Truth & Reconciliation Committee Report

2023

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMITTEE REPORT

Uncovering and acknowledging the truth about the City of Williamsburg’s racial history

MISSION

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee was established through Williamsburg City Council Resolution #21-05 on July 8, 2021. On Oct. 7, 2021, the Committee adopted a mission statement that provides the framework for its initial work:

The initial mission of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee includes but is not limited to:

a. uncovering and acknowledging the truth about the City of Williamsburg’s racial history by understanding, assessing and dissecting the pervasive role that slavery, racial injustices, systemic racism and racial biases have played in defining our community today, and

b. critically examining the ways, the statutes, policies, and practices of the City of Williamsburg have disadvantaged and disenfranchised its citizens of African ancestry; and

c. offering remedies to make amends that will foster racial healing, equity and reconciliation.

ON THE COVER

Bruton Heights School served Black students in the Williamsburg area from 1940 until desegregation in 1968. The school closed in the 1980s. During segregation, Bruton Heights also served as a community center, movie theater, library, clinic, and, during World War II, a USO for Black members of the military.

MEET THE COMMITTEE

Members of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee:

Benming “Benny” Zhang; Lawrence A. Gholson II; Katherine Barko-Alva; Laura D. Hill; Helen E. Casey-Rutland; Adam Canaday, vice chair; Robert A. Braxton, chair

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee includes:

Five Williamsburg City residents and two residents of James City County.

A lawyer, a pastor, a business entrepreneur, an educator, an engineer, a musician and interpreter, a writer and organizer.

Three descendants whose family lines reach more than 150 years into Williamsburg’s past.

One participant who can claim African, European, and local Indigenous ancestry.

Two community leaders who moved here from other areas in Maryland and Virginia.

A first-generation and a second-generation immigrant to the United States who have built professional lives in the Williamsburg area.

Leaders and members of multiple local organizations working for social and racial healing and justice, including many of those listed on pages 16 and 17.

A 50-year age span.

Two past members of City Council, a member of the Board of the Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Friends of the Williamsburg Regional Library Foundation Board, and two military veterans.

Four former students or parents/grandparents of students in the Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools.

HOW WE GOT HERE

In 1699 Williamsburg became the colonial capital of Virginia. The Virginia Colony was transitioning from a labor system that relied on indentured servants to one dependent upon race-based slavery. The forced labor of people of African ancestry and their descendants became the economic backbone of Virginia.

After more than 200 years and a brutal civil war, nearly 4 million enslaved African Americans were freed from the grip of slavery. However, race-based laws, practices and policies perpetuated systemic injustices and frequently prevented newly freed African Americans and their descendants from exercising their Constitutional rights under the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, including the right to vote and to enjoy equal protection under the law.

This report acknowledges that Williamsburg has participated in this history, and that racism has disadvantaged — and continues to disadvantage — people of African ancestry. It offers five recommendations, along with corresponding reparative actions, appropriate agencies, and desired outcomes.

We have taken a Restorative Justice¹ approach which calls on the City to:

• identify and acknowledge the harm and the City’s direct or indirect complicity in perpetrating harm;

• listen to and heed the voices of those harmed and affected and promote their leadership when crafting reparative remedies;

• implement reparative acts to right the wrongs and to help heal the racial divide.

During interviews with diverse community members aged 19 to 92, including men and women, members of the Descendant community² and others, we heard stories of repeated displacement of African American communities resulting in destruction of Black-owned businesses, communities, and multi-generational wealth. Residents described how segregation, microaggressions, and disparities in educational opportunities and disciplinary practices entrenched white supremacist attitudes and continue to cause harm.

Community members lamented the lack of affordable housing, underrepresentation of African Americans in leadership positions, barriers to accessing health care and community resources, and the pain of their experiences being erased from history. Here in the birthplace of world-changing ideas of freedom and democracy, the history of the people who once made up over 50% of the town’s population has too often been invisible and their descendants’ stories unvalued.

The Committee’s recommendations come directly from our research and interviews. Our goal is to help Williamsburg heal and work well for all of its residents. Just as reliving painful parts of history was difficult for community members, acknowledging Williamsburg’s racial history is not easy. But truth-telling is the necessary soil for seeds of healing and reconciliation to take root and blossom.

¹To learn more about principles of racial restorative justice, see The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice by Fania E. Davis, (Good Books) 2019.

²Descendant community: Individuals whose ancestors were enslaved or free African Americans in the Williamsburg area.

Truth can hurt. Truth can be complicated. But, truth-telling is essential to healing.

RECOMMENDATION 1

BUILD A 21st-CENTURY TRIANGLE

In keeping with the One Williamsburg vision, establish the Triangle Area as the vibrant epicenter for thriving Black tourism, community, culture, and economy.

ACTIONS

• Intentionally cultivate, foster, and promote Black business and industry in the Triangle Area.

• Establish permanent historical interpretation of local Black history, including the African American Heritage Trail, for tourists, students, and the community.

• Identify a private developer to construct a local Black history-themed boutique hotel.

• Include mixed-use business/housing both reminiscent of the Triangle history of the African American community (local cleaners, barber shop, restaurant, convenience store, etc.) and supportive of the vibrant and growing 21st-century Black business community.

• Invest in the development of a re-created and reflective Triangle community, highlighting its strong and resounding determination and resilience.

• Ensure the enduring presence of affordable housing for year-round residents, at all income levels, with preference for the descendant community of the Triangle Area.

• Recruit and contract with underrepresented/historically excluded contractors, architects, engineers, artists, historians, landscapers, artisans for these initiatives.

• Organize, publicize, and provide workshops for underrepresented community on how to bid on city contracts two to four times per year at times and places most likely to reach the target group.

• Intentionally collaborate with the descendant community in planning and decisionmaking throughout this process, and incorporate descendant community concerns and initiatives within the Triangle vision.

• Re-examine the names of local streets, sites, and buildings to ensure they reflect local Triangle history.

• Establish a Cultural Arts Center that is a dedicated space in the City of Williamsburg that serves as a welcoming community space for meetings, art exhibits, archives, and research about African Americans.

• Consider grants, subsidies, and tax incentives to ensure that Black-owned businesses are able to become established along the African American Heritage Trail and in the greater Triangle Area.

• Commission a study focused on Triangle Area and other historically Black communities to analyze historical and current data and to recommend ways for descendant and other historically excluded communities to access affordable housing options within Williamsburg.

• Provide tax-advantaged opportunities for civic and community-minded citizens to invest in development of the greater Triangle area as a vibrant center of Black tourism, community, housing, culture, and economy.

• City of Williamsburg, including law enforcement and the Citizen’s Advisory Committee

• Descendant community

• Economic Development Authority

• Community organizations/Leaders

o Let Freedom Ring Foundation

o Village: The Initiative for Equity in Education

o Coming to the Table: Historic Triangle

o Inner Peace Coalition

o Faith Walkers

o York, James City, Williamsburg

NAACP

• Black-owned businesses and business community

• Chamber of Commerce (tourism, business support and connections, LEAD)

AGENCIES OUTCOMES

This restaurant and other Black-owned businesses and residences thrived in and around the Triangle block from its development as “West Williamsburg” by African American business leader Samuel Harris (1851-1904) until the last of the businesses were displaced by “urban renewal” in the 1970s.

• Re-emergence of the Triangle Area as the epicenter for thriving Black tourism, community, culture, and economy.

• City provides regular timelines and updates on progress.

• Establishment of the greater Triangle Area as an inviting and welcoming reflection of a valuable and integral contribution to the WIlliamsburg tapestry.

• Increased public engagement and awareness in local history, particularly Black history.

SPEAK THE TRUTH. DO THE WORK.

Establish and provide support for a non-partisan Truth and Reconciliation Standing Committee / Work Group dedicated to addressing issues negatively affecting the Black community historically and today.

ACTIONS

Committee / Work Group

• Ensure that the Committee reflects the diversity of the community, including representatives from all socioeconomic groups, the Descendant community, and participants in the public and private sectors.

• Task the Committee with researching, critically examining, and recommending action steps to continue the work of the initial Truth & Reconciliation Committee. Gather continuous feedback and research about historical and current issues affecting historically marginalized citizens and communities.

• Equip this Committee by strengthening the City’s connections with Colonial Williamsburg and William & Mary and other community organizations to further the vision of One Williamsburg.

Areas of Focus

• Regularly re-evaluate and improve City governance, protocols, processes, practices, publicity, and their impacts to ensure consistency with the goal of racial justice, healing, and reconciliation.

• Partner with community organizations and the African American community to lift up and honor the voices, stories, history, culture, and truths of Black and Brown residents.

• Continuously provide opportunities for residents and visitors to learn about the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, physical and social displacement, economic inequities, educational disparities, and continuous subtle and overt forms of discrimination, which have benefited the White community at the expense of the Black community.

• Recommend remedies to the harms caused by systemic racism in Williamsburg.

• In cooperation with other local organizations, hold regular events: - to acknowledge truth and lament harms of injustices, - to publicize and emphasize the importance of racial justice and healing, - to continuously gather feedback and information, - to highlight the City’s efforts to effect racial justice, and - to strengthen the community to reflect the vision of One Williamsburg.

AGENCIES

• City of Williamsburg

• Community Organizations

o Local churches

o York, James City, Williamsburg

NAACP

o Hundley History Committee

o The Lemon Project

o Descendant community

o Greater Williamsburg

Trauma-Informed Community Network

o Coming to the Table: Historic Triangle

o Williamsburg-James City County Coalition for Community Justice

• Representatives of Colonial Williamsburg and William & Mary

• Community Members

OUTCOMES

• At least five years of ongoing review, continuous research, and public semi-annual reports that measure trends.

• Increased dedication in the White and Black communities to healing the harms of racial injustice and furthering the work of Truth and Reconciliation.

• Measurable progress toward a community that assures robust living environments, access to resources, and workforce and ecosystem diversity where people of all ages, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds can live, healthy and fulfilled lives, with opportunities to grow and flourish now and in the future – a community reflective of the One WIlliamsburg vision.

Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved at William & Mary. (William & Mary)

FOSTER A WELCOMING COMMUNITY

Foster a welcoming culture within the City workforce and leadership that fully values the knowledge, skills, abilities, and perspectives of the Black community.

ACTIONS

• Establish and implement robust search, recruiting, and hiring practices within the City of Williamsburg’s Human Resource framework to ensure the City is actively seeking African American employees.

• Nurture a pipeline/network of diverse candidates.

• Leverage specialized job searches/boards.

• Re-evaluate current interview practices to assure the absence of biased questions, processes, and environments.

• Maximize and develop talent in the recruiting system, internal and external.

• Facilitate a system to assure inclusive and belonging onboarding practices as well as an inclusive and belonging culture and environment.

• Capture and study analytics to measure efforts and outcomes.

• Use research-supported best practices to recruit, cultivate, hire, promote, and attend to the perspectives of Black employees.

• Use restorative justice practices to address racial harms that occur within the City workforce.

• Establish teams (vertical, different departments, cross-silos) to work on implementing the City’s vision as well as the City’s Goals, Initiatives, and Outcomes.

• Provide continuous training to all new and existing employees in Cultural Inclusion and Competencies.

• Establish an accountability apparatus to ensure the City fulfills its commitment to ongoing engagement, conversation, sharing of information, relationship-building, and restorative justice.

AGENCIES

• Human Resources Department of the City of Williamsburg

• All elected, non-elected City leaders or appointees

• All City employees

• Outside consultant to facilitate restructuring based on best practices for effective internal systems

• York, James City, Williamsburg NAACP

• Greater Williamsburg TraumaInformed Community Network

• Juneteenth Community Consortium

• Publicity/Public Relations personnel

• William & Mary Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Belonging

• Director of Marketing Colonial Williamsburg

• Virginia Workforce Development Center

• Williamsburg Small Business Development Center

• Chamber of Commerce

OUTCOMES

• A continuous process of review and improvement, including regular reports on steps taken and success rates and trends in hiring, retention, and promotion of African Americans.

• At least five years of ongoing review, continuous research, and public quarterly reports measuring trends.

• A City that models the robust workforce and ecosystem diversity reflective of the One WIlliamsburg vision.

The City of Williamsburg hosted African American Heritage Trail Community Input Sessions in March 2023. (City of Williamsburg)

CREATE & SUPPORT A HEALTHY COMMUNITY

Collaborate with local mental health professionals and groups to foster and sustain a supportive, thriving, sustainable climate of mental and social health.

ACTIONS

• Assess and partner with schools and other local agencies to address social health challenges specific to African American residents.

• Collaborate with focus groups, businesses, and organizations that are currently addressing these often systemic issues to diminish barriers to care that inhibit quality health and wellness among African American residents.

• Research and adopt best practices in dealing with physical, mental, and social community health in light of the harmful legacy of cultural and racial discrimination.

• Establish a process by which the City’s leadership and staff engage in ongoing training and awareness about cultural competency.

• Partner with local mental health professionals to fund therapy groups and/or sessions tailored to address issues of structural racism.

• Partner with local mental health professionals to create community-based programming/events tailored to increase awareness and access to mental health resources.

• Encourage the Williamsburg-James City County School Board to prioritize the availability of mental and social health services and counselors for students.

• Encourage the Williamsburg-James City County School Board to provide regular Cultural Competency Training to all teachers, counselors, administrators, and School Resource Officers.

• Encourage the Williamsburg-James City County School Board to increase teacher and administrator training in mental and social health awareness and traumatic retention especially among Black students.

• Ensure that Williamsburg-based Williamsburg-James City County School Resource Officers receive training in trauma-informed approaches to their work.

• Train all Williamsburg first-responders and encourage the Williamsburg-James City County School Board to equip School Resource Officers, teachers, counselors, and administrators to recognize and deal appropriately with mental and social health issues and the effects of systemic racism on themselves and on persons of all racial, cultural, socioeconomic, and ethnic backgrounds, including White students and families.

• Encourage and support Williamsburg-James City County School Board to pursue a Restorative Justice approach to discipline within all levels of the school system.

• Train all Williamsburg first-responders and encourage the Williamsburg-James City County School Board to train all teachers, administrators, counselors, and resource officers in the Restorative Justice approach.

• Provide mental and social health services in the City jail.

AGENCIES

• Williamsburg Health Foundation

• City Department of Social Services

• Bacon Street and other licensed mental health providers

• School Liaison Committee

• Village: The Initiative for Equity in Education

• Police and Fire Departments

• Williamsburg School Board Members

• New Horizons Family Center (William & Mary School of Education)

• CARE Lab (William & Mary School of Education)

• Greater Williamsburg Trauma-Informed Community Network

• Virginia Racial Healing Institute

• Restorative Justice Center of Virginia

• Colonial Behavioral Health

• Family Matters (FamMat) Services

• Real People Educating Others (RPEO)

• WE BALL Foundation

OUTCOMES

• Creation of a more trauma-informed community where teachers, first-responders, counselors, medical providers, and other leaders and professionals employ a trauma-informed and restorative justice approach in addressing community concerns.

• Improved mental and social health for all residents of Williamsburg.

• School ecology that cultivates and supports cognitive, academic, social-cultural, and linguistic learning and positive interpersonal relationships among all.

• Attractive school system for teachers and for students and families.

• Increased positive engagement with families of students from traditionally marginalized communities.

• Strengthened and sustained positive relations between police officers, firefighters and City residents and visitors.

• Highly trained and highly supported first-responders who demonstrate cultural competency, social and mental health awareness, and trauma-informed response in performing their duties.

• Improved recruitment and retention of first-responders, including police, fire, education professionals

• A climate that recognizes, respects and values all its residents and supports community social and mental health for the benefit of all.

The City of Williamsburg hosted Future Festivals, which gathered the public’s input for the biennial Goals, Initiatives, and Outcomes process in the fall of 2022. (City of Williamsburg)

NAME IT. CLAIM IT. FIX IT.

Repair and remedy harms and take action to foster racial healing and restorative justice, based on the results of an in-depth study to determine the legacy, continuing, and multi-generational effects of racism on local Black, Brown, and White residents.

ACTIONS

Commission an in-depth study focused on race-based discrimination, actions, impacts, and effects in:

• housing,

• education,

• health care,

• business and economic opportunity,

• generational wealth,

• property ownership,

• law enforcement,

• civic leadership and participation,

• community cohesion, persistence and self-determination,

• religious life,

• public safety,

• public image and advertising,

• educational, civic, and tourist narratives,

• public and private depictions and promulgations of the history and story of different racial groups in Williamsburg.

In the study, detail the impacts of both public and private individuals and groups, whether policy or practice, conscious or subconscious, committed or omitted, intentional or the result of uncontested norms or practices.

As a way to acknowledge a history of racial harm and wrongdoing and undertake a sustained process of repair, create a dedicated capital Legacy of Racism fund to address disparity in the effects of racism on Black, Brown, and White residents, recognizing that racism has created significant benefit to some at the expense of others.

AGENCIES

• Williamsburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority

• Descendant community representative(s)

• Williamsburg-James City County School Board representative(s)

• Chamber of Commerce

• Church community

• York, James City, Williamsburg NAACP

• Police and Fire Departments

• Coming to the Table: Historic Triangle

• All Together Williamsburg

• Juneteenth Community Consortium

• Williamsburg Regional Library (Board of Trustees)

• League of Women Voters

• Real People Educating Others

• Williamsburg-James City County Coalition for Community Justice

OUTCOMES

Consideration, awareness, transparent conversations, engagements, and direct actions to:

• Decrease and eliminate race-based discrimination and practices, making real the true and restorative vision of One Williamsburg;

• Establish a monthly series of public seminars and dialogues sponsored by the City that focus on healing from the legacy of slavery and race-based discrimination in Williamsburg.

With the goal of building:

• A Williamsburg where the impact of racism has been named and publicly acknowledged throughout the City’s private and public groups and organizations, existing race-based discrimination and practices have been dismantled, and the multi-generational legacy of slavery and systemic race-based oppression is disrupted and remedied by intentional explicit reparative and healing actions.

Images from Black Lives Matter events in 2020. (Williamsburg Action)

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS

Williamsburg is home to a wealth of groups and coalitions reckoning with the legacy of 400 years of systemic racial injustice and inequity. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee urges the City to engage and collaborate with existing and emerging organizations working toward racial healing. Some of those organizations are listed on this page. This is in no way intended to convey an exhaustive list of community entities, resources, and collaborations. The work of Truth and Reconciliation is ongoing, which embraces and implies a living document and commission. Undoubtedly, new and more innovative constructs, intentions, organizations, and initiatives will develop in support of such a humanitarian mission.

• Descendant Community, Leaders, and Representatives

• Civic Associations and Leaders in Communities impacted by racial harm, including:

o Black Business Leaders and Business Owners

o Carver Gardens

o Grove

o Highland Park

• Community Organizations and Leaders including:

o All Together Williamsburg

o Colonial Williamsburg

o Coming to the Table:

Historic Triangle

o Faith Communities and Religious Organizations

o Faith Walkers

o FamMat (Family Matters) Services

o Friends of the Williamsburg Regional Library Foundation

o Greater Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce

– Tourism

– business support

– connections

– LEAD Greater Williamsburg

o Greater Williamsburg TraumaInformed Community Network

o Hundley History Committee

o Inner Peace Coalition

o Juneteenth Community Consortium

o League of Women Voters

o Let Freedom Ring Foundation

o Real People Educating Others

o Restorative Justice Center of Virginia

o Standing Up For Racial Justice

o The Village Initiative for Equity in Education

o Virginia Racial Healing Institute

o WE BALL Foundation

o Williamsburg Community Foundation

o Williamsburg Health Foundation

o Williamsburg-James City County Coalition for Community Justice

o York-James City-Williamsburg

NAACP

• Health Care Sector, including:

o Bacon Street Youth and Family Services and other licensed mental health providers

o Colonial Behavioral Health

o Riverside Doctors' Hospital Leadership

o Sentara Hospital Executive Leadership

o Williamsburg-James City County school counselors and nurses

• William & Mary, including:

o CARE Lab (School of Education)

o Diversity Equity Inclusion and Belonging

o New Horizons Family Center (School of Education)

o The Lemon Project

• Government Leaders, Employees, and Agencies, including:

o Citizens Advisory Committees

o City Employees

o City Human Resources Department

o Department of Social Services

o Economic Development Authority

o Elected, non-elected, and appointed city leaders

o First-Responders, including Police and Fire Departments

o Law Enforcement

o Outside consultants

o Publicity/Public Relations personnel

o Virginia Workforce Development Center (SBDC) – Williamsburg

o Williamsburg-James City County Schools, School Board Members

o Williamsburg-James City County Schools, School Liaison Committees

o Williamsburg-James City County Schools Teachers, Administrators, Counselors, and other Employees

o Williamsburg Regional Library Board and Representatives

Students, faculty and staff of Bruton Heights School, circa 1950. (Albert W. Durant Photography Collection / John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library)

REFLECTIONS

FROM MEMBERS OF THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMITTEE

I still remember when I received the call to join the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. I had a full plate, but I committed to this work to help Williamsburg live up to its potential of becoming a leader in racial healing, racial equity and racial reconciliation. I am honored to have participated with this fine group of community leaders.

I love these people. I learned something every time we met. Everyone needs to do this work.

I quickly realized after a few meetings this work is more than a committee. It became a charge to respect the lived experiences, advocate and understand our journeys, and create healthy hope, conversations, and bridges to our collective tomorrows ... and this includes the relationships built within the committee itself.

I wish everyone could hear the stories we’ve heard, talk openly about race with people from different backgrounds, and collaborate together to figure out how to make things better – how to heal the hurt and repair the harm, how to undo the pernicious inequities, how to build a genuinely more just and joyful Williamsburg for everyone.

Working tirelessly alongside a diverse group of courageous local leaders to center the narratives of Williamsburg’s Black communities has not only been an honor and privilege, but also a remarkable learning journey.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee is extraordinarily grateful to the people who allowed us to interview them. These community members courageously shared their stories, revisited often painful experiences, and offered a hopeful vision for how Williamsburg can confront the corrosive legacy of racism, remedy harms, and build a better community for all. They were our educators, and our recommendations flow from their lived experiences.

The Committee's recommendations are an initial effort to begin healing the racial divide in our community. The pervasiveness of racial harm and the time constraints of the Committee resulted in a report that is wide-ranging but not comprehensive. Many extremely important concerns remain to be addressed, including law enforcement, the justice system, food and housing insecurity, and the need for a living wage. This report recommends concrete actions as first steps toward racial healing and justice, and it anticipates sustained investment by the City leaders and residents in confronting the legacy of racism.

The Truth and Reconciliation Committee hosted a Black History Celebration in the Triangle area on Scotland Street in February 2022.