Building—and Challenging—Separate and Unequal Schools in Williamsburg
"James City County Training School," circa 1929.
Courtesy: Albert Durant Photography Collection, Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Introduction
Throughout the period of segregation, the Williamsburg School Board and The College of William & Mary played central roles in the design of a public school system which systematically privileged White schools and disadvantaged Black schools. However, Black parents, teachers, and community members consistently challenged these inequities and advocated for equal opportunities for their children.
Source: Byrd (1968).
Note: Enrollment numbers for Williamsburg Public Schools alone are not available from 1871-1884, but enrollment numbers for Williamsburg and James City County Public Schools combined demonstrate an average enrollment of 246 White students and 313 Black students during these years.
Inequitable Beginnings
Public schooling in Williamsburg began on February 1, 1871. It immediately became clear that white students would be given priority. The first public schools for all students were rented spaces. Black public school enrollment tracked closely with or even exceeded white enrollment until the turn of the century, but white students were given twice as much learning space. Two rooms were rented for white students—one for boys and one for girls, while just one room was rented for Black children. The location of these rented rooms is unknown.1
The Matty School
Soon after the start of public schooling, the College of William & Mary assumed what would become its long-standing role in guiding and subsidizing the education of white public school students while neglecting the education of Black students. In 1873, the School Board secured the two-room Matty School from the College of William & Mary as a stable site for a school for white boys.² The College had erected this school with funds inherited from the Whaley family for the purpose of educating needy children. Through this agreement, the College not only provided learning space for white boys; it also shaped their educational experience, requiring instruction in Greek and Latin as a condition for using the building. Plans were made in 1874 to educate white girls in the Saunders House, nearby the Matty School. No permanent space was made available for Black children. Black children continued to be shifted among unidentified rented spaces for over a decade.3
Front elevation of Matty School, Williamsburg, Virginia, prior to its demolition to allow for reconstruction of the Governor's Palace, circa 1930, John A. Barrows Photograph Collection, MS1996.22.
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
The Matty School was located on Scotland Street between Tyler Street and Grigsby Street.
Today, the Governor's Palace sits where the Matty School once stood.
Map of Pre-Restoration Williamsburg, based on the Recollections of Lydia Gardner
Courtesy: City of Williamsburg
Black Churches Support Education
Black churches long played a role in supporting education for children and the broader community both before and after public schooling began. The First Baptist Church boasted a library of 250 volumes at this time that contributed to the community’s education.
The Historic First Baptist Church on Nassau Street, circa 1870s
Photo Courtesy: The Historic First Baptist Church
Reverend John M. Dawson, pastor of the First Baptist Church, oversaw 75 students and eight teachers at the Williamsburg Sabbath School hosted by the Church. In 1873, Reverend Dawson’s 8 year old daughter, Rachel, was recognized by the State Sabbath School Union for memorizing 84 Bible verses. Dawson was elected as a state senator for Charles City, James City, York, Warwick, and Elizabeth City counties from 1874-1877.
Rev. John M. Dawson, pastor of the First Baptist Church
Photo Courtesy: The Historic First Baptist Church
Mount Ararat Baptist Church, Francis Street. Williamsburg, Virginia, prior to its demolition, circa 1929, Todd and Brown Inc. Photograph Collection, AV2010.3
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
In the late nineteenth century, Mount Ararat Baptist Church stood at the corner of Francis Street and S. Boundary Street.
Map of Pre-Restoration Williamsburg, based on the Recollections of Lydia Gardner
Courtesy: City of Williamsburg
Mount Ararat Lends a Hand
When the School Board had not yet secured a stable location for the education of Black children over a decade after the opening of public schools, Mt. Ararat Baptist Church, a Black congregation on Francis Street, stepped in. In 1883, the church rented classroom space to the School Board for $36/year in order to support Black children’s education.4
Today, this lot is vacant. The Ewing Storehouse, the Chiswell Bucktrot House, and a parking lot have since been constructed nearby. While its old plot of land remains empty, Mount Ararat still operates today at its new location on N. Botetourt Street and Franklin Street.
The First Black School Board Member
In 1883, Mr. Samuel Harris, a prominent Black businessman and real estate developer who owned the Cheap Store, began a six year term as the only Black member of the School Board in Williamsburg. That year, the School Board asked him to oversee the transfer of school furniture from the unidentified rented space that had been used for the Black school, to the space provided by the Mt. Ararat Baptist Church. In 1884, Mr. Harris would also oversee the construction of the new Black school, named School No. 2, on Francis Street, and was named “inspector of the colored school”.5 Beginning in 1881, Mr. Harris supplied anthracite coal and wood to the schools, and his activities were instrumental in facilitating improvements to the schooling for Black children.6
Samuel Harris's Cheap Store operated on Duke of Gloucester Street near other local businesses.
Map of Pre-Restoration Williamsburg, based on the Recollections of Lydia Gardner, Courtesy: City of Williamsburg
View looking east on Duke of Gloucester Street towards Samuel Harris' Cheap Store located at the corner of Botetourt and Duke of Gloucester Streets, Williamsburg, Virginia, circa 1900, Elizabeth Coleman Photograph Collection, AV2009.56
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Today, the William Pitt Store, a souvenir shop, sits at that corner.
School No. 2
In 1884, at the same time that the new Black school was being built, the School Board appropriated funds to renovate the Matty School for white children. The School Board designated the white school “School No. 1,” often simply referred to as “the school,” with the Black school designated “School No. 2.”7 The Board’s priorities for funding the schools clearly reflected this ordering.
The Matty School for white boys was a one-story brick building measuring 40 feet x 60 feet and featuring two classrooms that had been equipped by the College in 1870 with funds inherited from the Whaley family.8 The School Board designated $400 to repair and renovate the Matty School, transforming it into a four-room building, although the exterior walls remained the same.9 With the renovations complete, white girls began attending the Matty School as well.10
The Board appropriated $950 to build the new school for Black children.11 The specifications for School No. 2 called for the construction of a two-room school that was smaller than the Matty School, measuring 22 feet x 62 feet on the inside.12 Some Black students may have continued to be educated in the rented rooms after the opening of the new school for a short time.13 By 1885, 112 white students and 105 Black students were enrolled in the Williamsburg schools.14
Listen to Mrs. Fannie Epps describe her experiences at School No. 2:
Fannie Epps-School No. 2.wavDescription of school.mp4Listen to a student describe her experiences at School No. 2.
Courtesy: Media Collections, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Public School No. 2, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1892.
Photographed with permission of Marie Sheppard by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
The location of School No. 2, then and now.
Map of Pre-Restoration Williamsburg, based on the Recollections of Lydia Gardner, Courtesy: City of Williamsburg
The College Steps In
In 1894, The College of William & Mary assumed a more active role in the public education of white students as part of a broader effort to build the College’s notoriety as a training institution for public school teachers across the state.15 From 1888 to 1919, William & Mary President Lyon G. Tyler pursued a range of efforts to build the College’s reputation,16 and this included reclaiming the Matty School and operating it as a Model School serving the teacher-education program. The College hired a white teacher at a salary at least twice that of the white public school teachers. This teacher and her college student assistants taught white children in first to third grade. Fourth grade and an additional teacher were added later. The Matty School became the only school for these grades, and the School Board rented three rooms of a house owned by Col. R.H. Armistead for the remaining white students until a new permanent location could be secured three years later. The College also operated a “preparatory department,” known as “the Academy,” until 1917 that served white boys and offered, at least some years, classes equivalent to the final three years of high school.17
The College of William & Mary
Front elevation of the Christopher Wren Building, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, ca.1904, Q. Wilson Hodges Photograph Collection, AV20201., 6
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
The Wren Building then and now.
The Armistead House
House owned by Col R.H. Armistead, located at the corner of N. Henry and Scotland streets, where white children attended school in rented rooms from 1894-97
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Some classes were hosted in the Armistead House, located on the corner of Scotland and N. Henry Streets.
Map of Pre-Restoration Williamsburg, based on the Recollections of Lydia Gardner , Courtesy: City of Williamsburg
The Nicholson School
In 1897, the School Board built the Nicholson School for white children, named for the street it faced. White students who had been attending school in the Armistead House were moved to the Nicholson School. Compared to the two-room school with a brick foundation built for Black children thirteen years earlier at a cost of $950, the Nicholson School was a four-room, fully brick structure constructed at a cost of just over $4000. An additional room was added in 1904, and funds were provided to secure a library in 1905. By this year, Williamsburg public schools served 99 white students with 3 white teachers and 101 Black students with 2 Black teachers.18
Photo 1: View of the south elevation of the Nicholson School once located on Nicholson Street in Williamsburg, Virginia, circa 1928, Clyde Holmes Photograph Collection, AV2009.25
Photos 2-3: Students outside the Armistead House, F.H. Ball Photo Collection, AV2007.1,
Photos Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
The Nicholson School sat near the corner of North England and Nicholson Streets. Today, this plot of land is close to the Peyton Randolph House and Prentis Field.
Map of Pre-Restoration Williamsburg, based on the Recollections of Lydia Gardner, Courtesy: City of Williamsburg
Reverend L. W. Wales Leads the Way
Around the turn of the century, Rev. L.W. Wales, Sr., the pastor of Mt. Ararat Baptist Church and a former Principal of School No. 2, led an effort to establish a Black high school in Williamsburg. School No. 2 in Williamsburg, along with the one and two-room schools provided by the James City County School Board that were scattered across the surrounding area, only offered 6-7 years of education. As president of the Ministerial and Deacon’s Union from Black churches in the area, Rev. Wales organized support for building a high school but was ultimately unsuccessful. As Rev. Wales recalled in his autobiography, “the union very promptly grasp[ed] the idea and agreed to endorse the high school enterprise, and after a short time the land was bought and partially paid for, but owing to some misunderstanding between the trustees and Mr. Samuel Harris, from whom we bought the land, the land in question was taken from us and sold. Thus we lost out in the high school enterprise for that time.”19
Portrait of Rev. L.W. Wales Sr. on the occasion of his 25th pastoral anniversary from "Brief Autobiographical Sketch of the Life and Labors of the Rev. L.W. Wales, D.O., Pastor of Mt. Ararat, Mt. Gilead, and Big Bethel Baptist Churches," 1910
Courtesy: Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Education and Voter Disenfranchisement
In 1902, the Virginia General Assembly passed a new constitution that introduced new voting requirements: voters would need to either pass a literacy test or pay a poll tax in order to vote. This move disenfranchised large numbers of Black residents. Prior to this, registered voters in Williamsburg included 253 white people and 192 Black people. Following voter registration in 1903 after the new constitution took effect, just 192 white people and 36 Black people were registered to vote, or 75% and 19%, respectively, of the previously registered numbers.20 Some historians suggest that the introduction of literacy tests for voting further weakened white support for Black education.21
Only 36 Black residents could register to vote in 1903.
Read each page to learn their names.
Source: 1902-1925 voter registration records. Box 9, 1889-1925, id160307, Box: 9. Henry Denison Cole Papers, 01/Mss. 39.1 C67. William & Mary Special Collections Research Center.
William & Mary's New Role
As part of the broader effort to build the reputation of the College’s teacher-education program, the College continued to subsidize the education of white children but neglected that of Black children. In 1912, The College of William & Mary and the School Board agreed to bring the College’s Model School, housed in the Matty School, and Williamsburg’s Nicholson School together under the management of a committee consisting of College and public school representatives.22 Under this arrangement, William & Mary students would benefit from observing and participating in teaching not just at the elementary level as before but also at the high school level. To facilitate the arrangement, the College would contribute $2400 a year to the operation of the Nicholson and Matty Schools and demanded teachers with higher qualifications—and higher salaries—to work with their college student-teachers. White public school students thus benefited from these better trained, more highly compensated teachers, as well as from instruction and attention from student teachers. By at least 1918, it appears that the Nicholson school was also offering four years of high school. Black children in Williamsburg would only obtain access to three years of high school beginning in 1924 and would not have the opportunity of four years and a high school diploma locally until the early 1950s. Indeed, as white students gained access to a continuous education through 12 grades of elementary and secondary school, Black students continued to attend small one and two-room schools, scattered throughout the City and County, that offered just six or seven years of education. To obtain a high school education, Black students had to travel to Black colleges, such as Hampton University, Virginia Union University, and Virginia State University, which offered high school training followed by university education. As longtime resident Mr. Curtis Lassiter explained, this was “a luxury which few could afford and that the white population need not consider.”23
Background photo: Front elevation of the Christopher Wren Building, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, ca.1904, Q. Wilson Hodges Photograph Collection, AV20201., 6
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Mr. and Mrs. Fred and Fannie Epps illuminate the difficulties students faced given limited educational opportunities locally.
Listen to Mrs. Fannie Epps describe her plans to leave Williamsburg to continue her education - plans unfulfilled when her mother fell ill:
FannieEpps-need to go away to school after 7th grade.wavMrs. Doris Epps describes her father, Robert Braxton's, education in an oral history:
"My father was a self-taught man. He finished elementary school, and he was self-taught...I know he said he went to the 5th or 7th grade, but that's as far...and then after he finished that then he would have to go to Hampton or somewhere to school because they didn't have school here."
Mr. Fred Epps Sr. and Mrs. Fannie Epps
Courtesy: Mrs. Fredi Epps Jackson
Photo Courtesy: Media Collections, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
In a 1991 oral history, Mr. Alexander Lee describes the generosity of those who did manage to seek further education beyond Williamsburg:
“We didn’t have any high schools. We had to go away for high school…to Hampton, Petersburg, or Richmond. The beauty part of it was, those that had a chance to go away to school, came back and helped and taught the others. They made a great contribution. They didn’t look for the money."
Samaritan Odd Fellows Hall
As The College and the School Board joined forces to support white education, Black students continued to be educated in the School No. 2 building erected in 1883 and moved in 1907 from Francis Street to the corner of Nicholson and Botetourt streets.24 With growing school enrollment, in 1920 the Black community supported their children’s education by offering rented space to the School Board in the Samaritan Odd Fellows Hall, a Black social club and benevolent society, a move that supplemented the existing classrooms in School No. 2. The School Board agreed to authorize an additional teacher for the Black school at this time, but only “if we can get an additional room without increased rent” from the Samaritan Odd Fellows Hall.25 This increased the number of teachers in the Black school in Williamsburg from two to three, which meant there was one teacher for every 56 Black students. In comparison, the white Schools at the time boasted one teacher for every 27 students.26
Odd Fellows Hall was close to the homes of many Black residents, including Rev. L.W. Wales.
Samaritan Odd Fellows Hall, also known as Morning Light Lodge, located at the corner of Nicholson Street and Raleigh Lane, photo by Thomas Williams, 1949.
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
The League Fights—and Sings—for Change
The Black community in Williamsburg, like others across the country, organized a School Improvement League to address the disparities across the Black and white schools.27 In early 1919, the School Improvement League wrote a letter, petitioning the School Board to authorize a new school building for Black students. The League’s letter stated that the Black community was “ready to ra[i]se their portion of the money needed.”28 On February 13 and again on March 3, 1919, Mr. J. Andrew Jones, a graduate of Hampton Institute and an important local contractor, and Mr. L.W. Wales, Jr., president of the League, attended School Board meetings to advocate for the new school and detail their plan to raise part of the money for its construction.29 The Board committed to building a four-room school house if the League could first raise $1000. Mr. Jones and Mr. Wales indicated that they had already secured $767.50 in pledges and had identified prospective buyers for the old Black school.30 Four members of the community, including Mr. Clifton Gardner, Mr. Fred Epps, Mr. Charlie Brown, and Mr. Ross, formed a musical group, the Plumbline Quartet, perhaps also known as the Williamsburg Quartet, to raise money for the new school.
Listen to a community member reminisce on the Quartet's contributions:
Courtesy: Media Collections, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Mr. Wales returned to the School Board’s meeting on July 15, 1919 with a confirmation that $1000 for the new school for Black students had been raised.31 As White community members from the Woman’s Club and the Educational and Civic Association had also attended the March 3rd School Board meeting, pressing for a new school for white children, the School Board began to secure funding for both the new Black School and a new white school. At a meeting in September of that year, the Board indicated that they intended to float a bond issue for $30,000 and borrow about $15,000 from the State Literary Fund to construct a new high school for white students. For the Black school, the Board agreed to apply for a loan of not more than $5000 from the Literary fund. Both loans were approved in late September.32
A New White School
As planning proceeded for both schools, the white school was prioritized. The school for white students, a new high school named Williamsburg High School, was built in 1921 for a cost of $69,136.79. This brick, two-story structure featured eight regular sized classrooms, two smaller classrooms, an auditorium, and an office. White elementary students would continue to study in the Matty School. Together the two white schools had a capacity of approximately 300 students. In 1921, there were 274 white students enrolled in the public schools.33
View of south façade of the Williamsburg High School when located on the site of the Governor's Palace, photo by Clyde Holmes, circa 1928
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
The Williamsburg Public School sat across the street from the Matty School.
Today, the Governor's Palace and the Palace Green sit in their place.
Strong Leaders Push Onward
By the time the new white school had opened, the construction of a new school for Black children still had not been approved. By 1922, the School Board had purchased three lots on Nicholson Street to house the school, and the Black community-led School Improvement League had provided $350 to facilitate the purchase.34 Continuing their advocacy for a new school, Mr. J. Andrew Jones and Mr. W.H. Hayes, Principal of School No. 2, attended the School Board meeting on June 6, 1922 to support the construction of a new school. They pledged to raise an additional $2500 beyond the $1200 that the Black community had already raised to support the construction of a six room school and “a room suitable for a training school” rather than the four room school planned by the School Board.35
“The first principal we had, and the principal when I went to school was Hayes, William Hayes, he was the first principal... And Hayes was quite an aged man, but he was a great man that really went about to get a school started in Williamsburg, he had a great influence.”
Listen to a community member reflecting on the Black leaders, including Principal Hayes, Rev. F.E. Segar, and Mr. J. Andrew Jones, that pushed for change:
Courtesy: Media Collections, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
At this time, the Williamsburg and James City County School Boards realized they could access funds from the State Department of Education and from private foundations for a Black school if they cooperated. In 1923, the two school boards advertised for bids from contractors to construct a new school. When the bids were received, the School Board deemed them all too high, rejected them, and revised the plan for the school to reduce the cost. The School Boards ultimately accepted a bid of $16,650. Available records are unclear regarding the source of all the funds. It is possible that $1500 came from the Rosenwald Fund, and some funds came from the Rockefeller, Slater, and Jeanes foundations. The Black community also contributed a considerable amount. At a School Board meeting on April 1, 1924, Principal Hayes of School No. 2 reported that a sum of $2,296.26 had been raised by the community and indicated a balance of $918.48 still to be raised.36
The Triumph of the Training School
The Black community’s persistent advocacy and financial contributions finally saw results in 1924 when the James City County Training School was built on the site of School No. 2. As long-time resident, Mr. Curtis Lassiter, explained, the Training School “marked a significant milestone in Black education” as the first Black high school in Williamsburg.37
Listen to residents of Williamsburg describe the construction of the James City County Training School and Principal William Hayes as a leader in the school and community. The video provides photos comparing the James City County Training School for Black students and the Williamsburg High School for white students.
JCC Training School.mp4Courtesy: Media Collections, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Familiar Challenges Remain
The construction of the James City County Training School was an achievement for the Black community’s advocacy in the face of local white leaders’ unwillingness to support Black education. However, deep racial inequities constructed by the School Board remained.
At this time, white and Black student enrollment was similar; 297 white students and 273 Black students attended the public schools in Williamsburg. Yet the white students benefited from two facilities, the Matty School and Williamsburg High School. In contrast, all 273 Black students attended the James City County Training School. The Williamsburg High School for white high school students was a two-story building with eight regular-sized classrooms and two smaller classrooms. In comparison, the Training School was a single-story structure with six regular-sized classrooms and one smaller classroom, housing Black students from grades one to eleven. The school was constructed for about one quarter of the cost of the Williamsburg High School.38
_______________________________________
Listen to John, Marcellus, and Lawrence Rowe describe their inability to complete their training at the James City County Training School as their family did not have a lot of money and they had to walk in to Williamsburg from their home in the county on Hickory Signpost Road:
Rowe Brothers-stopping school because no money.wavMrs. Clara Harris described similar challenges in a 1984 oral history:
“Well, they had Williamsburg James City County Training School, that was down on Nicholson Street where Rev. Wales and Miss Baker, she was one of the old teachers used to live down on that street. And that was the only high school in James City County, in the area, all of Williamsburg. And all the other schools were small schools in each community, and they didn't go any further than the seventh grade. And when you got to seventh grade, you were promoted to the eight grade to James City County, and some children, that's as far as they got because they had to walk to Williamsburg, way down on Nicholson Street.”41
Students in a classroom at James City County Training School, 1938, Albert Durant Photography Collecction, AV1992.1
Courtesy: Visual Resources, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
The James City County Training School sat at the corner of North Botetourt and Nicholson Streets. Today, the lot where the School once stood is now part of Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic District, near the colonial cabinetmaker and an axe range.
Map of Pre-Restoration Williamsburg, based on the Recollections of Lydia Gardner, Courtesy: City of Williamsburg
While the Training School did offer some high school education, the education ended at the 11th grade and did not yield academic 12-year high school diplomas that would open up pathways to college.39 The Training School also was not large enough or equipped with sufficient transportation resources to accommodate all students in the area. Lacking transportation to Williamsburg and with the hard times of the Depression, many students in James City County continued attending small county schools that only offered 6-7 years of education until 1940.40
Notes
1. Byrd, Rawls. 1968. History of Public Schools in Williamsburg. Williamsburg, VA.
2. Byrd 1968.
3. Byrd 1968.
4. Rowe, Linda H. 1997. A History of Black Education and Bruton Heights School. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library Research Report Series – 0373. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
5. Rowe 1997:16-17.
6. Rowe, Linda. 2000. “The African-American Community in Williamsburg (1865-1947),” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, 1699-1999. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, pg. 121; Oxreider, Julia Woodbridge. 1998. Rich, Black, and Southern: The Harris Family of Williamsburg (and Boston). New Church, VA: Minoa Publications.
7. Rowe 1997.
8. Byrd 1968.
9. Byrd 1968.
10. Byrd 1968.
11. Rowe 1997.
12. Rowe 1997:17.
13. Morgan, Philip D. 1985. Black Education in Williamsburg-James City County, 1619-1984. Report produced for the Williamsburg-James city County Public Schools and The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, pg. 14.
14. Byrd 1968.
15. Foster, Andrea Kim. 1993. “They’re turning the town all upside down”: The community identity of Williamsburg, Virginia, before and after the reconstruction. Doctoral Dissertation, The George Washington University.
16. William & Mary Department of History 2021, https://www.wm.edu/as/history/about/l_g_tyler/index.php.
17. Byrd 1968; Rowe 1997.
18. Byrd 1968.
19. Wales, Rev.. L.W. 1910. A brief autobiographical sketch on the life and labors of Rev. L.W. Wales, D.D. Williamsburg, Virginia.
20. Oxrieder 1998.
21. Morgan 1985; Foster 1993.
22. Byrd 1968.
23. Byrd 1968; Lassiter, Curtis and Wayne Bowman. 1985. How black schools evolved. Virginia Gazette, March 6, 4A.
24. Rowe 1997.
25. School Board Minutes, City of Williamsburg, Va., December 2, 1907-October 29, 1925, Williamsburg-James City County School Board Office, p. 198, as quoted in Rowe 1997:17; see also Morgan 1985.
26. Byrd 1968: Appendix 1.
27. Rowe 2000.
28. As quoted in Rowe 2000:124.
29. Byrd 1968; Morgan 1985:24.
30. Rowe 1997.
31. Byrd 1968.
32. Rowe 1997.
33. Byrd 1968.
34. Rowe 1997.
35. Rowe 1997.
36. Byrd 1968; Rowe 1997, 2000.
37. Lassiter and Bowman 1985.
38. Byrd 1968; Morgan 1985.
39. Lassiter and Bowman 1985; Morgan 1985.
40. Morgan 1985.
41. Oral History from Clara Harris, October 24, 1984, James City County Oral History Collection | Special Collections Research Center | William & Mary Libraries