Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the Black men who drove horse-drawn carriages through the streets of Colonial Williamsburg by naming a new carriage after one of them, with hopes that more will follow.
Colonial_Williamsburg_Black_Coachmen_22580 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Collin Ashe directs his horses as he drives his coach Thursday Feb. 24, 2022, in Williamsburg, Va. Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the coachmen by naming a new carriage after one of them. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
AP Photo/Steve Helber
Colonial_Williamsburg_Black_Coachmen_25527 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Collin Ashe drives a coach full of visitors down Duke of Gloucester Street in the restored area Thursday Feb. 24, 2022, in Williamsburg, Va. Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the coachmen by naming a new carriage after one of them. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
AP Photo/Steve Helber
Colonial_Williamsburg-Black_Coachmen_48783 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Benjamin Spraggins sits atop a carriage holding former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and then-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in Williamsburg, Va., on March 8, 1946. The living history museum is honoring Spraggins, a Black man who worked at the museum during the era of segregation, by naming a new carriage after him. The tribute is part of the museum’s ongoing reckoning over race and its past storytelling about the country’s origins and the role of Black Americans. (Photo courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation via AP)
Photo courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation via AP
Colonial_Williamsburg_Black_Coachmen_27858 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Collin Ashe drives a coach full of visitors down Duke of Gloucester Street in the restored area Thursday Feb. 24, 2022, in Williamsburg, Va. Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the coachmen by naming a new carriage after one of them. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
AP Photo/Steve Helber
Colonial_Williamsburg_Black_Coachmen_29681 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Collin Ashe prepares his horse, Commodore, to pull a coach Thursday Feb. 24, 2022, in Williamsburg, Va. Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the coachmen by naming a new carriage after one of them. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
AP Photo/Steve Helber
Colonial_Williamsburg-Black_Coachmen_83187 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Benjamin Spraggins sits atop a carriage holding former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and then-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in Williamsburg, Va., on March 8, 1946. The living history museum is honoring Spraggins, a Black man who worked at the museum during the era of segregation, by naming a new carriage after him. The tribute is part of the museum’s ongoing reckoning over race and its past storytelling about the country’s origins and the role of Black Americans. (AP Photo/William J. Smith)
AP Photo/William J. Smith
Colonial_Williamsburg_Black_Coachmen_21551 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Collin Ashe prepares his horse, Commodore, to pull a coach Thursday Feb. 24, 2022, in Williamsburg, Va. Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the coachmen by naming a new carriage after one of them. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
AP Photo/Steve Helber
Colonial_Williamsburg_Black_Coachmen_64903 Colonial Williamsburg coachman Collin Ashe prepares his horse, Commodore, to pull a coach Thursday Feb. 24, 2022, in Williamsburg, Va. Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the coachmen by naming a new carriage after one of them. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The Black men who drove horse-drawn carriages through the streets of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia were both everywhere and invisible during the Jim Crow era. Their wooden coaches helped conjure up the late 18th Century for visitors including Queen Elizabeth, Sir Winston Churchill and then-Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. And yet the men were forced to use separate bathrooms and water fountains, among the many other sanctioned indignities of segregation. Colonial Williamsburg has begun to honor the coachmen by naming a new carriage after one of them, with hopes that more will follow. The first is for Benjamin Spraggins, who was sometimes said to be the most-photographed man in Williamsburg — although few captions bore his name.
