The historic Bray School building was where teachers taught freed and enslaved Black children. Its restoration has begun 250 years later by the William and Mary Bray School Lab.
The Colonial Williamsburg school house first opened on Sept. 29, 1760, and over two and a half centuries later it is being preserved and honored.
Tonia Merideth is an oral historian and a descendant of a Williamsburg Bray School student, and she says the silence of the history surrounding the school and the people connected to it is a challenge for historians who are trying to piece together the full story on the lives that the school touched.
"So myself and the genealogists are working hard to tell a fuller story of these children, going through all of the documents — including the oral histories — we have one from a descendant community member. We have his family, and that of two families who sent students to the Bray school," Merideth told Scripps News.
The Bray School was open from 1760 until 1774 and taught as many as 400 Black children between the ages of 3 and 10 in an area that is now Williamsburg, Virginia.
Merideth says that she didn't know she shares a family connection with the school and its students before she came to Williamsburg. She says she learned about the story of the Bray school 11 years ago and that alone captivated her enough to go there to be a part of the project.
Astonishingly, she says it was only after that commitment that she learned of her personal genetic connection to the school.
"I feel like the very first day that I saw that school and I touched it, those children were wanting me to tell their story," she said.
As the school was being restored and moved to a safe location, descendant community members joined the dedicated lab workers who are part of the project to celebrate the restoration.
Matt Webster works with the Bray school project and said he believes the biggest challenge is preserving these stories, in the work that they do.
"It's not just a building," Webster said. "It's a place where life occurred."
The restored school house is set to open to the public this spring.
