From: [log in to unmask] [Dudley, President]
Subject: A Loss for W&L: Theodore Carter DeLaney Jr. ’85, professor of
history emeritus

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I write to you with the sad news that Theodore Carter DeLaney Jr. ’85,
professor of history emeritus, died Dec. 18, 2020. Please join me in
extending condolences to his wife, Pat, and the rest of his family.

******

Theodore "Ted" Carter DeLaney Jr. '85, professor of history emeritus and
former chair of the Africana Studies Program at Washington and Lee
University, died Dec. 18, 2020. He was 77.

"Professor DeLaney's life and work represent the best of the university’s
core values; he was a beacon of moral clarity. During his career at W&L,
Ted worked tirelessly to make the school a more welcoming and inclusive
environment. His scholarship provided keen insights into the history of the
university and the local community, which illuminated the national
conversation around civil rights. He was a mentor to numerous students and
faculty, providing them with wise counsel. W&L is a better place because of
Ted, and we are immensely grateful to him. Our entire community mourns
Ted's passing, and joins me in sending condolences to his widow, Pat, and
the rest of their family," said President Will Dudley.

DeLaney was born Oct. 18, 1943, in Lexington. He graduated from Lylburn
Downing School, which at the time was an all-Black school. He declined a
scholarship from the United Negro College Fund that would have enabled him
to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta; his mother was worried that he
would get caught up in the civil rights movement there.

Instead, after working as a gardener and a waiter and a brief stint as a
postulant at a Catholic monastery of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement
in upstate New York, DeLaney took a job as a janitor at W&L in 1963 and was
quickly promoted to laboratory technician. In 1979, he enrolled in his
first class at W&L and became a full-time student four years later. DeLaney
graduated with a B.A. in history, cum laude, in 1985 at the age of 42. He
also had 15 undergraduate credits from Virginia Military Institute. He
earned his Ph.D. in history from The College of William & Mary in 1995.

After graduating from W&L, he taught American history for three years at
the Asheville School in North Carolina, before beginning his graduate
studies. While he was an A.B.D. working on his dissertation, he taught at
W&L from 1991 to 1993, and then at the State University of New York at
Geneseo from 1993 to 1995. He returned to W&L as a full-time faculty member
in 1995. DeLaney received tenure and was promoted to associate professor in
2001 and to full professor in 2018. He retired in 2019.

During his career at W&L, DeLaney brought his "passion for justice and
inclusion to the classroom and to his scholarship," noted his History
Department colleagues in his retirement citation. "He offered essential
courses in the histories of the disadvantaged, the dispossessed and the
oppressed. Well before it was part of the Strategic Plan, Ted valued both
inclusiveness and diversity in his courses."

Holt Merchant '61, professor of history emeritus, recalled, "I had taught a
yearly seminar in what we then called Afro-American history, and one of the
most important benefits of Ted’s arrival was the marked improvement in our
offerings in that area. He was my roommate and my dinner companion at
dozens of professional meetings. Our conversations, both there and
elsewhere, contributed more to broaden my perspectives than he perhaps
realized. Most important, his decision to join the department gave us the
diversity that we had lacked until that time, and, of course, the ability
to understand the nation’s past more clearly and accurately than before."

DeLaney taught courses on colonial North America, comparative slavery in
the Western Hemisphere, African American history, civil rights, and gay and
lesbian history. His popular Spring Term class about the civil rights
movement took students on the path of the Freedom Riders through the South.

"Ted cared deeply about his students, who came to his office in droves to
meet with him," said David Peterson, professor of history emeritus. "They
were attracted by his empathy and by the model he provided of a public
intellectual who was able to make his learning directly relevant to
contemporary affairs. He had a marvelous ability to put people at their
ease while standing politely but firmly by his principles."

In 2005, DeLaney co-founded the Africana Studies Program, which he directed
from 2005 to 2007 and again from 2013 to 2017. He chaired the History
Department from 2007 to 2013, the first Black department head at W&L. He
served on over a dozen university committees, including the Working Group
on the History of African Americans at W&L and the Commission on
Institutional History and Community — for which he also developed a course
on the institutional history of W&L that introduced students to archival
research in Leyburn Library's Department of Special Collections.

As a scholar, DeLaney focused on the untold histories of African Americans
in Virginia. In addition to research on John Chavis, he recorded the oral
histories of western Virginians directly involved in the battle over school
desegregation 15 years after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court
ruling. Much of his research found its way into the courses he taught and
the presentations he developed for alumni colleges, class reunions,
neighboring colleges, museums and historical societies. Most recently, he
recorded his own oral history, which is now part of W&L's Special
Collections.

DeLaney served his professional and civic communities as president of the
St. George Tucker Society, an interdisciplinary organization of Southern
specialists, and on the Stonewall Jackson House board of trustees. He was a
research fellow for the Virginia Foundation and served on its board of
directors. He was the first president of Yellow Brick Road Child Care
Center, president of the Waddell School PTA, secretary of the Board of
Elections and treasurer of the Rockbridge Regional Library board. In 1991,
he held a Commonwealth Fellowship from the Council of Higher Education. He
was also an avid local Democrat.

Over the years, DeLaney’s contributions have been recognized with numerous
accolades. He was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa (2001), Phi Beta Kappa
(2013), named the Harry F. and Mary Jane W. Redenbaugh Term Professor
(2009-12), invited to deliver the Fall Convocation address (2018), awarded
an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from St. Paul’s College, (2005), a
Doctor of Letters degree from W&L (2019), and received the NAACP’s
Lexington/Rockbridge chapter’s Community Service Award (2018). Since his
retirement, a postdoctoral fellowship, a lecture series in Africana Studies
and a Ted DeLaney ’85 Scholarship in the humanities and interdisciplinary
studies have been established in his honor.

"Ted was an extraordinary friend and mentor who made W&L feel like home to
me," said Molly Michelmore, professor of history and department chair. "He
was a trusted colleague, whose counsel — about history, about students,
about life — I always sought. He loved W&L — enough to understand and point
out where we failed to live up to our own principles."

DeLaney is survived by his wife, Patricia; their son, Damien Paul DeLaney
’03L, and his wife, Kara; and two grandchildren, Stella and Wyatt.

In lieu of flowers, DeLaney requested friends make contributions to one of
the following: the Theodore C. DeLaney Scholarship Endowment at Washington
and Lee University, W&L Office of Development, 204 W. Washington Street,
Lexington, VA 24450; the Ted DeLaney Youth Opportunity Grant,
Lexington/Rockbridge NAACP, PO Box 1065, Lexington, VA 24450; or the Ted
DeLaney Preservation Fund of Evergreen Cemetery through Historic Lexington
Foundation, PO Box 901, Lexington, VA 24450.

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