Colonial Williamsburg to hold public dedication service for oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children in the U.S. [Video]

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — An historic school building is being prepared to be open to the public again. 

Friday, Colonial Williamsburg and members of the descendant community will hold a public dedication ceremony for the Williamsburg Bray School. It’s the oldest known surviving structure in the U.S. where free and enslaved Black children received a formal education. 

The ceremony comes exactly 250 years after the school closed its doors in 1774. 

Years later, the building became part of William & Mary’s campus, until scientists determined it was the old schoolhouse in 2020 by studying the wood on the structure. 

“That building says that we were here,” said Janice Canaday, of Williamsburg. 

Inside those walls, as many as 400 students, ages 3 to 10, received a formal education between 1760 and 1774. Among the children were Canaday’s …