Intro Row
The William & Mary Bray School Lab uncovers, documents, preserves and shares broadly the history and legacies of the Williamsburg Bray School (1760 - 1774) and its students.
The W&M Bray School Lab is a key component of the Williamsburg Bray School Initiative, a ground-breaking and innovative partnership between William & Mary and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation with the shared goal of uncovering, documenting, preserving, and disseminating the history and legacy of the Williamsburg Bray School. As we reconstruct the Bray School’s history, we aspire to transform traditional accounts of America’s history into a multi-layered story that centers Black legacy at the heart of U.S. democracy.
The W&M Bray School Lab is a unit of Strategic Cultural Partnerships.
Know Their Names
The Williamsburg Bray School educated between three hundred and four hundred enslaved and free Black children during its fourteen years of existence. Through primary source research, we know the names of over eighty of them.
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Every American's Shared Origin Story
The discovery of the Williamsburg Bray School provides an unprecedented opportunity for scholarship on the interconnection of religion, slavery, philanthropy and education in colonial Virginia. The William & Mary Bray School Lab collaborates with W&M students and external partners to tell the story of the scholars who studied at the Williamsburg Bray School through genealogy and oral histories.
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Bray School Lab
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William & Mary Bray School Lab P.O. Box 8795 Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
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- Email: [[braylab]]
