William and Mary Professor Thinks He Found Oldest Black School: A College of William and Mary professor thinks he may have found the nation’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for African-American children.English professor Terry Meyers believes the college — at Benjamin Franklin’s urging — was instrumental in opening the Williamsburg Bray School in 1760 to educate both free and enslaved Blacks.
The find would be remarkable not only for its historical significance, but for its location in the political and ideological epicenter of slavery. The college itself was funded by taxes on tobacco harvested by slaves. The college, its faculty and even some students owned slaves, and slave labor built core campus buildings, maintained the grounds and fed the residents.
