When Jacquelyn E. Stone was a young girl, growing up in then-segregated Williamsburg, Virginia, her mother shared the biography of an African American shopkeeper from Williamsburg who was so wealthy he loaned money to then-president of The College of William & Mary—a school that did not allow people of color to enroll until 1951. Growing up just steps away from the college, even as a child Stone was struck by the fact that a Black man was wealthy enough to grant a loan to the leader of William & Mary, yet would have been barred from attending as a student.
It’s a story that must have stuck with her.