The Gloucester Institute: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Student Submitted Article By: Nyla Cross

An organization in Virginia’s Gloucester County says it is dedicated to fostering the next generation of Black leaders, and provides the resources they need to do just that. They operate out of an estate that is the birthplace of the United Negro College Fund, with a rich history involving several Hampton University alumni. It is a Black student’s paradise.

But, it’s run by a former President of The Heritage Foundation - something that has shocked the students who were recruited to participate in the organization’s Emerging Leaders Program during the past few years.

The Gloucester Institute (TGI), is owned and operated by HU alumna Kay Cole James, who calls herself a “black, conservative, pro-life evangelical woman,” according to her 2022 opinion piece in The Washington Post.

She presided over The Heritage Foundation from 2018-2021, stepping down shortly after Joe Biden won the 2020 Presidential Election. She served as a trustee from 2005 to 2022. During his first term, Trump asked James to be a senior advisor on his presidential transition team, according to her biography on The Heritage Foundation website.

The Heritage Foundation, a far-right, conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. was responsible for writing, curating and distributing Project 2025, which is now being implemented by President Trump.

Trump also appointed James as a commissioner on the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, and she frequently advised him on matters ranging from immigration reform to support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, her biography said.

In 2001, while still a trustee at The Heritage Foundation, James founded The Gloucester Institute, an “organization that trains and nurtures college-age men and women in the African American community and focuses on shaping a new generation of conservative leaders,” according to her biography on The Heritage Foundation website.

“Around election time, I knew that the founder was a Republican,”said Narenzo Fleors, a third-year student at Norfolk State University and Emerging Leaders Program participant.

“I didn't know how deep she was into it until I did my research on the program. When I realized The Heritage was involved, at that point, I just couldn't be affiliated with something that has brought us Project 2025,” he said.

Fleors left the program shortly after discovering James’ contributions to The Heritage Foundation. He urged his peers to look deeper into TGI’s origins.

“When I found out about it, I really encouraged a lot of my peers to do more research on it. And, over time, you know, some of them started to feel the same way, especially during the election,” he said.

Holly Knoll serves as TGI’s headquarters, and is a historic site that was home to Dr. Robert Moton, the second president of Tuskegee Institute and faculty member at Hampton Institute, both now universities.

According to program participants, their time at Holly Knoll included etiquette classes, handshaking workshops, pearl necklaces, and political debates. They visited the Holly Knoll estate one weekend a month for the entire academic year.

“When I first got there, you know, it gave me Uncle Tom's cabin. Mostly because it was down south in Gloucester, and it was weird, because a lot of Confederate flags were down there,” said Jamal Wallace, a recent graduate of Virginia State University and the Emerging Leaders Program.

While James purchased the Holly Knoll estate and founded TGI, she is not the sole staff member. Several people were involved in the process of selecting students, and different guests came to host events with the cohort members, many revolving around presenting oneself and proper dinner etiquette. Wallace pushed back.

“You know, it's not 1872 anymore. So, they were teaching us that because they wanted us to know how to eat around, you know, well known people. And, I don't think that that is applicable to do anymore and that's why I had an issue with it,” said Wallace.

Instead, Wallace believes TGI needs to emphasize multiculturalism in networking skills.

“You know, during that time I wasn't really reading up on China as much as I am today, but now I would ask them why we're not learning how to speak Mandarin and use chopsticks. China is far past our economy. So, my question in that specific case is: "Why aren't we learning multicultural things because we're moving into a multi polarity world?”” said Wallace.

Fleors said the program was not overtly Republican and that - although he did not complete it - he still had some important takeaways.

“I understand the point they're trying to teach us, but it did seem like they were trying to prepare us for something. I think they were trying to prepare us to go into the work of politics a little bit, and so I wouldn't say that it was necessarily a bad thing,” said Fleors.

James made appearances throughout the students’ stays at Holly Knoll. While students recognized her Republican views, they did not feel like she was pushing any agenda on them.

“My impression of her, although she's a Republican, is that she didn't lead with that. She led with, you know, just being a Black woman working in a white male dominated industry and navigating that. And I will say from what she's telling us I don't think it's her goal to make us Republicans. Maybe more conservative,” said Fleors.

James’ race plays a large role in her belief system. She has acknowledged her identity as a Black woman who attended an HBCU throughout her political career, citing her background as motivation to pursue this line of work. The Heritage Foundation website provides a bio of James that says the following quote:

“As she has often said, “I didn’t become a conservative despite my roots; I became a conservative because of them.””

James attended Hampton University in the late 1960s, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party’s quest for Black liberation. She admitted to Gloucester students that in college, she would read Angela Davis and don an afro.

But, when James spoke to students about race, she imparted wisdom that was old-fashioned at best, and slightly problematic and concerning, at worst.

“She would say a lot of things like “Oh, well, this worked for me. I did this, but I just suppressed my Blackness in order to be who I want in life.” It was just very interesting to hear and it rubbed people the wrong way,” said Jasmine Brockington, third year HU student and graduate of the Emerging Leaders program.

These methods for success clearly have worked for James, as she has had an extensive career in conservative leadership. Before her presidency at The Heritage Foundation, she worked for Former President George H.W. Bush on the National Commission on Children, Former President George W. Bush in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and President Trump in his first term. She was also appointed by Virginia's Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin as Secretary of the Commonwealth.

James often invited other local politicians to Gloucester’s campus to speak. Despite her beliefs, attendees said she kept a nonpartisan attitude and encouraged speakers of varying affiliations to visit, echoing a message of unity and respect.

“There was always an equal basis of hearing from Democrats and Republicans. I will say that; I think there was a message of togetherness. Even if you may not believe in the same thing as somebody else, you can still foster some kind of similarities between different sides,” said India’Ray Davis, HU third year student and graduate of The Emerging Leaders Program.

But, not every session was harmonious. They were times where students, like Wallace, would push back on some of James’ teachings.

“You could tell some of the cohort members were more left-leaning than others. So, they would just feel whatever they thought, and they would speak out against Kay. But, others would be like “Let’s just listen to what she has to say,”” said Brockington.

While it’s not outlined in TGI’s mission to convert Black students into Republicans or push a certain political agenda, their messaging underscores those values and indicates a close relationship with Hampton University. Of five board members, including James, four attended Hampton.

Their Board of Directors includes Elizabeth Level, a staffer for Republican Senator George Allen from 2001 to 2004. Level is a graduate of Hampton University.

Maurice Kuykendoll is the Chief Financial Officer for Prudential Group Insurance, and was the national co-chair for Black Leadership Forum, Prudential’s largest and oldest business resource group. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a B.S. in Accounting from Hampton University. He serves on the advisory board of the Hampton University School of Business.

Carl F. Ellis Jr. got his B.A. From Hampton University. Will Nance, the only member who did not attend Hampton, served in the administration for George H. W. Bush, a Republican president.

In a 2018 piece published on The Heritage Foundation’s website, former Executive Director of TGI, Martin Brown, said students needed to sharpen their soft skills. Brown now serves as the Chief Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion Officer in Virginia’s Republican administration, and gained notoriety by declaring “DEI is dead,” at Virginia Military Institute in 2023.

“One of the things we started implementing at Gloucester was a character program where they have to write about and speak about and understand different character principles like virtue, and responsibility, and the meaning of loyalty—things that made our country great,” Brown told The Heritage Foundation. where he served as a Visiting Fellow.

While the “soft skills” TGI aimed to promote were principles that graduates found beneficial, the hard skills they learned were seen as not only outdated, but somewhat assimilationist. However, students like Wallace understood that these teachings were rooted in struggle - the struggle of the post-Emancipation Black person seeking education.

“This is not 1875. In 1875, I probably would have agreed. If I was born in West Virginia, like Booker T. Washington, and I was working in the coal mines, and I had to walk all those miles to Hampton,Virginia to finally get a seat at a table. Hell yeah, listen to Kay Cole James. Shoot,” said Wallace.

James’ teachings are meant to prepare students for a world that may not be as inviting and welcoming as their college campuses. In the same piece by The Heritage Foundation, James confirmed that TGI, although they offer programs specifically for Black students, was not created to be a “safe space” for Black students.

“They actually want physical safe spaces where they can go. And I said: ‘Sweetie, I’m trying to raise you to be in a place where your safe space is within you. You just need to go internally because it’s a tough, difficult, cruel world out there.’ We’re trying to raise war fighters, not snowflakes,”” James told The Heritage Foundation.

Many program graduates agreed this notion was heavily reflected in their education at TGI.

“I mean just looking at the history, and even now, we deserve safe spaces for Black people to, you know, thrive. So for someone to basically come in and tell us that we don't deserve that and we need to “get over it,”; I don't think that's fair to us at all,” said Fleors.

James’ goals with TGI seem to be focused on solution-based learning. If students have a clear understanding of world issues, they can create solutions to their daily problems. For a lot of students, that translated to having to unify with people who shared beliefs that some would view as discriminatory.

“I'm not gonna make peace with someone [who believes in Project 2025 or] who doesn’t think that my identities are valid or that I deserve to exist,” said Davis.

While TGI’s website has a bio of James, it fails to include her presidency of The Heritage Foundation and does not mention her work with President Donald Trump, nor Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. It does not mention politics at all, saying only:

“The Gloucester Institute serves as a facilitator of free thought and solution finding. The Institute also serves as a training ground for tomorrow's leaders through workshops, fellowships, and other programs.”

This made some students uneasy because they did not know about the strong connection to Republicans or the mention in James’ Heritage Foundation biography that her goal at TGI was to focus “on shaping a new generation of conservative leaders.”

“If I had known that before, I don’t think I would have done it, because it’s not my view at all,” said Brockington. "I should've done more research. “I took it off my resumé once Trump got in office and people started kind of mentioning that Gloucester was involved. I was like, I don’t want to be associated with that.”

Other TGI graduates have since reflected on the conflicting experience.

“I do think she’s doing a good thing with Gloucester, but it makes me question her purpose. Like, is this really just your way to foster environments where people grow up more conservatively?” said Davis.

Others, like Wallace, took the approach of only considering some information helpful, and ignoring the rest. He believes James was truly teaching the skill of discernment and gave valuable information. He did think there was one key message that she successfully conveyed.

“You have to do what you need to do to get to where you want to be, and if that's the point that she's trying to prove with the Institute, she achieves it,” said Wallace.