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The Lemon Project’s Summer 2024 Impact
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The Lemon Project’s Summer 2024 Impact

Published August 28, 2024

By Jajuan S. Johnson, Ph.D.

The Lemon Project team and their community of supporters in Williamsburg and beyond hosted two dynamic summer programs—the Summer Sankofa Genealogy Workshop Series and the Lemon’s Learners Black History Matters Summer Camp. Jajuan Johnson, the Lemon Project Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, and Highland’s fellow, Mariaelena DiBenigno, also concluded their appointments with the exhibition “Sharing Authority 2020-2024.” The exhibit showcases their practice with William & Mary students, faculty, staff, and descendant communities and offers a model of doing public history with multiple collaborators. These projects build on the Lemon Project’s mission to “build bridges between William & Mary and African American communities through research, programming, and supporting students, faculty, and staff.”

Lemon’s Learners Black History Matters Camp

Nearly twenty middle school students participated in the 2024 Lemon’s Learners Black History Matters Summer Camp. The team collaborated with the Robert Frederick Smith Explore Your Family History Center at the National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC). Ori Yarborough and Sterling Warren, Applied Public History Fellows at the NMAAHC, guided students in learning oral history best practices.

In addition to an immersion in local Black history at the W&M Libraries Special Collections Research Center, the learners conducted video interviews with Williamsburg community members Mary Lassiter, Colette Roots, and Johnette Gordon Weaver about their experiences of growing up in Williamsburg. The camp concluded at Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved with a celebration amongst family and friends for their two-day accomplishments. Jody Allen and Jajuan Johnson donned the program graduates with Kente stoles and commissioned them to seek historical facts on Black history and to share the knowledge.

Summer Sankofa Genealogy Workshop Series

The fourth Summer Sankofa Genealogy Workshop Series drew family historians from across the United States for the virtual meetings. Internationally recognized genealogist Nicka Sewell Smith kicked off the series with the presentation, “We Weren’t Taught How to Smile,” a story of a Black family from the Mississippi Delta who emerged from enslavement by the family of President Andrew Jackson and moved to the front lines of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.       

Tasked with finding descendants of sixteen enslaved persons sold by the Trustees of Wake Forest Institute (now University), genealogist Renate Yarborough Sanders presented updates and breakthroughs on genealogical research tied to Wake Forest University’s Slavery, Race, and Memory Project. In “Finding Joseph’s Family: A Model Case of Using Reverse Genealogy to Piece Together a Family Puzzle,” Renate shared the steps that she took and the resources that she used to uncover the afterlife of one family line, bringing its legacy forward from slavery into the mid-twentieth century, one record at a time.

“Transforming Oral History into Documentation: The Early County Massacre,” with genealogist Orice Jenkins, is about history, memory, racial violence, and the process of finding the facts about a 1915 mass lynching in Early County, Georgia. Jenkins presented compelling research and guided attendees on the often tedious process of corroborating oral histories and interrogating historical documents, such as newspapers, court documents, and census reports.

The series was successful because participants were dedicated to honing family history research skills. You can view past genealogical workshops on the Lemon Project YouTube channel.

Sharing Authority at 5 Years: 2019-2024 Exhibition at the Sadler Center  

As the Mellon Foundation-funded Sharing Authority to Remember and Re-Interpret the Past ended in July, postdoctoral fellows Mariaelena DiBenigno and Jajuan Johnson shared the grant’s ongoing work with the W&M community. Using the topics of teaching, scholarship, and community engagement, they designed and installed a temporary panel exhibit for the central part of the campus. In February 2024, the six-panel exhibit “Sharing Authority at 5 Years: 2019-2024” opened in W&M’s Sadler Center. It included community and university voices and took a future-forward approach. Though the grant cycle came to a close, the university and its partners continue to address the “legacies of slavery at research universities and historic sites.” As one of the partners, the Lemon Project appreciates the support of on- and off-campus supporters who ensured the success of the Mellon-funded initiative.

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A New Perspective: Researching Twentieth-Century Documents

Published June 5, 2024

By Sierra Manja, research intern to Dr. Jajuan Johnson, Lemon Project Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Research Associate

What do you do when your archival research reaches a supposed dead end? This is a natural occurrence in the search for eighteenth-century names, families, neighborhoods, and homes of the enslaved. Getting burnt out doesn’t always require a complete break from your work. Instead, I believe, a redirection. A redirection calls for broadening the historical context towards a respective area of study. As a second-year student assistant at William & Mary Swem Libraries Special Collections Research Center, I have learned about the diversity within historic collections. With this, I have gained an appreciation for more diverse collections, such as the Bursar Records’ comprehensive chronology and oral histories, for their distinct subjectivity.

This semester, my research on early twentieth-century Bursar Records and oral histories has furthered our narratives of eighteenth-century individuals. Through Bursar Records, Dr. Johnson and I sought to construct a narrative of African Americans’ involvement on the William & Mary campus following Emancipation. In investigating the Office of the Bursar Records from the University Archives, I was to consider various factors highlighting the individuals involved in the given transaction. My attention narrowed to the ninth box of the collection, and my present findings are attributed to the twentieth folder. I first noted the payee; I considered their role within the university administration. Payment recipient(s) as individuals require the consideration of their name within African American tradition and our pre-existing narrative. Yet, most payments within individual folders were made to companies related to the University. I did not discard this and considered the possibility of the company’s history with African American employment or a strict lack thereof.

In our second week of research, I addressed a folder from 1903 [1]. I shifted through endless payments from the school to companies such as Standard Oil Company, C.W Antrim & Sons, J.B.C Spencer & Brothers, R.T Casey & Sons, and L.W Lane & Sons. R.L. Spencer signed these checks as the steward, and the president’s signature remained absent. Only one check included the president’s signature. This caught my attention as it appeared to indicate a change in transaction relations.

On March 6th, 1903, a check signed by the University president, Lyon G. Tyler, was addressed to the “washerwomen of College Hotel” [1]. The College Hotel was used as a dorm in 1860 and was renamed Ewell Hall in 1894 [2]. Ten women were listed, as well as their corresponding work and payment. Payments ranged from $3.75 for five bags and $8.25 for eleven bags. In total, the check amounted to $51.75. With the first and last names of the ten “washerwomen,” I began researching their lineage with Ancestry. My goal was to find associated names and place the “washerwomen” within the Williamsburg context. I looked for children, spouses, and neighbors. I sought out parents’ names, searching for any indication of transgenerational labor at the University.  The possibility of this is demonstrated in Lucy Cheesmen, the fifth name listed on the Bursar check. Lucy Cheesmen washed eight badges and received $15 for her work. Lucy Cheesmen was born Lucy Burrell. The Burrell family is noted in the 1870 census as having the occupations of “farm laborer” and “keeping house” [3]. Lucy continued to maintain the university following emancipation at a low salary and with comparable tasks.

Moving chronologically in my research, I entered the latter half of the twentieth century with the James City County Oral History Collection [4]. The collection was highly organized, with indices listing the oral history participants and reported subjects, including “black/white relations,” “civil war,” and “Ewell.” The transcripts of the oral interviews began by listing the individual’s familial and professional history. This allowed one to note a family history of employment with the University. The interviews demonstrated the effects of a persistent racial divide in the Historic Triangle. When asked what the community’s most significant change has been since being there, Alleyne Blayton elaborated on the presence of black families on Duke of Gloucester. Blayton states that race has not changed, as “Williamsburg still has a long way to go in supplying equal opportunities for minority people.”

The twentieth-century material within early Bursar records and the late oral histories demonstrates how the African American community continued to contribute to the local makeup in the post-Emancipation period. The new perspective of twentieth-century documents allows the modern audience to better conceptualize the relative recentness of institutional oppression in Williamsburg. I felt more connected to the historical process of researching the twentieth century. I gained an increased sense of empathy in seeing the continued historical effects of enslavement at William & Mary.

[1] Office of the Bursar Records, Special Collections Research Center, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

[2] “Ewell Hall Dormitory.” n.d. Special Collections Knowledgebase. https://scrc-kb.libraries.wm.edu/ewell-hall-dormitory.

[3] 1870 United States Federal Census. Census Place: Bruton, York, Virginia; Roll: M593_1682; Page: 537B. https://www.ancestry.com/stories/public/connections?gender=female&firstname=Lucy&lastname=Cheesmen&birthlocation=Williamsburg,%20Virginia,%20USA&birthlocationid=24297&campaign=8b78cd49-faa2-40fe-8603-ce282d3013e1&matchfirstname=Lucille&matchlastname=Cheesman&matchdates=1906-1920&storyid=059366bf-8957-4358-85e5-c5d898db20b8

[4] James City County Oral History Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

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Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924

Published May 8, 2024

By Monet Watson, Anthropology Graduate Assistant, 2023-2024

In the early twentieth century, Virginia was a hotbed of racial tension, and the state’s legislature enacted the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, a piece of legislation that left a profound and enduring impact on the racial landscape of Virginia. This blog post will delve into the history, intent, and consequences of the Racial Integrity Act, shedding light on a dark chapter in Virginia’s history. While introducing a particulate interesting segment of history that continues to muddle the understanding of race, even today. Rewriting racial categories makes it challenging to pinpoint individuals who are of interest to the Lemon Project or simply lived in an undefined category that was flattened and homogenized under sweeping rulings, such as the Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

The early twentieth century was marked by racial prejudice and discrimination in the United States. Virginia, like many other states, had a long history of racial inequality, dating back to the days of slavery and Jim Crow laws. The racial landscape of the state was further complicated by the so-called “one-drop rule,” which considered anyone with even a single drop of African ancestry to be a Black person. Virginia, however, was interested in preserving what it deemed to be “racial purity.”

The Racial Integrity Act of 1924

The Racial Integrity Act, passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1924, sought to codify the state’s vision of racial purity and prevent interracial marriage. It had two primary components:

  • Racial Classification: The act classified Virginians into two categories – “White” and “Colored.” Individuals were required to identify themselves as one or the other, and any person with any trace of African or “colored” ancestry was to be classified as “Colored.”
  • Prohibition of Interracial Marriage: The act made it illegal for individuals to marry someone of a different race. Any interracial marriage that occurred outside of Virginia was also declared void within the state.

Impact and Consequences

The Racial Integrity Act had significant and long-lasting effects:

  • Perpetuating Racial Discrimination: By rigidly defining race and codifying racial segregation, the law reinforced the racial divisions and discrimination already present in Virginia.
  • Forced Racial Identification: The act placed the burden on individuals to classify themselves based on the state’s narrow definitions of race, often leading to complex and painful personal decisions.
  • Family Disruption: Families with diverse racial backgrounds were torn apart as they were forced to conform to the state’s definitions of race, causing heartache and separation.
  • Challenges to Personal Freedom: The act violated individual rights and autonomy by interfering in personal choices, including whom to marry.

Legacy and Repeal

The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 remained in place for nearly 50 years. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia declared that all laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional. This landmark decision effectively invalidated the Racial Integrity Act and marked a significant step forward in the fight against racial discrimination.

Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 is a stark reminder of the commonwealth’s historical struggles with racial inequality and discrimination. The act’s impact on individuals, families, and communities was profound, and its legacy continues to be felt today. Understanding the history of such laws is essential in the ongoing pursuit of racial justice and equality, as we work to ensure that every individual is treated with respect and dignity, regardless of their racial background.

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Virginia’s History and Race-Based Slavery

Published April 10, 2024

By Monet Watson, Anthropology Graduate Assistant 2023-2024

The history of Virginia in the 1700s to 1900s is deeply intertwined with the complex concept of race. The state, one of the original thirteen American colonies, played a significant role in shaping the United States and its evolution in race relations is a microcosm of the broader national struggle. The concept of race, as we understand it today, did not exist in the same form during the early colonial period. Virginia’s first African enslaved people were brought to Jamestown in 1619. Slavery and the notion of racial difference became increasingly intertwined as the economic system of the colonies grew. The 1700s marked the codification of slavery as a racially based institution, and a system of race-based discrimination began to take root.

Virginia’s economy heavily relied on agriculture, with tobacco as the dominant cash crop. The cultivation of tobacco was labor-intensive, leading to a high demand for enslaved labor. As a result, the institution of slavery in Virginia became firmly entrenched. The enslaved population, primarily of African descent, was subjected to grueling conditions and systemic oppression, which further emphasized racial divisions. This is the context in which William & Mary purchased a farm and grow tobacco in 1718, along with 17 people to work on the plantation. The institutionalized efforts to reinforce and legitimized slavery continued as time progressed.

Legislation and Legalization of Racism

Virginia’s lawmakers passed a series of laws in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that perpetuated racial divisions and solidified the status of African Americans as slaves. The infamous Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 reinforced the idea that being of African descent automatically meant one was enslaved for life. These laws also imposed harsh penalties for interracial relationships, marriages, and gatherings, further segregating the population along racial lines.

American Revolution and the Paradox of Liberty

The American Revolution introduced the idea of freedom and equality, but the reality for African Americans in Virginia was far from these ideals. Some enslaved individuals found hope in the revolutionary rhetoric, and some even fought in the war, but the post-Revolution period did not bring the desired liberation. Instead, the early nineteenth century saw stricter slave laws and regulations in Virginia, further deepening the racial divide.

Antebellum Period and the Growth of Racial Hierarchies

As the nineteenth century progressed, Virginia’s economy diversified, with more focus on industry and agriculture. The institution of slavery continued to thrive, and racial hierarchies became even more pronounced. Slaveholders and white elites held immense power, while African Americans faced oppression and limited rights.

Civil War and Emancipation

The American Civil War (1861-1865) had a profound impact on race relations in Virginia. While the Confederacy defended slavery as a fundamental institution, the Union Army’s presence and the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) marked significant steps towards the abolition of slavery. After the war, the 13th Amendment (1865) formally ended slavery in the United States, leading to the Emancipation of enslaved African Americans in Virginia and across the nation.

Reconstruction and Jim Crow Era

The period following the Civil War, known as Reconstruction, briefly offered African Americans greater political and civil rights. However, these gains were short-lived, as the rise of the Jim Crow era saw the reinstatement of racial segregation, discrimination, and violence. Virginia, like many other Southern states, implemented policies that disenfranchised African Americans and reinforced racial divisions.

The concept of race in Virginia during the 1700s to 1900s is a complicated, painful, and evolving story. It is a narrative of oppression, resistance, and transformation. While the historical struggles and injustices faced by African Americans in Virginia are undeniable, their resilience and determination have played a pivotal role in shaping the state’s present and future. The Lemon Project works towards reconciliation and to make public the history of African Americans at William & Mary. The legacy of this complicated history continues to influence discussions about race, equality, and justice in Virginia and the United States today. Understanding this history is essential in moving towards a more equitable and inclusive future.

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Celebrating Black History Month in the Archives
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Celebrating Black History Month in the Archives

Published February 2, 2024

Dr. Jajuan Johnson and Sierra Manga, the Lemon Project intern for Spring 2024, are starting Black History Month at William & Mary Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center. They are making major findings on African Americans who worked at William & Mary in the early twentieth century.

For example, Dr. Johnson and Ms. Manga found an invoice to the college from Samuel Harris’s Dry Goods’ Store. Harris was a wealthy African American businessman who lived in Williamsburg in the late 1800s. His store remained open after the 1902 Virginia Constitutional Convention, which disenfranchised African Americans in the commonwealth. Harris died in 1904 and is buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery. We look forward to sharing more findings at the Lemon Project Genealogy Research Roundtable on February 15th at 6 pm.

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Undiscovering the Archive

Published November 8, 2023

By Shawna Alston, Summer 2022-2023 Charles Center Incubator Research Student         

Archival research is a fully involved, tedious effort usually begun in an attempt to find something elusive or undiscovered. Deciding to embark on the journey of exploring university, local, or private archives requires a research question worth the effort, I asked myself, “what’s worth knowing, and more importantly, what’s so worth knowing that I should decide to tame the beast that is Special Collections under renovation and the Flat Hat digital archive?”

After discussions with Drs. Jody Allen, Sarah Thomas, and Robyn Schroder, I had first decided to reinvigorate the research I had done last summer with the Lemon Project and attempt to make new connections or discoveries. I spent seven weeks last summer connecting physical campus landmarks with their disembodied laborers, or, who built what; when, where, and why, and for how much? I focused solely on the time right before, during, and directly after the Great Depression, during which much of campus was erected. I found myself barely engaging with The Archives last summer, as most of my research existed in easily accessible, public domains. I was able to seamlessly pull a research project together with the literature provided by the Lemon Project and the financial records and campus maps I got from my one visit to Special Collections. My product, an interactive StoryMap, detailed my research and potential caveats for future research.

Before my exploration into the archive, I had settled on the research topic of Black performance culture on a campus where Black students had yet been granted permission to attend, meaning William & Mary’s campus before 1969, when the first Black undergraduate students in residence arrived. Simply put, think Chitlin Circuit meets William & Mary. I wanted to know who was asked to perform, why, and who was allowed to attend these performances. More broadly, I wanted to (see if I could) connect these performances and the culture surrounding them to the afterlife of minstrelsy and minstrel theater. On top of this, I was tasked with combing through the digital archive of William & Mary’s premier newspaper, The Flat Hat.

With this experience under my belt, I knew that my research journeys this summer would pose no real challenge. I had this idea that archival research is a lot like “book” research, or reading things, making inferences, and drawing conclusions. I was wrong, but not because I lacked work ethic or proper motivation, but because The Archive, or the collection of written record and evidence of existence, is a segregated institution.

With a goal in mind and a resource in hand, I began what I thought was going to be an easily curated research project. I set abstract time boundaries, from 1915 to 1945, and began perusing The Flat Hat for any evidence of a Black musical performer/performance group. Ask me what I found…no, go ahead…ask. Nothing. I spent about a week keyword searching The Flat Hat and combing through every released issue between the aforementioned dates. I found nothing. I scheduled an appointment with Special Collections and spent hours combing through boxes of old photographs, programs for on-campus productions, costume sketches, and student organization archived files; anything you could think of, I went through it. And yet, nothing. I spent the following weeks shifting the boundaries of my time period and repeating the process as the previous week. And still, I found nothing.

My research teammate, Fatoumata Sissoko, was responsible for combing through The Colonial Echo archives and everything I was looking for, she found. I had shifted my time period from 1915-1945 to 1960-1975, and Fata had found a well of information in a few snapshots in The Colonial Echo. Below is the list, in chronological order, of Black performers who visited the campus between 1960-1975:

1966
The Shirelles performed (70)
1967
Chuck Berry performed for Homecoming (21, and another page)
Mention of Dionne Warwick and the Four Tops insinuating they also visited and performed (21)
1968
The Drifters performed for Homecoming (41)
Wilson Pickett performed for Homecoming (41)
1970
Martha and the Vandellas perform for Homecoming concert (33)
The Impressions perform for the Spring Finals formal (39)
1974
Taj Mahal- musical artist (56)
Black culture week (103)
Guests include James Brown and African dance group (57)
1975
 Sly Stone (188)
The Platters (208)
Jackson Five canceled because of low tickets sales (209)
George Macrae performed (209)
BSO pages (290)

            This information was the most useful information I had discovered in all of my research endeavors, so my next goal was cross-referencing this information with anything I could find in The Flat Hat digital archive. I went through each of these respective years in The Flat Hat archive and tried to find even the slightest detail, like a time or place, or a review of the show. I found nothing. I cross-referenced and cross-referenced and cross-referenced and found…nothing. Nothing for big names like Dionne Warwick or James Brown or Chuck Berry. I looked and searched and looked and searched and the only thing I found were advertisements for Roses or alumni run beer companies.

            This frustrated me to know end. If The Colonial Echo has proof that these things exist, why doesn’t The Flat Hat? Why doesn’t The Flat Hat have any proof of Black life beyond Duke Ellington coming to visit in 1959? I was faced with the discovery of undiscovery and what that says about the sociopolitical climate of campus at the time and how that was reflected in how history was recorded. I was faced with no findings as my findings. What I didn’t find says so much more than what I could’ve found.

            A larger conversation about the institution of the Archive and its anti-Blackness and segregation is a conversation that I’m willing to have. Going forward, my plan is to engage critical scholarship on the anti-Blackness of recorded history, and more specifically, whose history gets to be recorded, and who gets to be remembered.

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Researching Rev. L.W. Wales, Jr.
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Researching Rev. L.W. Wales, Jr.

Published September 27, 2023

by Olivia Blackshire, an Independent Study student with Dr. Jody Allen

When I started an independent study with Dr. Allen, I was not quite sure what to expect. I was familiar with research papers and searching databases; however, being on assignment for the serious inquiries of a family was a big deal. For the next 15 weeks, I spent time ̶ at the request of Ms. Wilhelmina White ̶ researching the life and times of the Wales family, specifically L.W. Wales, Jr. Both Rev. Wales, Sr., and Rev. Wales, Jr., were activists and leaders in this community, and surrounding their lives was an eagerness to know how they impacted the world around them. Filled with excitement and a responsibility to piece together the family’s story in Williamsburg, I began my research.

I found the story of Rev. Wales, Jr., by first reading about the man who set the foundation for his life, his father. L.W. Wales, Sr. (1860 – 1927) was not only a pastor at Mt. Ararat Baptist Church for 42 years, but was also a pillar of the community. As principal of Williamsburg Public School Number Two and a teacher in various counties, he was active in the educational realm and perhaps planted the seed for Bruton Heights School, an all-Black high school, since he talked about that and about plans for funding in his Brief Autobiographical Sketch.[1] He also published a leaflet called The Peninsula Churchman, which detailed his church work and school-building efforts. He rubbed elbows with lots of people, including Benjamin S. Ewell, a former Confederate general and former president of William & Mary.[2] Furthermore, L.W. Wales, Sr. was financially well off; tax records showed that he was one of the highest earners in his area[3], and he “succeeded in buying a considerable amount of real estate, holding and owning some in almost every section of the city of Williamsburg and some in Newport News.”[4]

Considering such a track record, L. W. Wales, Jr., (1895-19654) had big shoes to fill. Although his legacy was not like his father’s, he made an impact. Picking up the mantle as pastor after his father’s death in 1927, Rev. Wales, Jr. worked for Mt. Ararat for 36 years, doing much for the relocation and beautification of the church during his tenure.[5] According to the 1982 Mt. Ararat Baptist Church Centennial Anniversary Souvenir, Rev. Wales Jr., worked within schools alongside his wife, Evelyn Wales. A report by historian Linda H. Rowe describes him as an advocate for the construction of James City Training School, a predecessor of Bruton Heights School.[6] He too even made his mark in real estate, having enough property to create the Wales subdivision housing for low- and moderate-income families in the 1940s.[7]

There were a lot of memorable moments from this search. Anytime I’d find new information, especially an image, I always felt like I was discovering more pieces to the puzzle. I’m also grateful for the people I met along the way, like Sidney (a graduate student working with the Lemon Project), Earl T. Granger III (Colonial Williamsburg’s Chief Developmental Officer), and Clifford B. Fleet III (Colonial Williamsburg President and CEO) during a trip to the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library.

Two significant thoughts come to mind as I reflect on my studies with Dr. Allen. For one, history is a form of detective work. Sometimes the whole thing feels like you’re trying to crack a cold case. You’re digging through information that’s been mistreated (physically in the archive or historically through erasure), and the clues you need are not always readily available. Interpreting or making connections with limited time or facts is a tall order. Yet those who take on the challenge may be the only ones preventing someone’s story from fading into obscurity.

I also found that if one works in this field, one must be flexible to change; sometimes the search doesn’t end the way you expect, and that’s okay. Although I didn’t find or get through as much as I wanted, I still managed to learn about the church’s history and the Wales’ place in it and the surrounding communities. You may not find what you’re looking for, but the process you take to get there, and the things you find along the way, are just as rewarding. Those quotes about the journey being better than the destination may have some merit after all.

[1] Herbert and Doris Crump Rainey Papers, 1945-2013, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William and Mary.

[2] Brief Autobiographical Sketch of the Life and Labors of Rev. L. W. Wales, D.D (1910) from Herbert and Doris Crump Rainey Papers, 1945-2013, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William and Mary.

[3] James City County and Williamsburg City Personal Property Books, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

[4] Brief Autobiographical Sketch of the Life and Labors of Rev. L. W. Wales, D.D (1910) from Herbert and Doris Crump Rainey Papers, 1945-2013, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William and Mary.

[5] Herbert and Doris Crump Rainey Papers, 1945-2013, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William and Mary.

[6] “A History of Black Education and Bruton Heights School, Williamsburg, Virginia” by Linda Rowe (1997). https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR0373.xml&highlight=negro

[7] Williamsburg Reunion Booklet (2012) from Herbert and Doris Crump Rainey Papers, 1945-2013, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, William and Mary.

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My Semester with Dr. Allen: The Intrinsic Benefits of In-Depth Historical Research

Published September 6, 2023

by Nicholas Prather, Lemon Project Spring 2023 intern

Booker T. Washington. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016857180/
Front Page Clipping of The Flat Hat, November 17, 1914 (Vol. IV, No. 7)

Over this past semester, I spent two to three hours each week working as a research intern with Lemon Project Director Dr. Jody Allen. During my experience, I learned about the inevitable bumps in the road that come with careful historical research. However, over the four months we spent together, I feel I also came to appreciate those roadblocks and understand their purpose when it comes to discovering something meaningful ̶ something that can change the scope of what we know. When we started working together in the first few weeks of the semester, we initially focused our research on the exploits of nineteenth-century Wiliam & Mary Chemistry Professor Dr. John Millington, specifically his alleged experimentation on Black children in the Williamsburg area through some sort of shock therapy. But, as we sifted through dozens of pages of old correspondence in the Special Collections Reading Room, not to mention pages of nearly incomprehensible cursive that needed deciphering, we learned that it may not be as feasible as we thought to come to any conclusions about Millington, given how much careful close reading it would require. But failure to get immediate results in research, albeit a regularity, is never really a failure – it’s an inherent and important part of the process. After spending a few non-fruitful weeks on Millington, we decided to start looking at the history of illustrious Black educator and speaker Booker T. Washington’s history and relationship with William & Mary. Using Special Collections’ digital archives, I uncovered two separate Flat Hat articles (it’s amazing when your school newspaper is so historic to where it can be a reliable primary source!) that described two separate visits Washington made to the College in 1913 and 1914, just before his death in 1915. Under the presidency of Lyon Gardiner Tyler, both students and faculty were let off from classes to witness Washington’s awesome speeches in the Williamsburg Chapel and Courthouse. After weeks spent devoid of results, it was quite fulfilling to learn that a figure so pivotal to race relations in Gilded Age America had a relationship with the William & Mary administration.

In the end, even though there is still far more that can be wrung out of the research into both Millington and Washington, my semester with Dr. Allen was still a uniquely enriching experience. The growth mindset necessary for productive research can be stunted when we expect to see immediate results. Careful and critical historical research requires patience, precision, and pathos, none of which can be expected mere days or weeks into the process. And when we start thinking of research as steps in an inherently beneficial process that tempers our character and critical thinking alike, regardless of “success” or “failure” (whatever that means), that is when we truly start to see the fruits of our labor manifest themselves in personal and intellectual growth.

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Sharpe Community Scholar’s Reflections on Working with the Lemon Project
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Sharpe Community Scholar’s Reflections on Working with the Lemon Project

Published July 12, 2023

By Alexis Beck, William & Mary Sharpe Scholar, with Caroline Watson, Lemon Project Graduate Assistant

Reflecting on my time at The Lemon Project, I can’t help but be amazed at how fun and interesting it has been. The project itself is dedicated to uncovering and preserving lesser-known pieces of history, particularly those concerning the African American communities at William & Mary and in Williamsburg broadly. However, a singular photo captivated my attention and enhanced my experience as a first-year Sharpe Scholar.

During my involvement with The Lemon Project, I worked with Ph.D. student Caroline Watson to learn more about William & Mary’s archaeology documentary archive. During this work, Caroline found an intriguing photo in the Anthropology attic archive. When she had the time, she eagerly showed me this photo, which in physical form lacked proper documentation. There was no description or timestamp. It appeared to be from the early 1930s, possibly even the 1940s, based on the material context clues, like the style of archeology, the tools, the wooden shed, and the Oldsmobile-style car in the background. This photo became a captivating mystery project that Caroline and I embarked on. With further research, we eventually unraveled the mystery behind the photo. We learned that the photo was already well-documented by Colonial Williamsburg. It turned out to be a snapshot of the Governor’s Palace from 1930, featuring a group of unknown Black archaeologists who had worked on the earlier restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. Colonial Williamsburg’s Meredith Poole provides context on the photo here.

This photo piqued my interest because it demonstrated the major contributions made by Black archaeologists at a period when their presence in the field was frequently overlooked, marginalized, or outright erased. Indeed, this snapshot expands on our understanding of the physical and social aspects of archaeological operations in early 20th-century Williamsburg. Yet, some questions haunted us during this process of learning more about the photo. Questions like, “Who are the black men archaeologists depicted here?” and “Was their labor properly compensated and documented?” Moreover, we were left questioning how the context in which we encountered this photo—a standalone image with no description nor label—reproduces silences over these Black laborers, their identities, and their contributions to Williamsburg’s history. Given the blog post referenced above, Colonial Williamsburg has already been asking these questions. Perhaps The Lemon Project can help here, too.

Initially, when I signed up for the internship opportunity provided by Sharpe Scholars, I had anticipated mostly engaging in busy work. However, to my pleasant surprise, my time working alongside Caroline turned out to be thoroughly insightful and an exciting introduction to the roller-coaster that archival work often is. Little did I envision that we would embark on a short but thrilling adventure regarding the mystery photo.

Ultimately, my time at The Lemon Project has been immensely enriching. The identification of the photograph of Black archaeologists at the Governor’s Palace cellar excavation reignited my interest in history and reinforced my willingness to get further involved with the project. I’m delighted to go on new adventures during my next 3 years at W&M and continue to make a difference by researching and sharing long-ignored or forgotten narratives.

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New Lemon Project Research Findings on Slavery at William & Mary

Published April 26, 2023

By Dr. Jajuan Johnson, Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Lemon Project

Over the past two years, the Lemon Project Genealogy Initiative has built alliances with researchers in Williamsburg, the greater Tidewater area, and globally. Through training, our student interns help mine digital platforms and special collections to find extant sources providing more data about the lives of people once enslaved by the university. In fall 2022, Margaret Perry, a W&M alumnus and researcher at Colonial Williamsburg’s’ Apothecary Shop, met with Dr. Jody Allen, Lemon Project intern Alex Montano, and me to share medical account records that list names of people enslaved by William & Mary in the Galt Papers (Galt-Barraud Partnership, 1782-1799; John M. Galt I & Alexander D. Galt Operating as Galt & Son,1800-1808; and Alexander Galt, 1809 – 1841) located in the Special Collections Research Center at Swem Library.   

The Galt Family Medical Practice

The Galt family medical practice lasted in the Williamsburg and Yorktown area from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth centuries. Dr. John Minson Galt, I was educated at William & Mary and received medical in Edinburgh and Paris. In addition to his extensive independent medical practice, whereby he treated people enslaved by William & Mary and others, Galt I was also an attending physician of the Public Hospital of Williamsburg (currently Eastern State Hospital), the first psychiatric hospital in the United States. His son, Dr. Alexander D. Galt, and grandson of Dr. John M. Galt, carried on his practice; both served as superintendents of the hospital.[i]

The Findings

The Galt-Barraud Papers are the professional and personal papers of the Galt family of Williamsburg in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The preliminary findings in the medical ledgers, notably the W&M account, revealed the following:

  • The names of 28 people enslaved by W&M
  • Lemon, who the Lemon Project is named after, is listed in the records 19 times from 1785 to 1814, indicating that he experienced health complications over a long period leading to his death.
  • Six people not previously on our list appear in the Galt Papers and have been added to Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved, as of March 2023
NameDates & Records
Miame1786, 1787, 1788, 1790,1791, 1793,1794, Galt-Barraud Partnership Papers
Miame’s Child1788, 1789,1790,1795, Galt-Barraud Partnership Papers
Jamie1787, Galt Barraud Partnership Papers
1812, Alexander D. Galt Medical Records
Jim1785, Galt-Barraud Partnership Papers
Jimmy1783, Galt-Barraud Partnership Papers
Franky’s Child1787, 1796, 1799, Galt-Barraud Partnership Papers

Our team, which includes Lemon Project intern Lena Bullard, a first-year William & Mary student, is further searching the records to gain clues about enslavers and the people held in bondage. These significant records provide additional information on the physical condition of people enslaved by the university, and there are lists of individuals and families of other enslavers.

MsV 5 – Galt-Barraud Ledger A, 1782-1797, fols. 116, 204. Galt Papers (I), series 3, box 3. Swem SCRC.

[i] Galt Family of Williamsburg Source: The William & Mary Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4 (April 1900), pp. 259-262 (also see: W&M Knowledge Base, John Minson Galt, https://scrc-kb.libraries.wm.edu/john-minson-galt-1744-1808; see Dr. Barraud Historical Report https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/DigitalLibrary/view/index.cfm?doc=ResearchReports%5CRR1193.xml&highlight=

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Meet William & Mary’s most recent Executive Director of Historic Campus

Published February 22, 2023

By Caroline Watson, Lemon Project Anthropology Graduate Assistant

Those who are well-connected with the Lemon Project likely know Dr. Susan Kern. To meet Susan is to learn of her extensive knowledge of the inner and outer workings of William & Mary’s Historic Campus. Her knowledge base of campus history is rarely surpassed! This is unsurprising given Susan’s connection to William & Mary as an alumnus (Ph.D., History) and the university’s most recent Executive Director of Historic Campus (2014-2021). Susan took over as Executive Director of Historic Campus in 2014, replacing previous director Louise Kale, who took the honorable position in 1995 (and in whose name the daffodil garden in the North Wren Yard is dedicated).

As a key figure who has shaped the narrative surrounding Historic Campus, especially the Wren Building, I sought to learn more about Susan’s role as Executive Director. On a warm afternoon last October, we gathered for a coffee and a brief interview. My initial curiosities surrounded Susan’s job requirements, as not many universities have an institutionalized Historic Campus, much less an Executive Director of it. I was indeed surprised to learn of the breadth and diversity of roles that were required of such a position.

Susan Kern and 18th-century drain uncovered near the Wren Building, 2019. Stephen Salpukas/William and Mary

During her time at William & Mary, Susan facilitated and upheld working relationships with many local and state-wide institutions, including the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the William & Mary Center for Archaeological Resources, the Muscarelle Museum, and facilities management. When she wasn’t occupied by the bureaucratic responsibilities that came with maintaining these relationships, Susan was tasked with managing Historic Campus’s resources. This management required not just a little bit of work and creativity from Susan; this was a colossal commitment on her part to care for the documents, artworks, and archaeological materials that belong to Historic Campus. A significant part of this care, we discussed, was focused on the archaeological resources. Susan herself was and is adequately prepared for such a task, given her experience working and directing Monticello’s archaeology department for 8 years. For those who may not know, W&M’s archaeological resources materialize in diverse forms. They range from technical reports, excavation descriptions and planning documents, publications, artifacts, and even the sites themselves. One of Susan’s most recent projects on Historic Campus oversaw the excavation of an 18th-century vaulted brick drain behind the Wren Building.

Historic Campus has been continuously occupied and used since the chartering of W&M in 1693—and long before that too. As such, Susan had her hands full writing, re-writing, and expanding the archaeological narrative of this landscape. In particular, Susan helped reframe thinking about campus as a site of slavery, including understanding the College (Wren) Building as William & Mary’s original slave quarter. Through her diligent work on Historic Campus and as a partner with the Lemon Project, Susan was committed to a more inclusive history at William & Mary.

Moreover, before leaving office, Susan composed a formal recommendation to Colonial Williamsburg and William & Mary regarding the best practices for the management of the University’s archaeological resources. As part of her plan, I continue to use the documents and resources that she gathered as part of my Lemon Project fellowship investigating the history of archaeology and slavery at W&M. Thank you again, Susan, for all your work!

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How does archaeology (re)define place at William & Mary?

Published December 14, 2022

by Caroline Watson, Anthropology Graduate Assistant

Archaeology is intimately tied to the concept of place. Many think that archaeology is about discovering “new” places. Yet most often what archaeologists do is reveal places that already exist —places that have been ignored, reburied, or shifted around over time by natural or deliberate forces. A current of discovery does exist in the undertow of archaeological investigation, however, especially as we think of how social forces become entangled with the material world in ways that continuously create or reimagine meaningful places.

In thinking of how meaningful material places are constructed at William & Mary, it helps to keep an open mind. Let’s start with the brick walkways around campus—have they ever looked the same one day to the next? Really think about it! Every day, these bricks transport people to their campus destinations, and they are shifted around ever so slightly by the people who walk (or trip!) over them, steal them, or remove them to create space for new construction. Yet, despite these everyday delicate changes, many still perceive the bricks as a singular entity. Through this process, they have become a material index to William & Mary’s image, identity, and history. We can therefore imagine how these very human actions and experiences become embedded into William & Mary’s bricks. This is what makes them an inherently archaeological place imbued with cultural meaning.

But what happens when those bricks are associated with just one social history? The university, like many others, has intentionally maintained its brick aesthetic to uphold the image of William & Mary as a place for academic elites. Yet, this image is inherently constructed by whitewashing the university’s history and stripping away other social identities from the campus landscape. This becomes clear when we remember the free Black and enslaved workers who produced the bricks and buildings of Historic Campus themselves, but whose connection to the campus image has been historically and forcibly erased. In this way, bricks are a material entryway into understanding William & Mary’s construction of place.

Setting aside bricks for now (thank goodness, right?), my goal with the Lemon Project is to investigate other overlooked material places. By extension, this means I am also looking into the activities, behaviors, and people who are associated with campus places and who have long been overshadowed by colonial power. Materially speaking, the social lives and identities of enslaved peoples at William & Mary have been buried. For example, outbuildings, possibly associated with enslaved people, were destroyed during the construction of the Sunken Garden. Campus renovation projects have torn down buildings and drastically altered the campus landscape and its archaeological record. What’s more, all these physical changes are coated with layers of intentional forgetting. To reimagine William & Mary in more inclusive ways, then, we must first understand the processes through which non-white identities were disassociated from campus places and then work to re-associate this landscape with their experiences, activities, and presence.

There are several places we can start. As I have mentioned in previous Lemon Project presentations, one place where archaeology has helped materialize enslaved history is through the identification of a subfloor pit in the President’s House parking lot. This feature dates to around the mid-19th century based on the artifacts that came from it.[1] Archaeologists working in the mid-Atlantic region have long associated these dug-out features with enslaved living quarters.[2] I argue that such a finding on Historic Campus represents a possible place where the lives and labors of enslaved people emerge from the buried surface. In this perspective, the Wren Yard ceases to exist as a place of stagnant and permanent white history. Instead, it becomes an area of active archaeological inquiry.

William & Mary faculty, staff, and students are also constructing other material “ruptures” in new ways that create space for Black histories. Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved and the Sankofa Seed sculpture, for example, are two places where silenced memories at William & Mary erupt and exist on the campus landscape. Hearth (pronounced /härTH/) is a place that grounds multiple temporalities. It simultaneously rematerializes the presence of enslaved people at William & Mary while also fostering a new sense of belonging for students of color, past, present, and future. Recent excavations in the Wren South yard, close to where Hearth is now, also bring forth the memory of enslaved labor through material findings. Archaeologists identified a large saw pit in this area of Historic Campus, a feature that directly associates this space with labor activities, like brickmaking, food preparation, and butchering.[3] Enslaved people did this work. Thus, a strong link is forged between Hearth, which sits on the visible surface, and other material evidence of enslaved history that persists on campus below the ground. In this case, an archaeological perspective has helped to create a more meaningful and inclusive narrative about a place of Black history on campus. I hope that my work can continue to blend the past, present, and future in ways that help us reimagine places at William & Mary.

[1] Moore, W.H. (2006). Archaeological Survey and Evaluation of the Proposed Manhole Structure Project Area, President’s House Parking Lot, College of William and Mary, City of Williamsburg, Virginia. WMCAR Project No. 06-16. William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research, 40. Interested in seeing these reports? I’ve been digitizing them! Email lemon@wm.edu for a scan.

[2] Samford, Patricia (2007). Subfloor pits and the archaeology of slavery in Colonial Virginia. University of Alabama Press.

[3] Edwards, Andrew C. (2016). Archaeology of the South Wren Yard. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 79-107.

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<strong>The Lemon Project and Clemson University Exchange</strong> Steve Prince with Clemson visitors displaying their quit projects. 
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The Lemon Project and Clemson University Exchange 

Published December 7, 2022

By Jajaun Johnson, Ph.D., Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate

The Lemon Project is a model for other universities studying slavery and its legacies. The team recently participated in an opportunity to exchange lessons with Clemson University’s Woodland Cemetery and African American Burial Ground Historic Preservation Project and the Call My Name Project, both led by Professor Rhondda Robinson Thomas.  

The opening reception in the Department of History’s library.  

The three-day visit convened students, faculty, staff, and community partners who traded ideas and best practices on archaeology, participatory research, and community collaboration. “The opportunity to exchange ideas with our Clemson University colleagues was a gift. We highlighted the work of our outstanding students and on and off-campus partners,” Jody Allen, the Francis Engs Director of the Lemon Project, said.  

The meeting started with a dinner and a dynamic conversation with the Friends of the Reservation, Coming to the Table Historic Triangle, Divine Concept Group, Inc., the Bray School Lab, All Together, and the Village Initiative. Each representative discussed their organization’s or project’s mission and goals and outlined how they are spurring change in the public history landscape and through civic engagement. The group was officially welcomed to William & Mary by Dr. Chon Glover, the Chief Diversity Officer who recognized the work of the Lemon Project. She further discussed the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.  

Dr. Sarah Thomas leads Historic Campus tour

The Lemon Project interns and students who participated in the incubator grant program gave examples of their research and experiential learning opportunities. The graduate assistants led a session with the Clemson University graduate students on their archival and anthropological contributions to the study of slavery at W&M.  

W&M Special Collections granted our guests access to rare documents project researchers use to find the names and details about the people once enslaved by the university. Andre Taylor, William & Mary’s oral historian, demonstrated the uses of oral history to document African American foodways. Steve Prince, Artist and Director of Engagement at Muscarelle Art Museum, guided the group in a communal quilt-making exercise where they exchanged stories as a team-building exercise. Our visitors also had a chance to meet President Rowe and hear her thoughts about the importance of the universities studying slavery movement. 

Reverend Leslie Revilock presented the Lemon Project with the Building Connections and Bridging Differences Award.

In addition to the W&M’s Historic Campus tour, the Clemson group visited the First Baptist Archaeological Site, Bruton Heights School, and the Historic Oak Grove Baptist Church. Both university projects amplify the voices of the descendant communities, and visits to these sites provide an authentic connection to people interpreting their spaces and environments.   

After reflecting on the experience, Dr. Rhondda Thomas offered gratitude: “Thank you for organizing such a rich, informative, and enlightening visit for Clemson’s cemetery team. I’m still thinking about many things we heard from you and your community partners and viewed on and off campus. I’m so glad we were able to come.”  

The Lemon Project and Clemson University exchange is part of our ongoing efforts to share best practices and facilitate collaboration locally, regionally, and internationally on the study of slavery and its legacies. 

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Mellon Foundation Fellow Represents Lemon Project in German Professional Exchange
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Mellon Foundation Fellow Represents Lemon Project in German Professional Exchange

Published October 19, 2022

Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Jajuan Johnson is part of a cohort of fifteen experts dedicated to promoting an inclusive and progressive culture of remembrance in public spaces in Germany and the United States. Building a Diverse Culture of Remembrance (DAICOR) is an exchange program whereby participants explore how diversity, equity, and inclusion are implemented in memorial cultures.

Jajuan Johnson and Awet Tesfaiesus

During the Germany learning tour, Dr. Johnson introduced the Lemon Project as a model for reckoning with slavery and its legacies at higher education institutions to the cohort of artists, educators, activists, and nonprofit leaders. He also discussed service-learning as an intervention for understaffed cultural institutions doing reparative archival work and community-engaged research with citizens focused on decolonizing the public history landscape in Berlin and Hamburg.  

Jajuan Johnson and Hannimari Jokinen

The one-week visit involved conversations with political leaders such as Awet Tesfaiesus, the first Black woman elected to the German Parliament serving as Chairwoman of the Committee for Culture and Media. In addition to touring sites such as the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum and the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg (MARKK), the fellows met with local civic actors with organizations such as Decolonial Memory Culture in the City, is a model project that aims to explore and make visible the past and present of the (anti-)colonial in Berlin, the rest of Germany and in Germany’s former colonies with the help of experts and activists worldwide.

The trip concluded with a lecture and discussion with artist and curator Hannimari Jokinen on the function of post-colonial memorials and strategies for reckoning with troubled pasts through community-engaged interpretation, as is reflected in the goals of Hearth Memorial to the Enslaved. As we collectively envisioned the uses of memorial sites, we agreed they are to be changeable, fluid, and provoking conversations that strengthen democratic societies. 

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At the Root: Exploring Black Life, History, and Culture Symposium Call for Proposals

Published October 12, 2022

The Lemon Project team invites you to submit proposals for the 13th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium, an in-person and virtual event, that will be held on March 24-25, 2023. View the Call for Proposals below.

About The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation

Founded in 2009 by the William & Mary Board of Visitors, the Lemon Project is the second institutionally funded project of its kind in the United States. The Lemon Project is a multifaceted and dynamic attempt to rectify wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by William & Mary through action or inaction. An ongoing endeavor, The Lemon Project explores and encourages scholarship on the 330-year relationship between African Americans and William & Mary. The Lemon Project builds bridges between William & Mary and African American communities through research, programming, and supporting students, faculty, and staff.

Call for Proposals

Individual papers or panels of 3 or 4 are welcome

The first Lemon Project Spring Symposium, held in Williamsburg, Virginia in 2011, “brought together students, faculty, and community members to discuss ongoing research into our past, as well as the ways that history continues to define relationships between African Americans and the university in the present.” In that vein, we return to our roots, centering local Black histories and their vast influences.  

The 2023 Spring Symposium will explore the following questions: In what ways are African American communities taking charge and telling their stories? How are colleges and universities working with local African American communities to foster belonging? What methods are communities and scholars using to tell fuller narratives of African American life, history, and culture? In what ways are researchers contributing to the emancipatory aims of Black Studies through research collaboration with Black communities?

Our symposium is multi-disciplinary and open to all. We seek proposals from people who focus on Black life, history, and culture, including but not limited to academic and descendant researchers, educators, activists, and members of Greater Williamsburg communities and beyond. We invite a broad range of topics from the fields of American Studies, Black Studies, Anthropology, History, Public Humanities, Preservation, and STEM. We also invite community organizers and activists to submit proposals in areas such as cultural production (art, poetry, music), wellness, and spirituality. We welcome submissions from people of all genders, including trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals.

Please submit your proposals by November 18, 2022.

The symposium has three main objectives, focusing on the past, present, and future:
  • Reflect on what is happening in African American communities and consider the ways these communities are transforming narratives
  • Explore the ways that colleges and universities work with African American communities
  • Contribute to strategies and best practices for institutions dealing with their involvement in slavery and its legacies
 Possible topics include but are not limited to:
  • African American memory and heritage studies
  • Community engagement and best practices
  • Descendant communities and their histories
  • Environmental history, land conservation, and displacement
  • Family histories, local histories, and genealogical studies
  • Reparations and reparative efforts
  • Shared Authority and transforming narratives
  • Universities and colleges studying slavery and its afterlives
View submission guidelines and submit your propsals here
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The First Annual Descendant’s Day at Highland
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The First Annual Descendant’s Day at Highland

Published August 31, 2022

Guest Post by Jennifer Stacy, Highland Council of Descendant Advisors, and Maria DiBenigno, Highland Postdoctoral Research Fellow

William & Mary’s Highland is a 535-acre historic site located in Charlottesville, Virginia and operated by the university. It is notable as the former plantation of the fifth U.S. President and W&M alumnus, James Monroe, as well as 53 women, men, and children who were enslaved by him. We know the names of some of these individuals; others we still seek to know.

IIC Students, Credit Grace Helmick

Highland conducts ongoing research about its extant buildings and natural resources as well as ongoing community engagement. In 2016, Highland announced its discovery that Monroe’s house has been completely destroyed by fire, and the standing building was a separate Guesthouse built in 1818. This major site re-interpretation allowed us to have conversations about what historic sites get wrong and how we work to tell more truthful stories about the past. This discovery also helped connect Highland’s staff with members of the local descendant community whose ancestors were enslaved at Highland. In 2018, ten of these individuals formed the Highland Council of Descendant Advisors. The Council advises Highland staff on exhibit content, program planning, and community engagement through the concept of shared authority. Members present at regional conferences, including the Lemon Project’s Symposium, work with regional school systems, and interact with W&M students on a variety of topics, including food histories and on-campus concerns.

Ada’s Kitchen on Wheels, Credit Grace Helmick

On Saturday, June 11, the Council hosted their first Descendants Day at Highland. It was an event long in the making. Attendees enjoyed a delicious lunch buffet from Ada’s Kitchen on Wheels, a local food truck owned by Highland descendant, Gloria Saylor, and named for her mother and Council member, Ada Monroe Saylor. The Council welcomed descendant groups and community members from all parts of Virginia, including our W&M partners at the Institute for Integrative Conservation, the Bray School Initiative, the Lemon Project, and Special Collections. Friends from the Historic Brattonsville Descendants Group traveled from their homes in Rock Hill, South Carolina to attend — the Council was so honored by their presence!

Locally, the Council welcomed the Descendants of Enslaved Communities at the University of Virginia, the Preservers of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery, the Descendants of the Pen Park plantations, and the B.F. Yancey School Community Center. The event included many regional collaborators, including the White House Historical Association, Virginia Humanities, the Ivy Creek Foundation, plus colleagues from the Louisa County Historical Society and the Fluvanna County Historical Society. Perhaps most importantly, the Council met two previously unknown individuals who descend from Highland’s enslaved families.
An important source of information for Highland’s Florida descendants is Take Them In Families, an ongoing research project centered on the families sold by James Monroe to Florida in 1828.

It was a full afternoon of fellowship, food, conversation, and remembrance that closed with a Calling of Names.

The next Descendants Day is already scheduled for Saturday, June 10, 2023.

To learn more about the Descendant Council’s work as well as Highland’s ongoing reinterpretation, visit https://highland.org/.

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Lemon Project Partner Receive State Historic Site Designation
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Lemon Project Partner Receive State Historic Site Designation

Published June 29, 2022

By Jajuan Johnson, Ph.D., Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate

The Oak Grove Baptist Church Historic District in northwest York County, Virginia was granted historic designation by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources leading up to the Juneteenth, a national holiday commemorating the ending of slavery, specifically in Texas on June 19, 1865. Placement on the state register of historic places and eligibility for national recognition is monumental in the church’s history dating back to the early 19th century. The following sites are associated with the Oak Grove Baptist Church Historic District: Oak Grove Baptist Church site on Rochambeau Drive, Oak Grove School site, Oak Grove Cemetery on Rochambeau Drive, and the current Oak Grove Baptist Church on Waller Mill Road.

The Lemon Project collaboration with Oak Grove Baptist Church emerged from the research of Ellie Renshaw, a recent graduate of the anthropology department. Her senior thesis, “Cultivation Through Excavation: Performing Community and Partnership in the Historic First Baptist Project” led to further revelations about “daughter churches” of the Historic First Baptist Church such as Oak Grove Baptist Church, St. John Baptist Church, New Quarter Baptist Church and Zion Baptist Church, all in the Williamsburg/York County area. She connected our team with Mrs. Collette Roots, a leader of the Friends of Oak Grove Baptist Church, a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring the church building, the two cemeteries tied to the church, and the history of the once Cooktown community where the church is currently located.

The church building and some members were once part of Magruder, a community of African Americans forcibly displaced during World War II to create Camp Peary, a military training ground. The series of forcible removals due to eminent domain resulted in the loss of place and community identity. Last fall, the church members invited Lemon Project researchers to assist with documenting its story through oral history. Generations of parishioners living and deceased were employed by William & Mary and are a critical part of the university’s history. A series of oral histories on the travesty of land loss, the disbanding of communities, and the dynamics of labor and class are unearthing stories tethered to the afterlives of slavery not only specific to Williamsburg but across the nation. Also, Derek Vouri-Richard, a Lemon Project American Studies Graduate Assistant, mined land records to trace the history of land ownership tied to Oak Grove Baptist Church during the turn of the twentieth century.

Recently, the Friends of Oak Grove Baptist Church provided a tour of the church and the historic cemetery, highlighting veteran burial sites dating back to the Civil War, for the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Community Curation team partnering with the Lemon Project to assist African American communities in curating their own stories. In keeping with the Lemon Project’s goal to be a national model of transformative community engagement and collaborative research, we continue to listen to the stories and assess the ways we can contribute to materializing the vision of our partners. Congratulations to Oak Grove Baptist Church Historic District on cementing its enduring legacy in the York County/Williamsburg area.

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Donning of the Kente 2022
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Donning of the Kente 2022

Published June 15, 2022

By Dr. Sarah Thomas, Associate Director, The Lemon Project

On May 20, 2022, the Lemon Project and the Hulon Willis Association hosted the Donning of the Kente ceremony during the Class of 2022 Commencement weekend. William & Mary’s Donning of the Kente ceremony began in 2012 as a rites of passage graduation celebration open to all graduating students. We are thankful and excited to celebrate the excellence, both personal and academic, of students of color. All graduating students are welcome to participate in this ceremony.

Many students have remarked that one of the aspects of the DOK that made it very special was the opportunity to choose their donner. The donning itself gives students the chance to not only celebrate their accomplishments, but also to recognize someone special in their lives. Students have chosen parents, siblings, friends, faculty, administrators, high school principals, and others to serve as their donners.

We want our graduates (undergraduates, graduate, and professional) to know that their relationship with the university does not end at graduation. A new chapter begins when you become an alumnus and we encourage you all to join the Hulon Willis Alumni Association. The Donning of the Kente Ceremony is the first step in this relationship.

Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved played an important role in this year’s ceremony. The Class of 2022 was the first class that began its procession to the DOK at Hearth. The graduates also gathered at Hearth for a group photo.

For those who will be graduating William & Mary in 2023, registration is now open! Check out the details and register now to receive a stole and participate in the 2023 DOK today.

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The Dedication of Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved
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The Dedication of Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved

Published June 1, 2022

By Dr. Sarah Thomas, Associate Director, The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation

William & Mary celebrated the dedication of Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved on May 7, 2022. We are excited to share with you photos and the video from the event. Thank you to Skip Rowland, ’83 for the photos and Jeff Herrick and his team for the video.

Images of the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland)
Images of the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland)
Dr. Jody Allen at the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland, ’83)
Dr. Chon Glover at the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland, ’83)
The Legacy Three at the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland, ’83)
Images of the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland)
Images of the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland)
Dr. Hermine Pinson and Thomas Alexander at the dedication of Hearth, William & Mary’s Memorial to the Enslaved, taken Saturday afternoon May 7, 2022 (Skip Rowland, ’83)
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Uncovering Connections between Oak Grove Baptist Church and the Williamsburg Institutions during the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Published May 18, 2022

By Derek Vouri-Richard, Lemon Project American Studies Graduate Assistant, 2021-2022

On May 23, 1899, husband and wife Samuel Harris and Joanna B. Harris sold land in the Burton District of York County, Virginia to Charles Bartlett, a Black miller and farmer. This land would become the present-day location of Oak Grove Baptist Church. Oak Grove grew out of the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, Virginia, which was founded by free and enslaved African Americans in the second half of the eighteenth century.

In the late nineteenth century, First Baptist members from York County began establishing their own religious meeting place in the Magruder neighborhood of York County. The Magruder neighborhood served as the home of Oak Grove from the turn of the twentieth century to the early 1940s. In the early 1940s, the Federal Government displaced the church by acquiring the land on which Oak Grove was located through eminent domain policies to develop a military complex. As a member of Oak Grove in the 1940s, Bartlett helped the church establish a new home by selling land he owned to the church. In 1949, Bartlett sold to Oak Grove the land he purchased from Samuel and Joanna Harris in 1899. The history of Oak Grove and the land on which it currently stands is part of the Black mobility and local economy of the Williamsburg area throughout the turn of the twentieth century.

Samuel and Joanna Harris were prominent Black business owners in Williamsburg. In the 1870s, they opened a retail store in Williamsburg, Harris’s Cheap Store. The store sold a variety of goods including dry goods, clothes, furniture and appliances, and clocks and jewelry. It attracted customers outside Williamsburg through the store’s proximity to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. The Harrises purchased land in Williamsburg and the surrounding area as their business grew. In early 1896 Samuel Harris purchased the York County land that he would later sell to Charles Bartlett in 1899. Harris purchased the land in 1896 in a public auction from Richardson Leonard Henley, Bathurst Dangerfield Peachy, and William Henry Edloe Morecock.

The real estate venture between Harris and Henley, Peachy, and Morecock connects the current Oak Grove land to white Williamsburg area residents and institutions of the late nineteenth century. Henley was a lawyer and judge with a law practice in the Williamsburg area. Peachy was a lawyer, owner of the Williamsburg Millinery Company, and real estate venturer. Morecock was a court clerk, merchant, and Secretary to the Board of Visitors for William & Mary from 1877 to 1890. More research needs to be done to further uncover connections between Oak Grove and its land and Williamsburg area people and institutions.

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The Colonial Gaze on William & Mary’s Archaeological Collections

Published May 11, 2022

By Caroline Watson, Lemon Project Anthropology Graduate Assistant

A common expression in archaeological communities is that theoretical interpretation happens “at the trowel’s edge”[1]. While this expression falls trite on my ears, what it implies is actually quite important for archaeologists, and those conducting research more broadly, to remember. There is no “neutral” moment in archaeological interpretation. Research questions are defined by specific and sometimes exclusive interests. Decisions regarding excavation locations tend to be controlled by the entity funding the work. Materials that come out of the ground are immediately observed and later classified according to object type and perceived function. Finally, where and how archaeological collections are stored also depends on the result of this interpretative process.

In some ways, this process is not purposefully harmful. I’d like to believe most archaeologists do their best to work with reference collections and available published literature to make sure they’re classifying their findings in the most appropriate ways. Nevertheless, artifact classification, especially when approached uncritically, becomes harmful through exclusionary acts. In the case of William & Mary’s archaeological collections, we know a lot about what types of artifacts were used on Historic Campus over the years, but we lack a critical inquiry about who these objects are associated with.

My ongoing documentary analysis of the records and reports relating to archaeology at William & Mary reveals that most archaeological work done on campus has not been guided by the interest to know more about William & Mary’s history with slavery[2]. When archaeological projects at their very core are not designed to question or consider the African and/or African American presence on campus, then how will we ever be able to associate excavated materials with this identity? Archaeologists who assume a “neutral” identity for artifacts until proven otherwise end up, in one way or another, upholding the narrative of campus as an historically and predominately white, elite space. Neutrality is rarely possible. All objects are found within a geographical and sociocultural context. Thus, in a setting like William & Mary, when archaeological findings are taken “as is”, their neutral identity by default is white and colonial. In turn, the artifacts that get flagged as potentially embodying an African or African American identity on campus are the ones we view as being most obviously not white. The marble that was incised with an “X” design found in the north Wren yard has been interpreted as a potential gaming piece used by enslaved people. A cowrie shell, found nearby and within the same stratigraphic level (so, similar time period), may have been a piece of adornment or a medium of exchange for an enslaved person[3]. We value these artifacts for the window, however so small, they provide into the material lives of enslaved people on campus. Yet, what about the tobacco clay pipes, clothing materials, and countless cooking and drinking vessels that have been found on campus in similar locations? We fail to link these materials to non-white identities, which further relegates African Americans on Historic Campus to the “unique” objects and thus margins of William & Mary’s material history. Without a critical examination of our own classification norms, there will never be a broader space for African Americans in William & Mary’s archaeological collections.

I propose we think of William & Mary’s campus and the materials that lie both above and underneath its surface, as an archive. This archive is not a neutral or passive place, but a carefully picked model and the result of several layers of power-laden decisions. Archaeologists working on campus and with campus artifacts hold one form of this power and thus face the certain decision to either uphold campus as a colonial archive or work to expose it. There is much work to be done to get at a more holistic understanding of the material lives of enslaved people at William & Mary. This may require more digging, or maybe it simply requires us to establish a new relationship with the collections we already have. Regardless, perhaps the question we can all start with is, “who are we doing this work for?”.

Image: Screenshot from Higgins III & Underwood 2001: 72, showing incised marble and cowrie shell.

Image: Screenshot from Higgins III & Underwood 2001: 72, showing incised marble and cowrie shell.

[1] Higgins III, T.F. & J.R. Underwood (2001). Secrets of the Historic Campus: Archaeological Investigations in the Wren Yard at the College of William and Mary, 1999-2000. WMCAR Project No. 99-26. William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research. This is a really extensive report—I suggest checking it out!

[2] This idea was born out of a broader paradigm shift in archaeological theory that sought a more critical examination of the archeologists’ positionality, authority, and role in knowledge verification. If you’re curious about where this all started, see Hodder, Ian (1997) Always momentary, fluid and flexible: towards a reflexive excavation methodology. Antiquity 71: 691-700.

[3] There has been one archaeological excavation that specifically designed its research questions to address the history of slavery on campus. See Monroe, E.J. & D.W. Lewes (2016). Archaeological Assessment of a Site near the Alumni House and the Early College Boundary, College of William and Mary, City of Williamsburg, Virginia. WMCAR Project No. 15-07. William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research.

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Looking Back While Moving Forward: The Bricks of Hearth
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Looking Back While Moving Forward: The Bricks of Hearth

Published May 4, 2022

By Dr. Sarah Thomas, Associate Director, The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation

The dedication of Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved is on Saturday, May 7, at 2 p.m. We are excited about this monumental occasion and look forward to introducing Hearth to you all.

Thanks to the efforts of the Lemon Project Committee on Memorialization (LPCOM), led by Dr. Jody Allen, the Memorial Building Committee, co-chaired by Dr. Chon Glover, many William & Mary staff, faculty, and students, the architectural firm Baskervill, and the construction company Kjellstrom & Lee, and many, many others, Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved is nearing completion.

Hearth rendering, courtesy of Baskervill

The bricks of Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved, and the bricks near Hearth tell stories about William & Mary’s past, present, and future.

As you approach Hearth, you’ll notice the darker granite bricks. Many of those granite blocks have names and dates on them. These are the names of enslaved people who were owned or rented by William & Mary or owned by people (Presidents, Board of Visitors members, Faculty, Staff, Students) during their time at the university. Many granite blocks are also engraved with the word “Unknown” and a date; some are engraved with “Unknown,” an occupation, and a date. In those cases, we had glimpses of enslaved people in archival records, but those keeping the records did not include their names. Some granite blocks have no names, known or unknown, or dates. When the Lemon Project team finds more enslaved people associated with William & Mary in the records (and we will!), their names will be engraved on those granite blocks.

The vaulted, brick drain (Photo by Stephen Salpukas/William & Mary)

You will also notice a small section of six bricks near the Hearth’s base. In contrast with the darker section of interior bricks near Hearth’s center, these bricks are framed and look old. They are! These are historic bricks, found by a team led by Dr. Susan Kern, then Executive Director of Historic Campus, in the summer of 2019. During a project to widen the brick pathway to the Wren Building, workers discovered an early 18th-century drain. The drain’s access point was unknown prior to June 12, 2019. Archaeologists Nick Luccketti ’71, Andy Edwards ’71, and William & Mary Center for Archaeological Research staff uncovered this drain and were able to view its interior. Enslaved people constructed this vaulted drain, accomplishing brickwork that required both skills and knowledge. Enslaved people also made the bricks. It is only fitting that historic bricks from this early 18th-century drain are forever part of Hearth. We can get a glimpse into the lives and labor of enslaved people in early 18th-century William & Mary through the drain bricks.

Interview with Dr. Susan Kern on the Wren Drain

Having the Memorial within or directly engaging with Historic Campus is crucial. As you will see, the Memorial and the Wren Building are in conversation with each other. Enslaved people made the bricks that became the Wren Building, and enslaved people built (and rebuilt) the Wren Building. Enslaved people also lived in the Wren building, as did faculty, staff, and the President (until the President’s House in 1732). From fires and rebuilding to graffiti and repair, the bricks tell many stories about the Wren Building’s history, and enslaved people are a large part of that history.

Lastly, you have probably noticed that a brick wall surrounds much of the oldest part of campus. This wall was constructed in the 1920s and 1930s during the height of the Jim Crow era. Many African Americans who live in Williamsburg and the surrounding areas view this wall as a barrier between them and William & Mary. The Lemon Project team works to tear down physical walls (like this one) and walls in people’s minds while we build bridges between William & Mary and African American communities. Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved interrupts this brick wall, and during the groundbreaking, President Rowe, President Emeritus Reveley, and Robert Francis Engs Director of the Lemon Project Jody Allen tore down a section of the 1930s brick wall. This broken-through wall represents the Lemon Project’s work to build bridges and repair relationships through reconciliation and healing.

Tearing Down Walls

We can arrive at a more complete history of William & Mary. One way to do this is to explore the bricks in and around Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved. Join us as we use these bricks to tell stories about people of the university’s past, present, and future.

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What We Do and Why
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What We Do and Why

Published April 27, 2022

By Dr. Sarah Thomas, Lemon Project Associate Director

The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation has its origins in the work of William & Mary students. Students can make substantive and lasting changes. In 2007, then junior Tiseme Zegeye introduced Student Assembly legislation called The Research Into and an Apology for William and Mary’s Role in Slavery Act.

“The Student Assembly of the College of William and Mary –
(1) Recommends that the Board of Visitors establish a commission to research the full extent of the College of William and Mary’s role in slavery
(2) Recommends that the Board of Visitors express profound regret for William and Mary’s role in slavery
(3) Establish a memorial for the contributions of slaves to the College of William and Mary

Sponsored by Senator Tiseme Zegeye of the Class of 2008

After the Faculty Assembly passed a similar resolution in 2008, the William & Mary Board of Visitors passed the resolution that led to the creation of the Lemon Project: A Journey of Resolution in 2009.

The Lemon Project is not an initiative that is the product of a single person, administrator, or department. Instead, we are a unit within the Office of the Provost, and we have the weight of the Provost and the Board of Visitors behind us and our work.

The Lemon Project is the second institutionally-funded project of its kind in the country.

So what do we do? How do we rectify wrongs against African Americans by William & Mary through both action and inaction?

We listen and collaborate with members of the communities that surround us, especially members of African American communities. We work to build bridges between William & Mary and these communities who for so long have not felt welcome or that they belong at the university. The brick wall that surrounds the old sections of campus separates W&M from our neighbors, including a historically Black neighborhood. The Lemon Project team is working to tear down physical and metaphorical walls.

We research and study the experiences of African and African Americans, including slavery, Jim Crow, and all the way up to the present. We make our findings public through a variety of platforms, including social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn); the website; the Report on the First Eight Years; this blog; the YouTube channel; lectures; conferences; meetings; courses, and signature programs like the annual spring symposium and Lemon’s Legacies Porch Talks.

We are also making history public through Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved. Construction began on Hearth in the summer of 2021 and will finish in May 2022. This is a years-long project and involves the efforts of so many people. From the donors who funded this project to the Lemon Project team researchers who found the names of enslaved people in the archives, we are indebted to those who helped make this project possible.

We’ll write more about the Memorial next week but in the meantime, mark your calendars for the dedication of Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved on May 7 at 2:00 p.m. Join us in the South Wren Yard for this important community-wide event where everyone (yes, everyone!) is welcome. This is one step of many towards reconciliation, repair, and belonging at William & Mary.

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Understanding the Lives of Enslaved People through William & Mary Presidential Letters

Published April 20, 2022

By Molly Shilo, 2020-2021 American Studies Graduate Assistant

As part of the Lemon Project’s mission to uncover the university’s role in perpetuating slavery and racial oppression, I have been conducting archival research through Special Collections and Colonial Williamsburg’s Rockefeller Library. Primarily, I have been looking through documents of some of William & Mary’s first presidents to ascertain whether they might have been enslavers and whether those enslaved people may have worked for, or been connected to, the College in any way. This research is crucial for a few different reasons. It could help unravel the College’s reliance upon slavery and relationship with enslaved individuals by illuminating how individuals presiding over the College during its formative years might have implemented policy and structured the College around their racist beliefs. Although the focus initially may be on the presidents themselves, this research will hopefully guide us towards better understanding the lives and experiences of enslaved people working for the College. Finally, this research connects broadly to histories of American institutions that were built upon, and only made possible, by the labor of enslaved people. 

A great example is a letter written from Robert Saunders, Jr. to his wife, Lucy, on May 3, 1863. While Saunders begins with addressing the health of his children, he then turns to discussing the status of his enslaved people. Since the letter is written after the Emancipation Proclamation, he is focused on the individuals who had likely left the plantation. Although he mentions concerns over “Jim” who has run away before and “Molly” who he has not heard from, he confirms that most of the “servants” left behind in Williamsburg are still in their place. 

While Saunders is concerned with the loss of labor and income from the enslaved people he owns and has hired out, this letter provides glimpses into the lives of those enslaved people. We learn that “Jim” has previously escaped but was unfortunately returned to Saunders’ home. There is also a suggestion that he potentially has influenced other enslaved people to attempt to run away. We learn that one of his enslaved men, “Sam,” was “hired at the lunatic asylum,” demonstrating a specific job often not spoken about. Additionally, we hear of “Jacob” who left with his wife, an enslaved woman owned by Mrs. Tucker. Finally, we hear gossip that a neighbor’s slave, Fanny, likely ran off with her husband. These brief mentions provide insights into intimate relations between the enslaved, their decisions about remaining or staying after the Emancipation, and the uncertainty about what exactly was going to happen.

Although this correspondence is after Saunders’ tenure as president of the College, it still demonstrates that he was an enslaver at some point during his life— and likely during his involvement with the College. This letter, and the rest of his correspondence contained in the archives at Swem’s Special Collections, is just one way to unravel his past, his impact on the College, and his beliefs and actions regarding slavery and race. 

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Reflections from the 2020-2021 American Studies Graduate Assistant

Published April 13, 2022

By Molly Shilo, 2020-2021 American Studies Graduate Assistant

Let me introduce myself: my name is Molly Shilo, and I was the American Studies Graduate Assistant for the Lemon Project during the 202-2021 academic year. 

When I became the graduate assistant for the Project and learned more about the research they wanted me to take up this semester, I was really excited. Coming from an American Studies background with an undergraduate degree in English and media studies, I had no previous experience doing archival research, but I had read numerous monographs and articles lamenting the violent erasure within the archive, especially when it comes to the period of American slavery. Yet, I couldn’t shake the image I had of being in the archives, sitting at a table, sifting through old, faded papers, and hoping to come across something groundbreaking. 

However, archival research isn’t exactly like that — and definitely not during a pandemic. Instead, I was searching through the Special Collections database, compiling a spreadsheet of different folders and boxes that seemed most relevant, and submitting requests to our archivists to digitize whatever materials they could. Once those scans arrived in my inbox, I then had the (sometimes tedious) task of trying to transcribe illegible scribbles and discern the contents of letters, diaries, account books, and other papers that people had left behind. I think this was the most difficult, and least anticipated, part of this research. It seemed almost impossible at times to decipher someone’s handwriting, no matter how long I may have stared and stared. 

Although this research didn’t necessarily turn out the way I had imagined, that wasn’t a bad thing. Instead, it gave me a newfound appreciation for how complicated, taxing, and difficult this work is. It is one thing to learn about theories of the archive or to read historical monographs that have grown out of this initial stage of research, but there is no better way to recognize its frustrations and joys except for getting in there yourself.

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Rising and Falling Families: Reframing Race and Capitalism in Virginia’s New South

Published April 6, 2022

By Derek Vouri-Richard, 2021-2022 American Studies Graduate Assistant

My exhibit, Rising and Falling Families: Reframing Race and Capitalism in Virginia’s New South looks at different Virginia families from the New South to interrogate the relationship between economic changes and racial dynamics in Virginia after the Civil War and Reconstruction period. During this period Southern markets incorporated into a developing national economy through creating new institutions, laws, and business relations. These changes affected families in different ways. Often, the relationship between New South families and the larger social context differed based on race. As Virginia modernized, Black people and organizations entered a growing political economy in which White families had built infrastructures of wealth and power across generations. Around the turn of the century, Black businesses, colleges, and families became the institutions through which Black citizens entered the free market and challenged historical ideologies embedded within the economy.   

Rising and Falling Families analyzes four historical events from Virginia’s New South economy, with a specific eye on the people and families involved in shaping these events. The first section of the exhibit analyzes the formation of the Jamestown Exposition Company in 1902 by men of the Old South aristocracy. The second section looks at the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, which celebrated the 300th anniversary of the English settlement of Jamestown. In the third section, the exhibit considers the rise of a new social class of business owners in the New South by illuminating Samuel Harris of Williamsburg, Va. and Edward L. Stone of Roanoke Va. The exhibit’s final section explores Williamsburg’s twentieth-century Black business district by foregrounding one of the families who were crucial to developing this economic region, the Webb-Williams family.

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What does it mean to construct an archaeological database?  

Published March 30, 2022

By Caroline Watson, Anthropology Graduate Assistant, 2019-present

Database is a bodiless concept, recognizable to many but whose boundaries are difficult to define. Most broadly, our minds and memories are databases that constantly update, however imperfectly, as we see, read, and experience new things. In the scholarly sense, databases are paper or digital places that store key details of a person, object, location, or event. Both of these definitions underscore that databases are sources of information and a central home to multiple types of data that derive from other, diverse sources. Recognizing the form and function of databases is indeed a first step in learning how to think about them critically.  

Caroline Watson and the in-progress database

One labor of love The Lemon Project is currently undertaking is the construction of an archaeological database, which I am helping to design as part of my graduate research fellowship. This database will host information relating to the findings from archaeological excavations that have taken place on William & Mary’s campus since the 1930s. In other words, it will be a lengthy and descriptive list of artifacts that have been found on campus. Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to populate this database with every individual artifact that has been unearthed over the past almost century. Norms and regulations surrounding both artifact documentation and preservation of excavation forms have changed over the decades, thankfully now holding archaeologists more accountable for their work. To this end, the task of tracking down the artifact inventories that are dispersed throughout different archaeological companies and organizations has been a challenge in itself and is still ongoing. William & Mary itself houses archaeological and documentary collections that are independent from collections that reside in specific departments, making it all the more complicated to round up and access these data. Once I obtain artifact inventories from archaeological reports, I face the difficulty of standardizing this information into our own database-specific categories. This requires the creation of a standardized system of codes and categories that I will apply to all artifact entries. It is important to recognize the role personal judgment plays here. These codes and categories directly determine the type of information we are extracting from each artifact, and thus the extent of future knowledge about that object. If I decided to label every pottery sherd (not shard!) as simply ceramic, I would miss the crucial distinctions between styles like stoneware, pearlware, and Chinese porcelain, which each have their own temporal and geographic implications. Alternatively, recording every possible detail of an artifact may paralyze the progress of database construction and result in a mass of data that is not necessarily useful to anyone. Navigating this fine line is my current job as someone designing the database. My approach has been to think critically about what details of artifacts are most relevant and can answer the widest variety of research questions, now and in the future. Certainly, The Lemon Project intends for this database to not only spotlight that William & Mary has its own archaeological collections, but also engage future archaeological research projects that highlight the presence of enslaved peoples on campus and focus on the materiality of enslaved life ways and experiences.

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Meet Derek Vouri-Richard, LP American Studies Graduate Assistant

Published March 23, 2022

By Derek Vouri-Richard, 2021-2022 American Studies Graduate Assistant

I am a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at William & Mary. My areas of specialization are media studies, visual culture studies, cultural studies, film studies, the history of American capitalism, and the history of American media. My research looks at the ways in which American businesses were developing new forms of literacy and visual learning in the first half of the twentieth century. My research and areas of specialization relate to the Lemon Project in that I am interested in the ways in which developing market relations intersect with cultural dynamics such as race and gender. My role in the Lemon Project involves researching with documents that reveal enslaved people who were associated with the college from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century. These documents come from sources connected to William & Mary and sources outside the college. William & Mary documents that have helped the Lemon Project better understand the ways in which slavery has shaped the college’s history include bursar account records, faculty minutes books, former president’s account books, and ephemeral material such as a list of slaves owned by the college from the eighteenth century. Sources outside of William & Mary that have contributed to the Lemon Project research include the Bruton Parish Church, the Virginia Gazette, the William and Mary Quarterly, and the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Through accumulating these sources the Lemon Project hopes to build a comprehensive database that will facilitate ongoing knowledge about the history of race and slavery at William & Mary and in Williamsburg.

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Join us for the 12th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium- The Time is Now: The Lives of Black Men Past, Present, and Future
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Join us for the 12th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium- The Time is Now: The Lives of Black Men Past, Present, and Future

Published March 16, 2022

By Dr. Sarah Thomas, Lemon Project Associate Director

A Twitter Graphic Shared with Our Call for Proposals

The Lemon Project team is busy preparing for our upcoming Symposium—it’s less than two weeks away! This will be an in-person and virtual event and our first in-person event during the COVID era. We are looking forward to coming together around the theme, “The Time is Now: The Lives of Black Men Past, Present, and Future.” Registration is free, and we will be providing breakfast and lunch on March 25 and March 26.

Why are we focusing on the lives of Black men?

The following is excerpted from the Call for Proposals, written by Dr. Jajuan Johnson, our Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate. “The lives of Black men are valuable. The purpose of this symposium is to center the realities of Black men past and present while imagining future possibilities. In the words of Black Male Studies scholar T. Hasan Johnson, we plan to “delve into the lives of Black males beyond stereotypes, conjecture, and opinion.” 

“The symposium prompts us to pause and listen to the stories of Black men across time, age, class, region, and sexuality. Given the historical marginalization of Black males and the evident atrocities over the past decade with the violent deaths of Black men and boys, there is an urgency to lean into the humanity of Black men and imagine a future where they (we) can thrive in all realms of life.”

Dr. Jajuan Johnson, Call for Proposals, 12th Annual Lemon Project Spring Symposium

Keynotes by Tommy Curry & Kiese Laymon

Dr. Tommy Curry and Kiese Laymon are joining us in Williamsburg for keynote talks—Dr. Curry on March 25 at 6 pm ET and Mr. Laymon on March 26 at 9:00 am ET. After each of their keynotes, Dr. Curry and Mr. Laymon will be signing books, which you can purchase from the William & Mary Bookstore on site.

Plenary Session—The Time is Now: The Lives of Black Men

Dr. Daniel Black, Dr. T. Hasan Johnson, and Dr. O’Shan Gadsden will serve as panelists for the plenary session, “The Time is Now: The Lives of Black Men Past, Present, and Future,” on the morning of Friday, March 25. Dr. Jamel Donnor, of the William & Mary School of Education, will be the moderator. Dr. Jajuan Johnson notes that “the panelists bring various perspectives with backgrounds in Black Male Studies, psychology, and Africana Studies. They will present facts challenging enduring stereotypes that dehumanize Black men and boys, offer insight on present inequities, and discuss ways Black men are transforming themselves and their communities. Lastly, they will provide visions that improve the lives of Black males based on their areas of expertise.”

One of 2021’s Symposium panels, featuring students who made art to remember people enslaved by William & Mary

Future of Ethnic Studies

On March 25 at noon, the Asian Centennial and the Lemon Project join together for a panel discussion on Ethnic Studies in Virginia. During this year of celebrating the accomplishments of the first Asian students at William & Mary, we also look forward to a more inclusive future. Our panelists are Monika Gosin, Krystyn Moon (from the University of Mary Washington), Laura Guerrero, Steve Prince, and Chinua Thelwell.

Interdisciplinary and Multi-disciplinary Panels

In addition to the keynotes, plenary session, and the Ethnic Studies panel, there are 11 panels on a variety of topics given by presenters who are community members, scholars, researchers, genealogists, working professionals, and students. From folks sharing their genealogy and family histories to students sharing their summer research and discussions of Black professionals in the corporate world to cell phone videos and police violence, these panels are real, timely, and offer a roadmap of where Black males have been, where they are now, and what the future could hold.

Everyone is welcome! Registration is free, and we’re providing breakfast and lunch for in-person attendees on March 25 and March 26.

As always, everyone is welcome to attend. Please share the Symposium with your friends, family, and anyone else who might be interested in this two-day multi-disciplinary conversation about Black men past, present, and future.

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Get to know the Lemon Project Anthropology Graduate Assistant
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Get to know the Lemon Project Anthropology Graduate Assistant

Published March 9, 2022

By Caroline Watson, Anthropology Graduate Assistant, 2019-present

Receiving the Lemon Project research fellowship in Fall 2019 was one of the reasons I was most excited to attend William & Mary as an incoming master’s student in archaeology. At that time, I couldn’t have predicted that I’d be continuing with the Lemon Project team 3 years later as a doctorate student! Although my Ph.D. research is focused on pre-contact chiefdoms in French Polynesia (think 14th to 18th century), I was equally eager to dive into a project that highlighted the archaeology of the more recent past, especially that of the university and community into which I was entering. Since my very first day working with the Lemon Project team, I have never thought of my work as simply fulfilling the requirements for my fellowship. Rather, I am deeply engaged in and committed to the Lemon Project’s goals of broadening our knowledge of William & Mary’s history with slavery as well as using this research to build a safer, more inclusive community within the university and beyond. 

As an archaeologist, I am tasked with the attempt to understand William & Mary’s history of slavery through a material lens. While archaeologists certainly utilize the archival record, what sets us apart from other disciplines is our attention to the materiality of history—the objects, architecture, and even soil stains that people leave behind. A place like William & Mary has never really been abandoned. For one, indigenous peoples resided in this space long before the College’s formation in 1693, and even the brief hiatus in an academic administrative presence during the Civil War still saw an active occupation of the campus landscape (Higgins III 2014: 15). Nevertheless, while many buildings remain grounded in the same location, the areas in between them have been constantly renovated and re-designed over the years, through renovation and landscaping projects. The Sunken Gardens, for instance, were not constructed until 1935, which raises questions about what occupied that area before all that earth was moved. All of this makes it pretty difficult to get a direct “snapshot” of what campus looked like during the years it was engaged in the practice of slavery, since we have to peel back several layers of these physical changes. 

Documentation of archaeological work performed on campus since the 1930s helps us get closer to the material and architectural history of 18th and 19th century William & Mary, in the hopes of gaining a fuller understanding of the context in which enslaved peoples worked and lived here. Thus, my principal work as the Lemon Project Anthropology Graduate Fellow is to work directly with these documents and build a database that stores their information and makes this material history accessible to all. Stay tuned for more detail about this database! 

Sources Cited:
Higgins III, T.F. (2014). The Civil War at William and Mary: Archaeological Data Recovery in the Brafferton and Wren Yards, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research. WMCAR Project No. 12-19.

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Training Future History Makers: Lemon’s Learners 2021 Summer Camp
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Training Future History Makers: Lemon’s Learners 2021 Summer Camp

Published March 2, 2022
Lemon’s Learners Video, produced by the Studio of Teaching and Learning’s Roy Peterson and Sabrina Schaeffer

By Jajuan Johnson, Ph.D., Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow

In partnership with James Blair Middle School, the Lemon Project guided over a dozen students in genealogical research and exploring African American history in the Historic Triangle area. The camp, held July 13 – 15, 2021, had the theme “Black History Matters.” One of the main goals of the camp was for students to have a tangible experience with history through interaction with primary sources, family stories, and scientific experimentation.  

The camp kicked off with students participating in a DNA experiment using strawberries led by William & Mary’s Biology department professor Dr. Shanta’ Hinton and her laboratory graduate students. Archivists from Special Collections at William & Mary’s Swem Library brought history alive with a mix of 18th and 19th-century photos, documents, and books at exhibit stations.

Genealogical research was a significant component of the camp. The learners received two days of intense training on the importance of genealogical research, ways to find documents on databases, such as Ancestry.com, and tips on interviewing family members. An essential partner in the process of family history instruction was Williamsburg Regional Library. WRL’s Reference Librarian Rachel Nelson guided students in accessing the research databases and discussed other resources available at the library, such as library hot spots and telescopes.

The camp culminated with a special showcase of their family history research projects. There are so many beautiful highlights to write about, but we encourage you to check out the video below to hear and see firsthand the transformative experiences of our learners. We are looking for hosting future summer programs where students will have the opportunity to spend time on our historic campus.

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