A year after Janet, Karen, and Lynn began their studies at the university, Warren Winston began his college football career at William & Mary in 1968. He was the university's first African American scholarship athlete, and the first African American on the football team. Warren Winston was recognized for his incredible contributions to the team. He started all three seasons he was eligible to play and received a game ball in 1971 for his performance against Davidson College. After graduating, Winston served as a graduate assistant coach for William & Mary for one season. After attending graduate school at Virginia Commonwealth University, Winston taught sociology and served as an assistant coach at Bowie State.

At the 2017 Homecoming game against James Madison and in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of African Americans in Residence, Warren Winston served as an honorary captain of the football team.

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Originally built as Jamestown North, Hardy Hall is located at 700A Landrum Dr. It was constructed alongside Lemon Hall (Jamestown North) in 2006 at the cost of $29 million. This project added 128,000 square feet of new living space for 380 students - 200 in Hardy Hall. Within the residence are reading rooms, game rooms, and lounges.

In April 2016, the Board of Visitors voted unanimously to rename Jamestown North Hardy Hall in honor of the late Dr. Carroll FS Hardy, a former Associate Vice President of Student Affairs. She also founded STEP, a program to help underrepresented high school seniors develop math, writing, and study skills. She also established the Hulon Willis Foundation for African American students and alumni, worked to increase diversity of William & Mary's student body through six summer enrichment programs for students in grades 8 to 12, and helped create and support 15 multicultural student organizations at William & Mary.

This renaming made Lemon and Hardy Halls the first buildings on campus named for people of color.

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James Blair Hall, known as Marshall-Wythe Hall until 1968, is located on the west end of the Sunken. It currently houses the Departments of Philosophy and History, the National Institute of American History & Democracy, University Counsel, and other administrative offices.

James Blair Hall was constructed by T.A. Loving for $175,250 with a Public Works Administration grant with American Walnut woodwork. Built between 1934-1935, it was intended to house the Marshall-Wythe School of Government and Citizenship. The first floor was designed to hold administrative offices (for the president, deans, bursar, business manager, registrar and treasurer), a large business office, conference room, two file rooms, record room, and two reception rooms. The second floor had 8 classrooms and 7 offices for faculty members, with similar plans for the third floor. The Administrative Offices moved into the building on July 1, 1935.

In 1936, the second and third floors were occupied by the departments of Economics, Government, History, Sociology, and the School of Jurisprudence. A dedication ceremony for the building was held in April 1937. In 1943, the Navy Chaplain's School on campus during World War II was located on the second floor. In 1959, a new phone system was installed for the campus and the equipment for the system was kept in the basement of the building. In 1962, the President's and Admissions offices moved to Ewell Hall.

In 1968, the building was renamed James Blair Hall, after the Law School moved into the old library building (known today as Tucker Hall).

As the home of the Law School, it was from James Blair Hall that William & Mary graduated its first African American student - Edward August Travis in 1954. Miriam Carter was the first African American woman to attend William & Mary when she was admitted to the Law School. The first African American woman to receive a degree was 1978 law graduate Sharon Coles-Stewart.

James Blair Hall was named for the Rev. James Blair, the first president at William & Mary, serving from its founding in 1693 until 1743.

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In the Fall of 1967 Janet Brown, Lynn Briley and Karen Ely began their freshmen year at William & Mary. They lived together in the newly renovated basement of Jefferson Hall. Unbeknownst to them, that Fall they became the first African American students to live on campus. This milestone was not met with enthusiasm from the administration. Desegregation in all forms was met with resistance from the Office of the President.

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Originally built as Jamestown South, Lemon Hall is located at 700B Landrum Dr. It was constructed alongside Hardy Hall (Jamestown North) in 2006 at the cost of $29 million. This project added 128,000 square feet of new living space for 380 students - 180 in Lemon Hall.

In April 2016, the Board of Visitors voted unanimously to rename Jamestown South Lemon Hall in honor of Lemon, a man enslaved by William & Mary. The Lemon Project: A Journey for Reconciliation was established in 2009 to explore the role the university had with slavery and with race relations since the end of the Civil War. This renaming made Lemon and Hardy Halls the first buildings on named for people of color.

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Originally built as Jamestown South, Lemon Hall is located at 700B Landrum Dr. It was constructed alongside Hardy Hall (Jamestown North) in 2006 at the cost of $29 million. This project added 128,000 square feet of new living space for 380 students - 180 in Lemon Hall.

In April 2016, the Board of Visitors voted unanimously to rename Jamestown South Lemon Hall in honor of Lemon, a man enslaved by William & Mary. The Lemon Project: A Journey for Reconciliation was established in 2009 to explore the role the university had with slavery and with race relations since the end of the Civil War. This renaming made Lemon and Hardy Halls the first buildings on named for people of color.

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William & Mary prides itself of being the home of Greek letter organizations. Phi Beta Kappa's Alpha Chapter has called William & Mary its home since the honor fraternity's founding in December of 1776. Phi Beta Kappa is considered, to this day, to be the highest academic honor society in the nation. George Washington Henderson, who as inducted in 1877, of the University of Vermont was the first member Phi Beta Kappa of African ancestry. Roughly one hundred years later, Brian K. Blount '78, became the first African American member of the Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. After graduating from William & Mary, Blount earned his M.Div. from Princeton Seminary and now serves as the President of Union Presbyterian Seminary.

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In 1926, William & Mary was gifted and accepted a flagpole by the Ku Klux Klan. The unveiling ceremony was allegedly attended by thousands of individuals, many of whom were members of the KKK themselves. Originally erected here at the corner of Boundary and Jamestown, the flag was moved in the 1950s to a new site at James Blair hall where it flew the state flag to assert states' rights during Massive Resistance.

The 'final' resting place of the flagpole is unknown but is being researched by Professor of English Emeritus Terry Meyers. Though Special Collections houses the program from the flagpole's unveiling, the plaque it displayed was apparently thrown out by a university employee to avoid embarrassment.

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The Bray School was run in the Dudley Diggs House and was originally located where Brown Hall stands today. The Bray School, which was named after Reverend Thomas Bray and operated by Anne Wager, was created "for the instruction of Negro Children in the Principles of the Christian religion." Many of the students were enslaved though free black children also attended the school. Williamsburg was recommended by Benjamin Franklin as a potential site for a Bray School, as well as New York and Rhode Island. From 2012-2014, Colonial Williamsburg and members of the William & Mary community worked to excavate the site of the Bray School.

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The statue of Thomas Jefferson was a gift from University of Virginia in 1992. Jefferson was a student at the university from 1760-1762 and his drawings of the Wren building aided the university in its rebuilding after one of its several fires. Jefferson called for the emancipation of slaves in Notes of the State of Virginia (1781) and encouraged skepticism about the way slavery was taught at William & Mary during the antebellum era.

Jefferson was also a slave holder – a fact that William & Mary students do not want to be forgotten. During the fall of 2015, students covered this statue in sticky notes, labelling Jefferson a 'racist', 'rapist', 'slave owner', and 'hypocrite'. The protest sparked debates amongst the campus about the way in which the Founding Fathers are portrayed in modern society.

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The Tucker family provides an example of the complicated and often antagonistic history of African Americans at William & Mary.

Tucker Hall was opened in 1909 as the Library. Expanded greatly in 1923 and 1929, it has served several functions throughout its history. The first building solely dedicated as a library, it remained as such until 1966. It then housed the Law School and was renamed Marshall-Wythe Hall in 1968. A dozen years later, the Law School moved, and was replaced by the English Department and the Linguistics and Medieval-Renaissance programs. It was then it was renamed for St. George Tucker, a Virginia Supreme Court Justice, federal judge, and the second law professor at William & Mary - succeeding his mentor George Wythe.

The complicated relationship within the Tucker family about slavery mirrors the relationship between William & Mary and African Americans. The namesake of Tucker Hall, St. George Francis, studied law here under George Wythe (the first law professor in the nation) and eventually succeeded him in 1790. Six years later, he wrote and published A Dissertation on Slavery: With A Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It in the State of Virginia. However, his son Nathaniel Beverly Tucker (who also studied and taught law at William & Mary) was an ardent supporter of enslaving others, calling it beneficial for all involved. These adversarial viewpoints continued well after the 13th amendment, into Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Civil Rights movements, and the first residency of African Americans in 1967 at William & Mary.

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In the mid-twentieth century, Washington Hall was the home of William & Mary's education courses. This is where, during the summer of 1951, Hulon Willis Sr. began his master's degree and became the first African American to attend William & Mary. Willis was a graduate of what was then Virginia Union College and taught in Norfolk. In 1956, Willis graduated with his M.Ed. with a specialization in physical education. He was the second African American to graduate from the university. His son and granddaughter would eventually attend William & Mary. In 1992, Willis was honored when the Hulon Willis Alumni Association, William & Mary's African American alumni group, was named in his honor.

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The Western Union Building, which was built in 1930, is home to William & Mary's ROTC Program. Michael K. Powell, son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, attended William & Mary on a ROTC Scholarship. Before graduating in 1985, Michael K. Powell became the first African American Commander of the ROTC. After graduating, Powell served as an army officer in the United States Army, and later earned his J.D. from Georgetown University. Years later, Powell would return to his alma mater to become the first African American Rector on April 21, 2006. He served from 2006-2009 in that role and spent a total of five years on William & Mary's Board of Visitors.

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William & Mary enslaved people from its inception. The enslaved were an integral part of the university's day-to-day operations. Additionally, the enslaved worked on Nottoway Plantation, owned by William & Mary for several years. The profits collected from the enslaved funded scholarships for the white male student body.

William & Mary also employed free people of African descent. George Greenhow worked as a janitor throughout the antebellum years. Greenhow called himself the "the only negro educated William & Mary" because he was taught how to read and write by a student.

Henry Billups worked for the university for over sixty years, in many capacities, including as a mentor to young white male students. He rang the Wren bell alongside President Benjamin Ewell and often procured alcohol for students and faculty during prohibition. William & Mary employed Billups from 1888-1952 - a time marked by Jim Crow, segregation, and - in the wake of Brown v. Board - the Massive Resistance from the Virginia government.

In 1914, formerly enslaved author and activist Booker T. Washington addressed the university community in the Wren Chapel.

During the Spring of 2018, William & Mary erected a plaque at the Wren Building to honor the first three African Americans in residence at the university: Lynn Briley, Janet Brown Strafer and Karen Ely.

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