From the Fairfax Resolves to a National Stage: A Conversation with Carly Fiorina

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Photo by Jenny Sessoms

Carly Fiorina, president and CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, is the national chair of the Virginia 250 Commission.

Mason Neck resident Carly Fiorina — new CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and National Honorary Chair of VA250 — talks about the July 4 PBS broadcast, telling "the whole story" and why Alexandria's place in the founding of our country matters.

On July 18, 1774, townspeople gathered at the courthouse in Alexandria to hear a remarkable document read aloud. The Fairfax Resolves — adopted by Fairfax County freeholders at a meeting chaired by George Washington and drafted largely by George Mason — declared that the colony "can not be considered as a conquered Country" and could not be taxed without its consent. Of the more than 30 resolutions passed across Virginia that summer, the Fairfax Resolves were among the most detailed and the most radical, helping push the colonies toward independence.

Exactly 250 years later, on July 18, 2024, Carly Fiorina stood at Market Square to deliver the keynote at Alexandria's commemoration of that day. "In so many ways, our nation began here in Alexandria 250 years ago," she told the crowd. Today she carries that conviction into an even bigger role: the former Hewlett-Packard chief executive and 2016 presidential candidate, a Virginia resident since 2011, was named CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation this spring after nearly six years as its board chair. She remains National Honorary Chair of VA250, and this year she is steering the foundation's centennial and a Fourth of July celebration that will broadcast nationally on PBS.

Without George Mason, George Washington and the Fairfax Resolves, she told us, "this wouldn't have started."

You stepped into the CEO role this spring, in what's already a milestone year. What's changed in how you spend your days?

"The good news about the transition is that it's all synergistic. Because of my role at VA250, and because so many 250th-anniversary events were already planned at Colonial Williamsburg — including our massive Fourth of July event, which will be broadcast nationally on PBS — the two roles reinforce each other. But there is also much more to leading the foundation. Colonial Williamsburg celebrates its own centennial this year; we will be 100 years old. This is a large, complex organization — the largest living history museum of American history anywhere — with hotels, restaurants and a massive educational mission. Those things were going on before the 250th, and they'll continue well after it."

You've said your priority is that the nation's founding be accurately depicted. How do you balance that with the harder parts of the history, like slavery?

"You have to tell it all. We tell the whole story, and this is a place where Colonial Williamsburg has led the way for a long time. Telling the whole story is also a central goal of VA250: to educate about the whole story, to engage every community so it sees itself in our history, and to inspire a season of civic renewal. When you come here, you learn the story of the enslaved. You encounter people who represent them; you understand how they lived and worked. A couple of years ago we opened our restoration of the Bray School, which educated enslaved and free Black children — the actual 18th-century building is here on our property. Later this year we will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the First Baptist Church, which was led by an enslaved man, Gowan Pamphlet. We also have Indian encampments, because Williamsburg was the capital of the most politically powerful colony, and indigenous tribes came here to negotiate with the Crown. Even in the most difficult parts of the story, there is much to learn and much to be inspired by."

Back to July 4 — what do you most want a national audience watching from home to take away?

"First, I want them to learn how our nation came to be. The Fourth of July is usually parades, music and fireworks — and there's nothing wrong with any of that. But it doesn't often include education about who we are and where we come from. So our show will have an amazing fireworks display, a drone show and wonderful entertainment, but it will also feature Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Gowan Pamphlet, the enslaved pastor; and James Lafayette, an enslaved man who served as a spy for General Washington; and a benediction from one of the original tribes that was here. Everyone will see themselves in our history, and people will understand something about it. The mission of Colonial Williamsburg is that the future may learn from the past — and I want people to learn about our past on this most important day."

For an Alexandria family planning a trip down to Williamsburg, what's one experience or new offering you'd point them to that they might not know about?

"So many Virginians remember coming here as a fourth grader. They have fond memories of that school trip — but the problem is they think, 'I did that in fourth grade, I don't need to do it again.' So much has changed. Take the Bray School and the First Baptist Church: we didn't even know those buildings existed until five years ago, and we hadn't yet researched the people behind them. We couldn't have told the stories of Gowan Pamphlet, or of the students who attended — whose names we know through documentation — or of their teacher, Ann Wager. We've learned all of that in the last five years. We also recently opened a major archaeology center, with some 60 million artifacts, and most people don't know it's here."

"We bring high school and college students in to learn archaeology, and we're training what we call "nation builders" — historical interpreters who inhabit important figures, so you can have a deeply meaningful encounter with Thomas Jefferson, Gowan Pamphlet, James Lafayette, the Marquis de Lafayette or Martha Washington. Just recently we hosted Google executives for the launch of a two-and-a-half-year collaboration; we've digitized dozens of stories and buildings on Google Arts & Culture. The executive who runs that program told me, "I've never said this before, but as good as our digital rendering is, you really have to come here." If you haven't been in five years, you've missed a lot."

People remember you from your presidential campaign and your Fortune 50 company. How do those experiences come into play running Colonial Williamsburg and this anniversary?

"Leadership principles are always the same. A Fortune 50 technology company is very different from a complex nonprofit educational institution, but the constant is that you align people around common goals and a worthy purpose, and you make sure you're achieving the results your stakeholders — in our case, our donors — expect. We have to be wise stewards of their dollars."

"How you align people and keep them moving forward in a way that leverages everyone's talents — those skills are very transferable. I've led nonprofits and large businesses, and people are people. The other thing I'd say is that in both my VA250 and Colonial Williamsburg roles, we are rigorously nonpartisan. We never tell people what to think; we tell them what happened. We never tell them how to feel; we let them engage with what life was like 250 years ago. We've had a change in administration and a change in the majority party in Virginia, and it made not one bit of difference to our programming."

You've framed this work as especially important in a climate of division. Can learning more about history bring people together?

"Yes — I've seen it over and over. When you learn about history in a human, authentic way, you quickly realize these were people not so different from us. The context was different, the conditions were different — enslavement is very different from freedom — but the rivalries, jealousies and divisions were the same. We were not a united nation 250 years ago; many colonists thought independence was treason. The enslaved community was divided — some fought for the British in hope of freedom, others alongside their enslavers on behalf of the idea that all men are created equal."

"The things that divide us today — religion, politics, class — divided people then, too. George Washington and George Mason had a bitter falling-out in Philadelphia over the Constitution and a Bill of Rights, and from that point on they never spoke again. History shows us how far we've come, and it reminds us we still have work to do; a more perfect union is still our work as citizens. But it's reassuring that these were just people, living through tumultuous times, who didn't all agree — and yet enough of them came together in common cause to do something remarkable: forge a new nation."

After the 250th and the centennial wrap up, what marker would you use a year from now to call this moment a success?

"Several. From a Virginia standpoint, we measure how many people visit and the economic impact — and we're already seeing a lift. For Colonial Williamsburg, we'll measure the centennial year by increased interest, visitation and donations. We are funded purely by private donation. When we see more visitation, more teachers attending our teacher institutes, more schoolchildren coming down, and more donors saying, 'Yes, I want to invest in this educational institution' — those are clear metrics of success."

Asked what the work on America's 250th anniversary and Colonial Williamsburg's centennial this year has meant to her, Fiorina didn't hesitate. "This work is a privilege — truly," she said. "It is a joy. It is an honor to be of service in this way."

If You Go — and How to Watch

• The broadcast: America Made in Virginia: 250 Years Together, a two-hour live special with Fiorina as an executive producer, airs Saturday, July 4, at 8 p.m. ET on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS app (also slated to air on C-SPAN2).
• In person: Colonial Williamsburg offers admission to the Historic Area on July 4, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. The grand ceremony will include the largest fireworks display in the foundation's history beginning around 9:35 p.m.
• The drive: Williamsburg is about two-and-a-half hours south of Alexandria.
• Plan a visit: More on the centennial year and the Bray School.