Building a Better Colonial Williamsburg - The New York Times - 0 views
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In the 1770s, more than half of the town’s 1,800 residents were Black, though visitors to the modern-day recreation would not always have known it.
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“Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot,” the rousing orientation film that started running in the visitors center in 1957, included few Black faces. Even into the 1980s, Black employees in the historic area generally worked as (costumed) custodians, coachmen or cooks — seen but little heard.
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A shift began in 1979, when the foundation introduced “first-person” costumed interpreters portraying ordinary people, white and Black. In 1984, it created a dedicated African American history unit, led by Rex Ellis, who in 2001 became the foundation’s first Black vice president.
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