About Ted DeLaney

In 2021, Washington and Lee University named its new interdisciplinary academic center for teaching and research on Southern race relations, culture, and politics in honor of late professor of history emeritus Theodore “Ted” Carter DeLaney Jr. ’85.

DeLaney’s scholarship focused on the untold histories of African Americans in Virginia, including his research on John Chavis, who was the first known African American to receive a college education in the United States in the 18th century and who studied at Liberty Hall Academy. In addition, DeLaney recorded oral histories of western Virginians directly involved in the battle over school desegregation 15 years after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. Much of his research found its way into his courses and the presentations he developed for alumni colleges, class reunions, neighboring colleges, museums and historical societies. DeLaney’s own oral history is now part of W&L’s Special Collections.

During his career at W&L, DeLaney taught courses on colonial North America, comparative slavery in the Western Hemisphere, African American history, civil rights, and gay and lesbian history. His popular Spring Term course on the civil rights movement took students on the path of the Freedom Riders through the South, while his course on the institutional history of W&L introduced students to archival research in W&L’s Special Collections & Archives.In 2005, DeLaney co-founded the Africana Studies Program, which he directed from 2005-07 and again from 2013 to 2017. He chaired the History Department from 2007 to 2013 and was the first Black department head at W&L. He also served on both the Working Group on the History of African Americans at W&L and the 2018 Commission on Institutional History and Community.

"Ted was known to people across the W&L community as a wise, thoughtful, and generous teacher whose passion for justice and inclusion was evident both in the classroom and in his scholarship,” said W&L President William C. Dudley in announcing the center’s name. “Ted’s work provided keen insights into the history of the university and the local community. His personal history and the example that he set for all of us represent the best of the university’s core values. The center that bears Ted’s name will be a model for the work that was so important to him and remains so critical to the understanding and advancement of our society in the future."