*The St. Emma Military Academy is celebrated on this date in 1899. This Black military school was founded during American Reconstruction in Powhatan County, Virginia.
Also known as St. Emma's Military Academy, it was a school for Black youths in Powhatan, Virginia. It was founded as the St. Emma's Industrial and Agricultural Institute. The school was located at the Belmead plantation where Philip St. George Cocke enslaved hundreds of Black men, women, and children. In 1897, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament conveyed the property.
Before the academy, Katherine Drexel established St. Francis de Sales School in 1897. St. Emma was named after Drexel's stepmother. The school's founders, Edward de Vaux Morrell and his wife Louise, were from Philadelphia. St. Emma's Military Academy closed in 1972.
