WILLIAMSBURG — Despite the Williamsburg-James City County School Board’s tabling of discussions to rename James Blair Middle School, conversations about its namesake continued at a Thursday town hall meeting.
Hosted by The Village Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to equity and justice in the Williamsburg area schools, the forum at the Stryker Center focused on the history of the school’s naming and the value that names hold as a way to further educating the community about Blair. The Scottish minister and founder of William & Mary was also an enslaver who argued for the Anglican church to allow slavery due to the church not allowing Virginia parishes to hold enslaved people.
Following community debate and a survey showing that more than half of the respondents opposed to renaming the s