Turning Hate into Hope in Colonial Williamsburg

February 3, 2016 by Joe Straw 14 Comments

The Williamsburg Inn, the famed luxury hotel in Colonial Williamsburg that regularly plays host to celebrities and royalty (including Queen Elizabeth II, twice), recently discovered that many of its elegant doors were being propped open by brass “doormen” that depict crude racial stereotypes of African Americans. But rather than simply throwing the heavy doorstops on the scrap heap of history, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which owns and operates the hotel along with three others, decided to turn the doorstops into something “teachable and affirmative” by melting them down and recasting the brass into a plaque bearing the words from an iconic speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. …

Albert Durant: A Lens Focused Upon African American History

February 2, 2016 by J.A. Lyon Leave a Comment

Renowned photographer Ansel Adams once said, “Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.” African American photographer Albert Durant accomplished both, melding talent and style with a desire to document the world around him. What resulted was an unusually vivid lens into everyday black life and culture in the mid-twentieth century—one that visitors to the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library can experience themselves, throughout the month of February….

What We’re Looking Forward to in a Jam-Packed Black History Month

January 27, 2016 by Bill Sullivan 4 Comments

To understand ourselves as a people it is necessary to pay serious attention to the African American experience. It’s important to who we are as a people, a fact reflected in a very ambitious program of Black History month slated for February….

Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 18, 2016 by Mitchell B. Reiss 2 Comments

MLK at First Baptist Church

Nearly two centuries after Thomas Jefferson declared that “all men are created equal,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a nation still torn by racial division and oppression closer to fulfilling the promise of that founding ideal. Today we honor Dr. King as one of America’s most transformative and courageous leaders. I believe we can all strive to build on his legacy by continually seeking ways—large and small—to ensure that our cherished principles of liberty and equality hold true not just for some, but for all….

Let Freedom Ring Challenge: The Common Bond of Faith

January 14, 2016 by Joe Straw Leave a Comment

As the nation marks its 240th birthday this year, so does one of its oldest African-American houses of worship: Williamsburg’s historic First Baptist Church. Founded secretly in a Green Springs wood amid revolution, it has survived and thrived through enslavement, Civil War, segregation and today’s continued struggles for equality….

Let Freedom Ring: Colonial Williamsburg and First Baptist Church Team Up for Black History Month

December 23, 2015 by Rachel West 5 Comments

In 1776, a revolution was brewing in Williamsburg, but it’s not the one of which you’re thinking. It involved religion and the black community. Fast forward to the 21st century, and Colonial Williamsburg and First Baptist Church are challenging the nation to ring the church’s bell in the name of freedom and equality.

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Spirituals Communicate More Than Just Words and Music

April 30, 2015 by Karen Gonzalez 1 Comment

In colonial times, spirituals and religious folk songs did more than carry musical messages of faith and hope. For those who were enslaved, they were also a way to communicate….

The arc of herstory

March 20, 2015 by Making History Team Leave a Comment

Katrina Lewis—Lydia Broadnax ALL MODEL RELEASED [brightcove videoID=2928448283001 playerID=2893748186001 height=413 width=735]

How did one Williamsburg woman make her way in the world after the Revolution? Did the promise of the Declaration of Independence improve the lives of women?

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A Place of Her Own: The Aspirations of 18th-Century Women

March 13, 2015 by Bill Sullivan 1 Comment

Eighteenth-century women faced an array of legal and social restrictions. Enslaved women enjoyed almost no protections at all.

Still, many women pushed against these limits, asserting control over finances, households and their bodies. They were not merely victims of a system rigged to deny their equality. They had ambitions: to be truly free, to speak as full citizens, to have a place they could call their own….

A Celebration of African-American Interpretation

February 26, 2015 by Karen Gonzalez Leave a Comment

In a scene from the Electronic Field Trip “Freedom Bound,” Set in 1839 Louisiana, this scene shows the reaction of a whipping by an overseer.

African-American interpreters in the Revolutionary City sometimes find that there’s a fine line between the past and the present.

Like the time that a guest nervously told the African-American interpreters at the Powell House that her husband was bringing the car around so that they could escape and be free. The portrayal was so real that the guest believed the interpreters were enslaved.

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