H.D. ’24, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. “Although it reinforced slavery, teaching its students to be servile, it also gave them tools to question slavery. You cannot limit where the mind goes once the light of education is there.”
The restoration of the Bray School and the work of William & Mary’s Bray School Lab to learn more about its students and their descendants has received enormous national media attention. On the day of the dedication, a front-page story in The Washington Post and an Associated Press article ran in more than 200 publications nationwide including the New York Times and U.S. News & World Report. The initial discovery and move of the building also generated significant national and international attention.
During the ceremony, William & Mary President Katherine A. Rowe thanked the vast number of people involved in the work around the Bray School, including Presidential Liaison for Strategic Cultural Partnerships Ann Marie Stock, Bray School Lab Director Maureen Elgersman Lee and Colonial Williamsburg collaborators. Rowe referenced a passage by Mary Church Terrell, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, about the long road toward progress and recognition.
“And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ‘ere long,” the quote reads.
“It’s so rare to feel that burst into the fruit of labor, but it’s happening today,” Rowe said. “We are here today testifying today that education and discovery are essential tools to advance freedom and unity in our nation.”
“The fact that the building exists is remarkable,” said President and CEO of Colonial Williamsburg Cliff Fleet. “This structure is a window into the lives of the children.”
The ceremony was led by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the W&M Office of the President and Strategic Cultural Partnerships. Overseeing various units across W&M, including the Muscarelle Museum of Art, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, and James Monroe’s Highland, SCP utilizes and manages resources from the university’s cultural heritage to better expand engagement with cultural and historical institutions on a local, national and global scale.
“The dedication ceremony was a testament to the power of collaboration,” said Stock. “Together we are bringing a fuller understanding of our nation’s early years and all those who contributed to its formation in our city, our Commonwealth and our country. What a privilege it is to be helping guide these efforts at this important juncture.”
The light of education: Acknowledging a complex history
Extensive research was a key factor in the discovery of the Bray School building, with Chancellor Professor Emeritus of English Terry Meyers originally leading archaeological and architectural experts to the Bray-Digges House. Through partnerships with the City of Williamsburg and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Bray School was found housed within those walls, and the structure was moved with painstaking precision in early 2023 to Colonial Williamsburg.
While the building was being restored to its 18th-century appearance, researchers with the W&M Bray School Lab continued their work to document the school’s history and identify descendants of the Bray School’s students. Many of those descendants were in attendance at the dedication.
“The Williamsburg Bray School dedication was nothing short of a homecoming,” said Elgersman Lee, “wherein Bray School Descendant Community members answered a call to return to this place at this time to be recognized, to fellowship with others, and to engage the past and the present in a very special way.”
The event began with an interactive “Roll Call” song from the Bray School Descendant Community Choir. The same choir, composed entirely of children, later brought tears to the eyes of many with its rendition of “Black Butterfly.” As the ceremony continued, Rex Ellis ’85, Ed.D. ’89, former associate director for curatorial affairs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, recalled a “sanctifying moment” he had that morning, where the ancestors of Bray School students came to him and spoke of the impact the school had on the students.
“(They) wanted to say, ‘Here are my legacies,’” Ellis said. “‘Here is why I am so thankful for being here and being able to send my children to learn knowledge … to learn intelligence … to learn the sheer gift of education.”
The Bray School Lab: Telling the story
The Bray School represents a complex history. While Black children were given access to education, it was from a pro-slavery and religious perspective. The W&M Bray School Lab has focused on uncovering that history. An oral history archive, a weekly newsletter, a blog and soon the first published volume devoted to the school have all been crafted through the lab’s short existence. Most importantly, approximately 87 students have been identified to have attended the Bray School, as found from rosters of students from 1762, 1765 and 1769.
At the ceremony, each name was read aloud by the descendants of Bray School students. Some students were identified by a full name – like John Ashby, Harry Ashby and Mary Ashby – others only by a single name, like Charlotte, Roger and Dolly.
“What an honor it was, a mere 250 years after their teacher died and the Bray School shut down, to listen to such gifted, illustrious, impassioned and inspired speakers on the occasion the actual physical school, discovered, rescued and now moved from William & Mary to Colonial Williamsburg, was reopened,” Steve Kohlhagen ’69, a leading supporter of the lab’s work said, “surrounded by many of the descendants of those original grade school scholars. A very moving, momentous, inspiring honor, indeed.”
“This has been, for many decades, a community divided,” said Carly Fiorina, chair of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “(The foundation) was built in many ways upon the destruction of the descendant community … and yet, with this commemoration, this is a community beginning to heal.”
Justice John Charles Thomas LL.D. ’24 stressed that the Bray School is not just a building, but a vessel for eliciting change.
“What is our job now, we can’t just let (the building) sit there,” Thomas said. “We have to talk about it. We have to tell the story. We have to make this story make a difference to the students who are coming after us.”
William Oster, Communications Specialist