Members of the list may be interested in a Forum at Colonial Williamsburg (free by advance ticket) on a contested subject that can provoke the kind of lively discussion currently going on here about the nature of history and who remembers (and documents) what and under what cultural circumstances.

	The  Forum is the Equiano Forum on Early African American History and Culture: Confronting Historical Myths of African American Literacy.

			http://tinyurl.com/2ucmz23

 	Shameless Self-Promotion:  I'll be giving a talk in the morning session on the Williamsburg Bray School (featured in the Washington Post several months ago, possibly the oldest extant building in America associated with black education) and on its founding history.

	On the founding history, I argue in a forthcoming article in Anglican and Episcopal History (December 2010) that Benjamin Franklin recommended the siting of a Bray School in Williamsburg because he must have discovered in his 1756 visit here that the presidents and faculty of William and Mary had a track record in the religious education of local blacks.   Interestingly the involvement by W&M in black education which I document pretty extensively became a wholly forgotten part of the College's history.

	I'm finding James Lindgren's Preserving the Old Dominion: Virginia Preservation and Virginia Traditionalism particularly fascinating on the question of history and memory in Virginia.

	Selective memory is different from false memory, of course-- Carol Sheriff has at the Post site now a dialogue with readers raising questions about slaves fighting for the Confederacy.   Worth reading.


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Terry L. Meyers 					Phone and VM: 757 221 3932
English Department 				Fax: 757 221 1844
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, VA  23187

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