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Hampton University is Founded

Hampton University was founded on this date in 1868. It is one of 100 historically black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in America.

Hampton University is a privately endowed, coeducational school located in southeastern Virginia. General Samuel Chapman Armstrong founded the University as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. It was designed to educate the newly emancipated blacks. It has grown into a comprehensive university offering a broad range of technical, liberal arts, pre-professional, professional, and graduate degree programs. In its beginning, Hampton was neither a government nor a state school.

It was chartered by a special act of the General Assembly of Virginia and was controlled by a board representing both different regions of the country and various religious groups. The school's most famous graduate was Booker T. Washington. Hampton was unique in that it opened its doors to Native Americans, too.  Beginning in 1878, Native American students were brought to the school from Northern Plains tribes to be “re-educated.”

Armstrong, whose missionary parents had raised him in Hawaii, promoted a highly colonialist curriculum in its tenor and promoted the most rapid assimilation possible.  He and M F, Helen W. Ludlow, and Elaine G. Eastman wrote a report on their findings. In this period, the rhetoric used to describe the Native Americans was very disrespectful, representing the white Americans' ideology's negative perspective on Native Americans.

For over 130 years, Hampton University has held to its mission: educating African Americans to be scholars and leaders, nationally and internationally. Hampton University is consistently placed among the elite in national polls and rankings, including those for U.S. News and World Report, Black Enterprise, Black Issues in Higher Education, and other publications.