I've been following for quite a while the story of the Bray School in Williamsburg, which in the eighteenth century was founded to provide an education to African American children. Here's the latest on this summer's dig in Williamsburg to recover evidence of the school. I must say when I was of college (or graduate student) age I would have thought this sounded like an enormous amount of fun; now I think sitting in the (air conditioned) archives reading the intellectual output of William and Mary faculty and students sounds like a little more fun.
On a serious note, this is testimony to the fabulous work that Terry Meyers has done to tell the story of the Bray School. It's also very exciting that we're learning more about the intellectual and physical world of Williamsburg, where so many ideas -- both anti-slavery and pro-slavery -- were in circulation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of my thoughts on William and Mary in the antebellum era are here.
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