Albert W. Durant, 1920-1991, was an entrepreneur and Williamsburg’s first African-American city-licensed photographer. Colonial Williamsburg’s Albert Durant Photography Collection provides a priceless visual history of Black life in Williamsburg and surrounding communities from the late 1930s to the early 1960s.
Isle of Wight County is the focus of a portion of his photographs, and subjects include Smithfield school activities and yearbook portraits, basketball teams, a hunt club, homecoming parades and churches. Please join us to participate in a photo identification session to help name the people, places and events captured in Durant’s photographs.