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The Untold Story of African American Women at William & Mary

Post author By mfcharbonier
Post date January 20, 2020
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Maggie Aschmeyer, Marc Charbonier, Laura Kirk, William Ryu

Branch Out Alternative Break 2020

The Untold Story of African American Women at William & Mary

Introduction

African American women have been essential to the establishment and development of William & Mary since its founding in 1693. However, early historical records critically lack information regarding the very existence of African American women at the university, making their early contributions greatly unknown and undervalued. African American women at William & Mary have contributed to the growth and success of the university as enslaved laborers, paid staff members, and eventually as students and faculty.

The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation at William & Mary has been working to rectify the wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by the university. Among other significant accomplishments, The Lemon Project has been uncovering the names of enslaved African Americans at William & Mary through analyzing local runaway slave advertisements and baptismal records from the Bruton Parish Episcopal Church in Williamsburg. As of January 2020, the names of approximately thirty female slaves owned by William & Mary have been uncovered, as well as those of approximately 160 female slaves owned by the faculty and students. The long history of African American women at William & Mary has remained largely excluded from the university’s academic discussions. The evidence describing the 327 years that African American women have been at William & Mary reveals a story of injustice and persistence in the face of adversity.

The Early Years: Slavery

The relationship between African American women and William & Mary begins with slavery. Enslaved African Americans built the Wren building, the Brafferton, and the President’s House, and were intensively involved in the daily operations and long-term growth of the university.1 In 1718, William & Mary acquired Nottoway Quarter, a tobacco plantation in present-day Virginia counties of Sussex, Surry, Prince George, and Dinwiddie. Seventeen enslaved laborers were purchased to operate the plantation, which funded the university’s operations and student scholarships.2 At William & Mary, enslaved female laborers likely cooked, cleaned, worked in the gardens, and performed other housekeeping duties.3 At times, the university sold or rented its slaves for revenue. For example, William & Mary sold eight slaves in 1782 to raise funds necessary for building renovations.4 Members of the William & Mary faculty and administration, particularly President Thomas Roderick Dew, strongly argued in support of slavery, chacterizing it as an “absolute and necessary good.”5 William & Mary staff members played a significant role in the justification and perpetuation of slavery in Virginia and the United States.

Post-Slavery Transition

Following the abolishment of slavery in 1865, the relationship between African American women and William & Mary transitioned from unpaid to paid labor. Information specifically regarding African American women at the university is scarce during both the slavery and post-slavery periods. Records pertaining to African Americans at William & Mary were poorly kept and academic information relating to women of color during this time period is not widely available. The history of African American labor at William & Mary in this post-slavery period regards both men and women.

According to The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation – Report of the First Eight Years, “blacks continued to serve in important roles at William & Mary, just as they had when they were enslaved. Free black labor during this period resembled the labor of the enslaved.”6 African Americans took on paid roles at the university as janitors, dining hall staff, and groundskeepers. From the beginning of their employment, African American wages remained too low to support themselves.7 During the Jim Crow era, the university hired African Americans particularly for jobs that required heavy labor, and wages were kept low.8 William & Mary also often used intimidation techniques to “remind” African American workers “of their place” in society.9 For example, in 1926, the Ku Klux Klan gifted William & Mary a flagpole, which was placed at the university bus stop. The university staff, many of whom were African American, were picked up and dropped off for work at that flagpole until its removal in 1959.10

In the late 1930s, William & Mary President John Stewart Bryan directly acknowledged the university’s underpayment of African American staff. Bryan stated that African Americans employed by the university had “for a long time… been greatly underpaid,” and he gave a greater pay raise to African American workers than to white workers.11 However, racial disparities have remained deeply ingrained at the university. Heightened racial awareness in the 1960s brought William & Mary’s unequal practices to light, and students and staff members protested the university’s low wages, its lack of career advancement opportunities, and its discriminatory working conditions for African Americans.12 One William & Mary Flat Hat article from the 1960s discussed the “deplorable employment situation” of African Americans at the university. This article highlighted the reality that African American staff members did not work at the university because they particularly “want to,” but because the positions they filled are “traditionally held” by African Americans.13 Despite their many contributions to the success and daily operations of William & Mary, African American staff members have remained disadvantaged and undervalued.

Integration Efforts

In Fall of 1967, African American women at William & Mary were finally admitted as students, marking a new era of contribution from female African Americans to the university. The first female African American undergraduate students to live on campus at William & Mary were Janet Brown Strafer, Karen Ely, and Lynn Briley. They arrived at the university in Fall 1967 and lived together in Jefferson Hall. In 2012, a plaque honoring the three women was placed outside of Jefferson Hall. Karen Ely shared her thoughts regarding the plaque in an interview for The Lemon Project, stating that the placement of the plaque is “fitting” given Jefferson’s history of owning slaves. Ely mentioned that the hall’s namesake, Thomas Jefferson, must be “turning over in his grave.”14

While the three women reflected on parts of their time at William & Mary as positive experiences, their integration into the student body included several negative experiences as well. Although Lynn Briley states that she “never felt any hostility” from the other girls in Jefferson Hall, Ely remembers finding a racial slur on the sidewalk outside of the dorm during freshman orientation.15 Ely also recalls feeling personally pressured to to forge a better path for any black students that attend William & Mary in the future. She told the Lemon Project, “I refused to quit because I felt if we quit, then other people wouldn’t want to come, so I said no, I’ve got to put up with whatever I had to put up with.”

In her 1970 essay “The Black Experience,” Strafer stated, “There are also a few with whom I have made what [I] hope to be lasting friendships. These few, however, cannot right the wrongs of the majority. Therefore it is impossible for me to change any of the views I hold about the white man until he changes his views about Black people. I mean honestly and not in the ways he has pretended to thus far.”16

On top of the challenges and discrminiation they experienced due to their race, Strafer, Ely, and Briley also had to abide by the stricter rules that were placed on all female students. These additional rules included a rigid dress code that prevented female students from wearing pants outside of their dorms unless they covered themselves with a coat. Strafer remembers that female students also had to flip a blue card outside of their door when exiting their dorm room so that the Resident Assistants could keep track of them.17 Furthermore, Ely shared with The Lemon Project that date rape prevalently occurred on campus during her years at the university but often “got pushed under the rug.”18 These issues exemplify the challenges that affected all women at William & Mary during this time, which also played a role in shaping the experiences of the first female African American students.

In 1968, five African American women were admitted to William & Mary. By the end of their first semester, three of those students had already dropped out. Edith Cooke was one of the two women who remained at the university. In 1969, Cooke told the Flat Hat, “Besides the luck involved in getting a particular professor, another reason given for the high percentage of failures was the pressure of adjusting socially while maintaining studies at the same time.” Cooke recounted at least one girl feeling “burdened by a prejudice which was always present even if not always overt.”19 In 1969, the school marching band faced controversy for their choosing to play “Dixie” at school football games, which resulted in the song being removed from their musical selections.20 The Kappa Alpha fraternity also received backlash in the Flat Hat for dressing up in confederate uniforms as a part of their annual spring parade, however, the tradition would carry on for another decade.21

Today

Despite the process of integration having begun in 1967 for African American undergraduate women at William & Mary, racial reconciliation continues today. Alumna Mallory Walker 2017 mentioned that her time at William & Mary included various challenges due to her race and the lack of equal representation and sociopolitical awareness at the university.
She stated that one of the primary instigators of those challenges was President Taylor Reveley, who was “incredibly problematic” during his time at William & Mary. Walker particularly referenced an incident in which President Reveley, a white man, stated, “I have color too,” while speaking to students organizing a Black Lives Matter conference at the university. Walker states that there were various issues of racism at William & Mary throughout her years at the university, but never felt as though the administration truly acted against it.22

Racial integration and equality at William & Mary is still an issue for staff members. One African American woman who worked as a William & Mary housekeeper connected her experience at the university to its history of slavery. She stated, “To this day there is still a form of slavery. I was not allowed to attend here so I haven’t come very far…but I am allowed to clean here.” She elaborated on the high proportion of African Americans among the housekeeping staff and the limited opportunities for advancement available to them. The staff member emphasized that they were assigned unfairly high amounts of work while receiving disproportionately low salaries. Many of her white colleagues chose to leave the university in search of other employment opportunities, but the majority of African American staff members had no choice but to accept their circumstances. She states “that’s still a form of slavery.”23

Additionally, recent student protests at William & Mary have shed light on the fact that the university continues to purchase its furniture from Virginia Correctional Enterprises, which uses the labor of incarcerated people paid between $0.55 and $0.80 per hour.24 As student protesters have argued, this labor is a form of modern day slavery, as it benefits from mass incarceration which disproportionately targets and exploits people of color.25 Therefore, the furniture that fills William & Mary dorms and classrooms are yet another instance of the university perpetuating the exploitation of African Americans. In this manner, William & Mary still depends on the exploitative labor of African American women. The university continues to unfairly benefit from their labor and fails to grant them the recognition they deserve.

Conclusion

African American women have contributed to William & Mary since its founding in 1693, and have been exploited to make the university’s existence and growth possible. African American women were enslaved by not only the university, but also its faculty and students. When slavery was eventually abolished, African American women became paid staff members at the university. Despite being paid, these women were in jobs with unlivable wages, poor working conditions, and few opportunities for continued advancement. Despite these women being subjected to a variety of Jim Crow era policies and incidents that led to an atmosphere of intimidation, these women remained integral to the William & Mary community and the functioning of the university. Since African American women were eventually accepted as students and faculty, they have prospered in an academic community stacked against their success. Today, African American women at William & Mary continue to greatly contribute to the university, often challenging the inequalities that remain throughout the institution.

Despite the information currently available on African American women at William & Mary, large gaps remain. The contributions of African American women in their 327 years at William & Mary must not be overlooked—as an academic community, it is our responsibility to bring their contributions to light and fully explore their long history at the university. In addition, the university must continue to take progressive steps to reconcile its dark history and commit to building an institution that fundamentally values racial equality.

Endnotes

1 Meyers, Terry L. “A First Look at the Worst: Slavery and Race Relations at the College of

William and Mary.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 16, no. 4 (2008). https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1055&context=wmborj.

2 The Lemon Project. “The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation: Report of the First Eight

Years,” February 2019. https://www.wm.edu/sites/lemonproject/_documents/the-lemon-project-report.pdf.

3 Meyers, Terry L. “A First Look at the Worst: Slavery and Race Relations at the College of

William and Mary.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 16, no. 4 (2008).

4 Meyers, Terry L. “A First Look at the Worst: Slavery and Race Relations at the College of

William and Mary.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 16, no. 4 (2008).

5 Meyers, Terry L. “ Thinking About Slavery at the College of William and Mary.” William &

Mary Bill of Rights Journal21, no. 4 (2013). https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1659&context=wmborj.

6 The Lemon Project. “The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation: Report of the First Eight

Years,” February 2019. https://www.wm.edu/sites/lemonproject/_documents/the-lemon-project-report.pdf.

7 The Lemon Project. “The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation: Report of the First Eight

Years,” February 2019.

8 The Lemon Project. “The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation: Report of the First Eight

Years,” February 2019.

9 The Lemon Project. “The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation: Report of the First Eight

Years,” February 2019.

10 The Lemon Project. “African Americans and William & Mary: A Historical Timeline.”

William & Mary. https://www.wm.edu/sites/lemonproject/researchandresources/historicaltimeline/index.php.

11 Meyers, Terry L. “A First Look at the Worst: Slavery and Race Relations at the College of

William and Mary.” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 16, no. 4 (2008).

12 Bloom, Lois. “Integrating the College of William and Mary.” For The Lemon Project: A

Journey of Reconciliation, September 10, 2014. https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/bitstream/handle/10288/21125/UA82_20150602_IntegratingWMBloom_Redacted.pdf?sequence=1.

13 Bloom, Lois. “Integrating the College of William and Mary.” For The Lemon Project: A