BIOGRAPHY
On February 2, 1920, Albert Wadsworth Durant was born to Samuel and Bessie Durant in New York City. He spent his early childhood in the bustling metropolitan environment, where his mother worked as a domestic servant. Upon the death of his father when he was age nine, Albert moved with his mother and siblings back to her hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.[1] Albert attended James City County Training School, a segregated school for Williamsburg’s African American residents located at the corner of Botetourt and Nicholson Streets. An accomplished athlete, Albert played on the school’s basketball team. He also discovered his love of photography and began taking pictures of classmates, faculty, and family members as they engaged in daily activities. Photographs from a scrapbook he assembled to commemorate his high school years offer a glimpse into the life of a typical African American teenager in late 1930s Williamsburg.
While it is not known how he received his training as a photographer, community residents speculate that it may have been via classes he audited at the College of William & Mary, where he frequently sat in to further his knowledge. As an adult, Albert Durant ran a chauffeuring and limousine service as his principal source of income. He became well known as a sought-after guide to the historic sites of the area for distinguished visitors to the city. Famous individuals he chauffeured included Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother of the United Kingdom, Prince Akihito of Japan, and various United States government officials. Durant soon found that he could at times combine his photography skills with his chauffeuring by offering to take a portrait of his clients at a historic site. He also began frequenting many African American events to offer his services as a photographer. Eventually, he became the first licensed African American photographer in the Williamsburg area.[2]
Albert Durant also achieved several other “firsts” as an African American in his community. He took a keen interest in civic affairs and became involved with helping to defend equal property rights for African Americans in Williamsburg. A regular attendee at City Council meetings, Durant served as a spokesperson for many of his neighbors. His civic activism led to his eventual appointments as Justice of the Peace, Bail Commissioner, and Magistrate of the General District Court in Williamsburg. Durant was the first African American in each of these offices.[3]
In his various roles, Albert Durant received accolades and encouragement to explore his interests and career goals. Many of the high-ranking officials he chauffeured around Williamsburg praised him for going out of his way to be courteous and friendly, and in turn, they served as sources of career advice. A small group of personal papers within the Albert Durant Photography Collection illustrate his desire for self-improvement as a result of his contact with his clients. Durant’s efforts to further his development as a legal advocate for the community are evident in a letter he received from the U.S. Attorney General addressing his questions on how to become a United States Commissioner.[4] Although he never reached this particular goal, Durant took many opportunities to make his voice heard, whether by writing to President Johnson about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, gathering information to support the protection of individual property rights, or attending civic meetings.[5]
At age 36, Durant married Elsie Lucille Ferguson on August 18, 1956. They raised three sons, Albert W. Durant, Jr., Byron Murphy, and Roderick Ferguson, and two daughters, Yvette Durant and Deanna Ferguson. Albert Durant died at age 71 on April 14, 1991.[6]
[1] “In Loving Memory of Mr. Albert Wadsworth Durant, Sr.” (Newport News, Va.: Carter Funeral Home, Inc., April 18, 1991).
[2] Obituary of Albert Durant, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.), April 17, 1991, final edition.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Nicholas Katzenbuch, U.S. Attorney General, Washington, D.C., to Albert Durant, July 27, 1965, Albert Durant Photography Collection, AV1992.1, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Va.
[5] Paul M. Popple, Assistant to the President of the United States, to Albert Durant, August 19, 1965, Albert Durant Photography Collection, AV1992.1, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Va.
[6] “In Loving Memory of Mr. Albert Wadsworth Durant, Sr.” (Newport News, Va.: Carter Funeral Home, Inc., April 18, 1991), 3.
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Churches offered African Americans in Williamsburg a sense of community, stability, and support in the midst of some of the hardships of living in an era of segregation. [1] Albert Durant’s photographs capture the membership, leadership, religious rituals, musical expression, and social and civic activities of local African American congregations. Furthermore, Durant documented churches that survived relocation in the twentieth century. While the buildings provide a sense of physical location, the scenes of baptisms, pageants, musicians, and community engagement bring these historical congregations to life.
Durant recorded many different church rituals with his camera. In the first photo on this page, a congregation prepares for communion at Little Zion Baptist Church in Grove, Virginia, and sits solemnly, waiting for the minister to uncover the sacraments. Grove, a community located to the east of Williamsburg on U.S. Route 60, grew in size and importance after the federal government displaced York County residents in two separate episodes: first, in 1918, to establish a navy mine depot (now the Naval Weapons Station Yorktown), and then in 1942, to create Camp Peary, a Navy Seabee training base in World War II (currently a military intelligence training center.) When Little Zion Baptist Church moved in 1918 from the vicinity of Yorktown to Grove, it offered a haven for displaced families and helped strengthen their faith to meet the changes and challenges they faced.[2]
In another photo by Durant, a minister proclaims a benediction over participants in an unidentified church. The church interior appears somewhat unfinished, and a ladder propped against the wall indicates that possible construction or renovation work was in progress at the time the photo was taken. Many smaller African American churches met in modest settings yet still managed to have a dynamic impact upon their congregations. According to local historian Rex Ellis, “The black church has historically been the organizer, leader, conscience, and representative of the community.”[3]
Durant’s camera witnessed baptism via full immersion, an important symbolic moment. The Durant collection encompasses numerous scenes of young men and women dressed in white robes and headdresses gathered by rivers for the sacrament of baptism. Members of the congregation stand alongside them as witnesses and spiritual supporters. Some of Durant’s photos also capture the life-changing moment of a baptismal candidate being lowered or raised from the water by a minister or deacon. Due to the private nature of these experiences, the photos of baptismal immersion are not shared online. However, they are available to view in person at the Rockefeller Library and offer a powerful testimony of each individual’s step towards developing a strong faith.
When Durant took this photo of First Baptist Church members witnessing baptismal ceremonies from the edge of a river, the church building itself may still have been situated in its late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century location (in what is now Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area). First Baptist Church has a long and distinguished history. The congregation originated in the late eighteenth century when a group of African Americans who had worshipped near Green Spring Plantation formally organized into a Baptist church under the guidance of Reverend Gowan Pamphlet. In 1856, the African Baptist Church moved from its early nineteenth-century location in Williamsburg into a brick sanctuary on Nassau Street between Duke of Gloucester and Francis streets. This structure housed the group until 1956, when the church, now known as First Baptist Church, relocated to its present site on Scotland Street to accommodate Colonial Williamsburg’s plans to expand the museum’s boundaries.[4]
First Baptist Church’s new location on Scotland Street was in the heart of an African American residential and business area, of which the Prince George Triangle Building was also a part (see Local Businesses section). Durant’s mother, Mrs. Bessie Durant, lived with Durant down Scotland Street near Braxton Court, a housing development created by an African American builder. She appears in a photo displayed here of the Senior Missionary Society at First Baptist Church. This group, shown with their president, Mrs. Edna Whiting, had the distinction of including some of the oldest members of the congregation.[5]
Women’s missionary circles played a significant role in Williamsburg’s African American community. They addressed local, national, and international needs for food, clothing, medical care, and spiritual support. At their meetings, they planned fundraisers for various causes, sought ways to provide direct benevolent aid to church members, and organized church social events to encourage fellowship.
African American churches viewed their role as one that moved beyond helping worshippers to experience God’s presence and find spiritual healing. Churches sought to educate their members about government, including voting and public officeholding.[6] Church leaders' encouragement of family values gave them a broad sphere of influence in the community, too. Whether or not individuals had strong religious beliefs, they did appreciate the financial and emotional support that congregations offered. Baby contests provided mothers with an opportunity to raise money for their church’s benevolence fund and missionary projects. Young mothers signed up their babies and then competed to see who could raise the most money through bake sales, yard sales, and other activities. Whichever mother collected the most money had the honor of seeing her child named the winner of the baby contest. St. John Baptist Church in Williamsburg held such competitions regularly and asked Durant to document the participating mothers and babies in this group photo taken in 1948.
In the last photo on this page, Durant captured the pageantry of an Easter drama in the sanctuary of Mount Ararat Baptist Church in the 1950s. Girls assembled in a formation portray angels while a choir and an organist watch from above. The beautifully appointed worship space—with carved wood accents, a choir loft, and organ—contrasts with the more humble gathering depicted in the photos of Little Zion Baptist Church and the unidentified church shown above.
Like First Baptist Church, Mount Ararat Baptist Church has historically been a spiritual home for residents in the vicinity of what is now Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. Founded in 1882, the original wood frame church stood on the south side of Francis Street across from Wetherburn’s Tavern. The congregation agreed to relocate to accommodate Colonial Williamsburg’s plans to restore the colonial town, and, in 1932, Mount Ararat moved to a new site on Franklin Street directly behind James City County Training School.[7] (See Recreation and Education sections.) Members of the church still gather to worship today amidst a cluster of administrative and maintenance buildings for Colonial Williamsburg.
The range of spiritual venues and experiences captured by Durant’s photos attests to the enduring role that the church played in the lives of Williamsburg’s African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s. As one historian has noted, “in the black religious community ‘fellowship’ is a verb,”[8] and this is fully evident in Durant’s photos, which document a variety of fellowship activities ranging from solemn baptisms to joyful pageants. In their church activities, African Americans are coming together to accomplish important things for their immediate families, communities, and the broader missionary field.
[1]Linda Rowe, “African Americans in Williamsburg,” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, ed. Robert P. MacCubbin (Williamsburg, Va.: City of Williamsburg, 2000), 127.
[2] Will Molineaux, “A Busy and Purposeful Place,” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, ed. Robert P. MacCubbin (Williamsburg, Va.: City of Williamsburg, 2000), 194; Bradley M. McDonald, Kenneth E. Stuck, and Kathleen J. Bragdon, “Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are: An Ethnohistorical Study of the African-American Community on the Lands of the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station, 1865-1918,” William and Mary Center for Archaeological Research (Williamsburg, Va., 1992), 39.
[3] Rex M. Ellis, “The African American Community,” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, ed. Robert P. MacCubbin (Williamsburg, Va.: City of Williamsburg, 2000), 241.
[4] John Turner, “Three Hundred Years of Faith,” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, edited by Robert P. MacCubbin (Williamsburg, Va.: City of Williamsburg, 2000), 110, 112, 113; First Baptist Church, “A Resume of Our History from 1776 to the Present,” Souvenir Program: Dedication Services and 180th Anniversary of First Baptist Church, Williamsburg, Virginia (Williamsburg, Va: First Baptist Church, 1956), 3; Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, “Gowan Pamphlet,” accessed 3 June 2014, http://www.history.org/almanack/people/bios/biopam.cfm
[5]Hill’s Williamsburg (James City County, Virginia) City Directory, 1957 (Richmond, Va.: Hill Directory Company, Inc., 1957), 143.
[6]First Baptist Church, “A Resume of Our History from 1776 to the Present,” 4.
[7]Turner, “Three Hundred Years of Faith,” 116.
[8]Ellis, “The African American Community,” 237.
EDUCATION
A significant segment of the Durant Collection captures the educational experience of African Americans in the Williamsburg area between the late 1930s and the 1950s. Two major segregated school facilities, James City County Training School and Bruton Heights School, are well documented in images of classrooms showing students and faculty; snapshots taken during sporting events, performances, and student social events; and graduation photos.
Between 1924 and 1940, James City County Training School educated students from first to eleventh grade in what was once a thriving African American neighborhood at the corner of North Botetourt and East Nicholson Streets. Attracted by the job opportunities that the restoration of the Historic Area created, African Americans lived in the area where Mount Ararat Baptist Church and the administrative offices of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation on Franklin Street now stand. James City County Training School’s high school offered vocational training and teacher training, and students traveled considerable distances to attend classes.
Bruton Heights School, funded in part by the Rockefeller family, provided a new and improved facility for African American education just outside of Colonial Williamsburg’s restored Historic Area. Opened in 1940, Bruton Heights was intended to be more than a replacement for James City County Training School. In addition to providing expanded classroom space and academic subjects taught at the college preparatory level in high school, Bruton Heights was a community center, too, with adult education classes, a health clinic, a movie theater, and a library. During World War II, the school doubled as a USO welcoming black servicemen. Bruton Heights was racially integrated in 1968 and closed in the 1980s.
Between the 1930s and 1950s, when Durant took the photos displayed in this exhibit, Virginia public schools followed the policy of “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites, as was allowed by the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. Public schools for blacks were not as well funded, though, as public schools for whites. African American families did a great deal, including paying for supplies, to promote their children’s education and improve their learning environment. Both James City County Training School and Bruton Heights School are testaments to their efforts.
Sources
Rawls Byrd, History of Public Schools in Williamsburg (Williamsburg, Va.: privately printed, 1968).
Philip D. Morgan, Black Education in Williamsburg-James City County, 1619–1984 (The Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools and Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 1985).
Will Molineux, “The White City,” in Colonial Williamsburg (Williamsburg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Summer 2014).
Linda H. Rowe, “African Americans in Williamsburg, 1865–1945,” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, ed. Robert P. Maccubbin (Williamsburg, Va.: City of Williamsburg, Va., 2000), 121–35.
Linda H. Rowe, “A History of Black Education and Bruton Heights School, Williamsburg, Virginia.” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Research Report Series, No. 373. Williamsburg, Va., 2000.
LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS
Participation in local organizations, ranging from hunt clubs to the NAACP, added meaning and purpose to the lives of Williamsburg’s African American residents. The organizations provided a much needed social outlet in a small town with a lack of facilities for leisure activities. Clubs and associations also bonded groups of individuals together to fundraise for various important causes or to build skills and strength of character. Many rendered valuable benevolent acts to members of the community in need.
Organizations with an outdoor focus gave African American men and boys a chance to sharpen their camping, hunting, and survival skills and to build camaraderie. Among the several hunt clubs that existed in the Williamsburg area, the Buckeye Club brought African American men together to hone their tactics in hunting for fowl and venison. Young men also had an outlet for outdoor adventure. Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, emphasized a non-discriminatory creed but separate, segregated African American troops emerged in the South. Local African American churches sponsored troops that provided opportunities for camping, community service, and leadership development.[1]
For African American women, Williamsburg area women’s circles and clubs offered an avenue for influencing their community beyond the home. Church missionary groups addressed local, national, and international needs for food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. The Just Us Club, one of the oldest continuous clubs for African American women in the United States, focused upon civics and participation in community issues. The Williamsburg branch consisted of members from York and James City Counties, with a large percentage coming from Grove. Professional organizations, such as the local Beautician’s Association, brought together women with similar trade skills to learn new techniques, advocate for their businesses, and encourage young people in training.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, provided local residents with an opportunity to advance civil rights concerns. Both men and women in the community attended meetings held at churches and other venues.
[1]Roger Chesley, “The ‘other’ Boy Scout milestone that deserves affirmation,” Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.), 11 August 2010, accessed 21 April 2014, http://hamptonroads.com/2010/08/other-boy-scout-milestone-deserves-affirmation.
LOCAL BUSINESSES
In the mid-twentieth century, African Americans operated a wide range of businesses in Williamsburg, including groceries, restaurants, night clubs, medical clinics, barber and beauty shops, dry cleaning establishments, and mortuaries.
During the age of “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites, African American visitors to Colonial Williamsburg found it very difficult to locate places to eat and socialize.[1] Establishments such as the Wallace and Cook’s Hillside Café and Beer Garden, located off of Nicholson Street on the former Raleigh Lane, provided a venue for both local African American residents and African American tourists to gather for meals and night life. Operating as a lunch counter during the day, the restaurant converted into a tavern in the evening.
The Triangle Block, a group of buildings housing a number of African American businesses, was bounded by Scotland Street, Prince George Street, and Armistead Street. Durant photographed the interiors of Clarence Webb’s grocery store and Charles Gary’s West End Valet Dry Cleaning Shop. According to local resident Fred Frechette, Mr. Gary “won all the valet business from both the Inn and Lodge. At the height of his success, he had ten employees and built himself a beautiful home in James City County.”[2]
Bruton Heights School served a dual purpose as an educational and community center for local African Americans (see Education section). A medical clinic inside its doors provided much needed dental services. Local dentist Dr. Frederick Peagler offered care to patients who visited the Bruton Heights facility.
Beauty shops in the Williamsburg area gave African American women an opportunity to further their entrepreneurial spirit. Bertie’s Beauty Salon and School in Lightfoot, Virginia, owned by Bertie Herndon, supplied a wide range of hair styling services and products and trained beauticians. Ms. Herndon also held meetings of the local Beautician’s Association at her salon (see Local Organizations section).
The era of segregation forced Williamsburg’s African American community to develop an array of businesses to meet their social, health, and hygiene needs. Enterprising residents rose to the challenge and became respected for their important contributions to various professions in the area.
[1]Rex M. Ellis, “The African-American Community in Williamsburg (1947-1998),” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, 1699-1999, ed. Robert P. Maccubbin (Williamsburg, Virginia: City of Williamsburg, 2000), 236, 238-39.
[2] Fred Frechette, Williamsburg: My Town (Richmond, Va.: Dietz Press, 2006), 61.
ENTERTAINMENT
The Albert Durant Photography Collection provides a fascinating glimpse into African American social life in the Williamsburg, Virginia, area during the 1940s and 1950s. A number of segregated nightclubs existed where African Americans could gather to socialize, dance, and listen to musicians, singers, and comedians. Many African Americans, including Albert Durant, traveled to other cities to hear major jazz performers. According to Durant’s wife, Elsie, “He was a great fan of jazz and blues. He would even go to New York to meet people in the bands and take pictures of them.”[1] African Americans who loved music also organized regional productions to showcase local talent. Albert Durant carried his camera to many of these events and captured the excitement as audiences laughed at silly floor routines, swayed to jazz music, or cheered for R&B singers.
By participating in men’s singing groups, African American men with vocal skills could earn extra money and pursue a musical hobby on the side. Quartets and quintets strolled about the nightclubs to engage audiences and provide intermissions between larger acts. A number of Durant’s photos show such men’s vocal groups serenading tables of customers.
Comedians also appeared on the playbills for local nightclubs. Several of Durant's photos document a comedy team, Lassie & Lou (or possibly Lassus & Lou, as noted in variant identifications). The male and female pair provided comic relief between acts by jazz musicians and singers.
Ruth Brown, a native of Portsmouth, Virginia, launched her career as an R&B singer by performing in various nightclubs in the Hampton Roads area. In the mid-1940s, she started appearing secretly in taverns and theaters on the peninsula to avoid being caught by her father, who disapproved of her aspirations to be an entertainer. The Jefferson Theater, located on 25th Street in Newport News, regularly hosted talent contests and Brown frequently won them. With contributions from loyal fans, she made her first trip to New York and won first prize in the Apollo Theater's amateur night contest.[2] Exposure to larger entertainment venues in New York and Washington, D.C., enabled Brown to launch a career as a recording artist, and she eventually became a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her hit song, "Teardrops from My Eyes," featured on her first album recorded with Atlantic Records in 1950, reigned at number one for eleven weeks.
Yorkie’s Tavern, operated by proprietor Chauncey Batchelor and located in Lightfoot, Virginia, drew large crowds of African Americans on the weekends. Offering traditional restaurant fare such as barbecue, steaks, and hamburgers, the tavern transformed into a nightclub with floor shows on Saturdays and Sundays. Albert Durant circulated through the room before performances to take group photos, which he later sold in keepsake souvenir envelopes. He capitalized on the trend in the 1940s and 1950s to offer special memories for club patrons via souvenir photos. Other local hot spots, such as the Starlight Room at the Monticello Hotel in Norfolk, Virginia, also featured photographers who walked the perimeter of the room taking images of couples or groups.
The venues frequented by Albert Durant’s camera reflect the places popular with local African American residents, including military servicemen (as shown in the photo of the comedy team). Music, dance, and comedy, as well as a night on the town at a popular floor show, played a significant role in bringing the community together. Those who toiled as laborers during the week could shed their work identities to become vibrant entertainers. The release offered by an entertaining evening gave African Americans a sense of renewal and pride.
[1]Jonathan Goldstein, “A New View of the Past: Photo Exhibit Shows Strength of Black Community,” Daily Press (Newport News, Va.), 29 September 1993.
[2] Sam MacDonald, “Ruth Brown Can’t Forget Her Local Roots,” Daily Press (Newport News, Va.), 17 March 1996.
RECREATION
During the era of segregation, African Americans created their own recreational facilities where they could relax and unwind without a cloud of prejudice hanging over them. In the Williamsburg area, this encompassed school grounds and buildings, church social halls, outdoor parks near African American neighborhoods, and African American-owned restaurants and nightclubs.
At school playgrounds and gyms, students and adults could practice softball, baseball, football, and basketball. Durant’s photos capture a wide variety of school sporting events, ranging from the Bruton Heights football players during Homecoming games to group shots of girls’ basketball teams and cheerleading squads. Two photos featured in this section show boys and girls playing baseball and softball in Potts Field adjacent to James City County Training School in the late 1930s. Both photos are interesting not only for their observance of students at play, but also for their recording of the African American neighborhood that used to stretch from the corner of Nicholson and Botetourt streets north towards the railroad tracks (see Education section). James City County Training School, Union Baptist Church, Mount Ararat Baptist Church, and a residential area are all visible in the backgrounds of the images.
Temporary amusement parks offered another recreational outlet for African Americans in the Williamsburg area. Local organizations, such as the Jaycees, held annual fairs or “jamborees” that families could attend. Several of Durant’s photos show children enjoying amusement park rides at such an event. While the exact location of the jamborees is not known, Williamsburg residents recall a recreational area adjacent to the Gospel Spreading Church Farm, located near Jamestown along the Colonial Parkway.[1]
Log Cabin Beach, once located on the James River at the end of what is today known as Ron Springs Road in Grove, served as a segregated swimming beach and recreational area for African Americans in the Williamsburg area. A pleasant beach area with picnic tables and shade trees offered a place to swim, picnic, and socialize during the summer months. Albert Durant regularly took souvenir photos of family members as mementoes of their visit, and these capture the light-hearted moments spent lazing away an afternoon along the James River.
The “cabin” part of the facility, a large social hall built to resemble a log cabin, managed by Cornelius Palmer, gradually became a destination for performers on the Chitlin Circuit. Many well-known musicians, including Fats Domino, Ruth Brown, and Little Richard, gave concerts at Log Cabin Beach during the 1950s and attracted residents from many surrounding communities. Local African American community and church groups also made use of the cabin for dinners and meetings, as documented in some of Durant’s photos of the fellowship hall.
[1]In 1936 and 1943, radio and TV evangelist Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux purchased land on the James River where he established the James City County Bible and Agriculture Training School Farm (known as Gospel Spreading Church Farm) and a park as part of the National Memorial to the Progress of the Colored Race in America (John Turner, “Three Hundred Years of Faith,” in Williamsburg, Virginia: A City Before the State, ed. Robert P. Maccubbin [Williamsburg, Va,: City of Williamsburg, 2000], 117-18; M. O. Smith, “The Gospel Farm on the Parkway,” Williamsburg Reunion 2008: 1968 and Before [privately printed by the Williamsburg Reunion Committee (2008)], [8-9]; The Church of God at Williamsburg, “The Acts of Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux,” accessed 5 May 2014, http://www.thechurchofgodatwilliamsburg.org/eldermichaux).
PHOTO IDENTIFICATION PROJECT
Since its acquisition in 1992, the Rockefeller Library has worked in coordination with the local community to identify and catalog the Albert Durant Photography Collection and to feature the photos in exhibits, special events and publications to enrich understanding of local African American history. An early outreach effort involved collaboration with the staff of Williamsburg Regional Library to mount an exhibition of Durant’s photographs and solicit input from residents to provide missing places, names, and dates. Oral history community nights and a “Do You Remember?” byline in the Virginia Gazette led to many more identifications of key individuals, such as R&B singer Ruth Brown in the formative years of her career. More recently, the “Let Freedom Ring” event, held in 2016 at First Baptist Church, provided an opportunity for the Rockefeller Library to help celebrate African American History Month by mounting an exhibition of Durant’s photos in its own exhibit space. A Wall of Remembrance allowed exhibit guests to sit down and examine copies of unidentified photos in notebooks and add any information they could. Over the course of the year, the library obtained over sixty new identifications for photos.
Despite these efforts, Library staff felt that they could do more to give voice to the people depicted by harnessing the power of community memory to identify the individuals, places, and events portrayed in these photos. Staff members are eager to meet with interested community members to examine unidentified photos and to gather further identifications. Sessions are held on a regular basis in a classroom at Bruton Heights School Education Center and individuals may also schedule an appointment to view the photographs in the Special Collections Reading Room at the Rockefeller Library. If you would like to participate, please email us at rocklibrary@cwf.org. We would love to hear your memories and record your recollections of individuals, places, and events pictured in the photos.
To view additional images from the Albert Durant Photography Collection online, please follow this link: https://rocklib.omeka.net/items/browse?collection=9