to the African Americans enslaved by William & Mary, a public reminder similar to the memorial to enslaved people installed at the University of Virginia earlier this year. William & Mary’s $2 million memo-
rial is scheduled for groundbreaking in early 2021 and completion in fall 2021. It will break through the wall that sur- rounds the university’s Historic Campus, the two-acre, diamond-shaped area con- taining university buildings dating from the 1600s and 1700s. It will also create a new entranceway for the campus. Black residents have “a historical
memory of when the college walls went up,” Joseph says, and felt “they were being pushed out” at the time Colonial Williamsburg was established. Jody Lynn Allen, director of The
Lemon Project, says African American residents saw the wall “as a real barrier, a way of keeping them out. So, the memo- rial is breaking that wall, literally and figuratively.” Titled “Hearth,” the memorial will mea-
sure 16 feet wide, 45 feet long and 20 feet high, and resemble a brick fireplace. It will be built by Richmond-based construction firm Kjellstrom & Lee Inc. across from the admissions office on the south side of the 1690s Wren Building, the oldest building on campus. “The hearth has two meanings in the life of the enslaved,” explains Allen, an
Jody Lynn Allen is director of The Lemon Project, a university initiative to “rectify wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by William & Mary.”
assistant professor of history. There was the harsh hearth they labored around, firing bricks and boiling water for laundry. But there was also the hearth they could gather around when they had moments to themselves. “The hearth illuminates, so it illumi-
nates the fact that they were there and that they were human beings,” she says. The Lemon Project is named for Lemon,
a man who was enslaved by W&M, and his name will be one of about 190 to be included on the memorial. In instances
when the names of enslaved people were not recorded, those people will be listed by the work they did, Allen says. More names will be added as The
Lemon Project’s research continues. “It’s a reparative endeavor,” Allen says
of the project, which was established by the board of visitors in 2009 as the result of a Student Assembly resolution. The project’s next phase will be to conduct genealogy research to trace descendants of those who were enslaved by the university. More than $1 million in private dona-
tions was raised for the memorial; the board of visitors, which in 2018 apolo- gized for W&M’s role in slavery, provided matching funds. Richmond-based architectural firm
Baskervill designed the memorial based on a concept chosen after an international competition. The winning proposal was submitted by William Sendor, a 2011 alumnus. “What he did was to use this symbol to
remember the past but also, as we move for- ward, to rekindle their memory,” Allen says. “The final concept design has the
A. Benjamin Spencer became dean of the William & Mary Law School in July. Photos by Mark Rhodes 109 | JUNE 2019
www.VirginiaBusiness.com
gravitas we sought. It gives dignity and presence to those who were enslaved by William & Mary and whose labor built the university – without romanticizing that painful history,” W&M President Katherine A. Rowe said in a statement
VIRGINIA BUSINESS | 109
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120
