The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $5 million grant in support of the Williamsburg Bray School Project, an initiative spearheaded by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and William & Mary. 

The project is focused on researching, relocating, and preserving the Bray School, which is believed to be the only remaining Colonial-era building in the country that was dedicated to the Christian education of Black children. That education, however, included a mission to impart the deeply flawed purpose of directing the enslaved to accept their circumstances as divinely ordained. In addition to funding the preservation, relocation, and restoration of the Bray School, the grant will support the development and implementation of public programming to educate visitors about the school’s complicated history. Genealogy work and oral history interviews conducted by the William & Mary Bray School Lab will inform Colonial Williamsburg’s future interpretive programs.

The grant is part of the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project, a five-year, $250 million initiative launched in 2020 to reimagine and rebuild commemorative spaces and transform the way history is told in the United States.

“The Bray School Project will help us tell a more complete story of our nation’s complex history of race, religion and education,” said Colonial Williamsburg president and CEO Cliff Fleet. “This is particularly important today as our country navigates its way through these divisive times. We are very grateful to the Mellon Foundation and president Elizabeth Alexander for enabling us to partner with our colleagues at William & Mary to develop meaningful public programs while relocating and restoring this historic structure in time for the 250th anniversary of the Bray School’s closing in 2024.” 

(Photo Credit: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)