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Personally, it’s been very difficult for me to be motivated to be an activist. Growing up Filipino Catholic, I had certain views pushed on me that are the complete opposite of how I feel today. Luckily, having my friends and other community members around me helped me stray away from the kind of opinions that have occupied my life for so long. I’ve been able to develop my own ideas about who I am as a person and what kind of values I have. However, expressing these ideas or values doesn’t really come all that easily to me at home simply because of my family. My family has different ideals than me and they’ve always just kind of told me to keep my head down and focus on myself. It’s this kind of thinking that has sort of forced me to push myself away from becoming an active citizen because I fear what my parents will think of me and how they’ll react to my current views that don’t align with theirs and what they’ve raised me to have.

Therefore, growing up and developing my own set of values but not acting on them has been something I’ve struggled with especially when I go to a school like William and Mary. Most of my activism has been centered around social media sites like Twitter where I feel like I can speak freely and really be able to share my opinions with people. However, participating in Branch Out, and specifically Moral Mondays today, has allowed me to experience a different kind of activism that I had never really felt comfortable with growing up and actually feel good about having done it. It was a different experience for me to be physically present there with my values and other values that I agree with and I think it has just changed that way I personally view activism. Because to me, activism doesn’t necessarily mean going out and protesting every day. It can be something simple like having a conversation with someone and trying to provide a new perspective and it is definitely not the same for everyone.

— Angela

For the third and final day of the Lemon Project Branch Out Alternative Break, I thought it was a  very fitting way to end by participating in Moral Mondays. Being able to actually go out in our own community in Williamsburg and be a part of Moral Mondays along with our Lemon Project group of students was incredibly rewarding. To be able to actually physically be there on the streets in Colonial Williamsburg and be present to represent our beliefs, values and represent those who need public awareness for their circumstances helped further my appreciation and understanding of the importance of the Lemon Project. One of the two founders of Moral Mondays talked about how in his youth when he lived in Florida, a state rife in prejudice and racism, he had stayed on the sidelines simply watching other people go out and participate in activism. He went on to explain how he had only recently learned the importance of having an active voice in society, in your community. Starting, or even just having, these types of conversations with people over “controversial” topics such as maybe racism, immigration, transgender rights etc. is a very difficult thing to do and the Lemon Project’s emphasis on self-care and learning to have an open-mind really helped me gain confidence to to start these conversations with my fellow peers.

After watching the funny and enlightening interview with Karen, Janet, and Lynn, the three first residential African-American students at W&M, my group started investigating the academic spaces these women used while students. Karen studied science at W&M, and hearing her negative experiences with the chemistry department struck a chord with me as a woman who is also studying science. Karen mentioned a couple of examples of negative encounters she had with chemistry professors and other staff in that building in which she endured racist and sexist comments. Those stories really resonated with me because I have also encountered sexism as a woman pursuing a career in science, so that made me even more motivated and excited to help share the stories of the Legacy 3.

Day 2 of the Project exceeded my expectations. It began early in the day with the meeting of the Legacy 3, which are the first African American women to attend the College of William and Mary, and I was mesmerized and star-struck. The three ladies told us their experiences as students while in attendance during a time of civil rights and overt racism. Though I expected it to be a tale of hardships and struggles they had to endure as studenrts during that time, they instead proved that it was a story of triumph and really normality. In other words when Karen, Lynn, and Janet attended the College, they didnt realize at the time the significance of their admittance, continued attendance, and graduation from the College especially in the launching of the growth of future generations of African American students. The Legacy 3 were humble in the depiction of their story, yet the courage and pererverance they had to stay at a difficult school, in more ways than one, is admirable and incredible to me. After that we continued to grow in work on the project that will be finalized tomorrow, which was done with the help of the details given by the Legacy 3. The work was productive and for the most part had a very strong foundation for what it will look like tomorrow upon completion. The rest of the evening turned into a girl bonding session, which made for a very relaxing and entertaining evening. I hope that this bonding will allow us to work stronger on our teams but also as a branch out team in the completion of the project through these new found relationships and strengthened passion for the subject at hand. I await the experiences of tomorrow and what it might bring, hopefully with a completed project, positively impacted lives, and overall successful Branch Out Trip witht the Lemon Project.

Today was day 3 of our collaboration with the Lemon Project, and I find myself filled with a newfound sense of pride in our institution and the people within it. Although I had few preconceptions of the Lemon Project as an organization before this weekend, I never expected it to be powered by such passionate, respectful, and compassionate people who truly believe in the College of William & Mary. Everything we have done on this trip works toward acknowledging the wrongs of the school and rectifying them, and we seek to do it with loving and respectful intentions. This was incredibly powerful for me to realize and witness, and has altered the way I look at our school’s relationship with race and gender.

After interviewing the Legacy 3, one thing became (paradoxically) clear: things have changed, and things are very much the same. At first, it was surprising to me that these women seemed hesitant to speak poorly of the school. I expected stories of racism, prejudice, and adversity to abound. The reality did in fact feature some racial and gender discrimination, but these were not the central narrative. These issues were background noise, the static of these women’s lives, much as they are in the lives of women and minorities on campus today. The words “those were the times” were said often, and without judgment. Those were the times. That was how things were. Today, these are the times. This is how things are. We work to change them, but in the meantime we live, work, and learn. The injustices we bear, some more than others, hang on the outskirts of our personal narratives. They are not the main event, but an unseen presence felt looming just offstage.

The Legacy 3 spoke with eloquence and honesty. They made their pride in William & Mary very clear, even as they spoke critically about issues on campus during their time here. They wore their heart and their burdens on their sleeve, and their commitment to telling their story with integrity and grace moved me like not much else has. Listening to the Legacy 5 speak today has instilled in me a gratitude and love for William & Mary that I have not felt before. Their words make me proud of this school, and drive me to change it for the better during my time here. After this weekend I resolve to appreciate the College critically. My pride in our school and the belief that it can be better are not exclusive ideas, but one in the same.

In both Hidden Figures and our interview today with the Legacy 3, the women were unafraid to embark on unfamiliar terrain. Regardless of whether something had been done before, the women refused to conceive such as a closed door, but rather as one that they would be the first to open. What does it mean to be the first? Certainly, there is a level of uncertainty and anxiety—as there is with any blank slate—but the women we have met–both in film and in person–also displayed how being the first is a path to empowerment. It’s about intentionally creating change yourself, and it also requires a degree of self confidence, which the Legacy 3 inspiringly embodies. As I’ve been thinking about the Legacy 3’s experience at the College, their general unawareness of the legacy they would create reminds me how being the first can also be natural. It needn’t be self-imposed. In fact, I would argue that the best legacies are the ones that one does not entirely know they are creating. Sometimes one must go through their personal journey to guide others through their own. The Legacy 3’s journey, though distinct and personal to the women, has taken a life of its own. We now celebrate the women’s achievements as a model for creating a new legacy at William & Mary, one that openly acknowledges the history of African Americans on campus and translates such recognition into active change. Though this process has proved time-consuming and unfinished, I feel as if we—as the current William & Mary community—are carrying the torch forward that the Legacy 3 first lit back in 1967. Now, we must use this flame as the guiding light to start difficult conversations and re-inform prevailing narratives. I’m proud to be a part of this mission.

Meeting Janet, Lynn, and Karen and being able to personally interview them today was an amazing experience for which I am very grateful. The most interesting and somewhat ironic part of the day for me was the fact that the three ladies kept mentioning several times throughout the interview that they weren’t special and repeatedly revealed their shock at our academic and social interest with their own experiences. For them, the whole year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the year that they had commenced their academic journey at William and Mary, was a very humbling experience because they believed that they were “just the same as [us] ” and they believed that they had a normal college experience despite obvious differences in obstacles faced and distinct impediments met between us and the Legacy 3. Working in my group and putting together the answers the three women gave us to the questions we had prepared allowed us to further explore the ideas of spaces and places as well as their stories and helped give a better understanding of the meaning of the ladies’ experiences at the college and its profound impact on further African American students to come.

Learning more about the Lemon Project throughout the day and the project on the “places and spaces” around campus allowed me to view the campus in a different manner and provided me with a new perspective that I don’t think I would have been able to see if it weren’t for the Lemon Project. This was especially true for me when I learned about the long history of slavery found on campus at William and Mary. It was shocking to see, as Ari pointed out, that the College had owned slaves for more years than it had not owned slaves. Creating interview questions for the Legacy 3, Janet, Karen and Karen also allowed me to think of the three women as more than just an idea, but rather actual human beings. It was almost surreal to think that they had lived, walked, and breathed in the same areas that we all have on the campus but had simultaneously faced drastically different obstacles that were inherently based on their race as well as some of the same, shared experiences that we have all had at the college. Seeing this idea also expressed through the movie, Hidden Figures, helped me gain a greater understanding of how badass these women are for not allowing any obstacle placed in front of them to stand in their way. These three women were, without even knowing it at the time, paving the way for future generations, not only for other students of color but for women as well.

I was very excited to learn more about the background information regarding The Lemon Project. The story about why Lemon was chosen as the face of the project and the struggles African Americans had to go through just to be accepted into the college was intriguing. The determination shown behind the woman who applied and was rejected multiple times before finally being accepted into William & Mary Law School was incredible. William and Mary has come far, but not too far. I can relate to their being predominantly black employees working lower rank jobs at the college while there are very few African American professors here. African American students still have need that encouragement to succeed at William & Mary.