City: Hampton, VA

Category: Education

Telephone: (757) 727-5000

Address: 23668

Description: Privately supported Hampton University opened its doors on April 1, 1868, known as the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. It had a few buildings on 120 acres of land, little equipment, two teachers (who earned $15 a month), 15 students, and a dormitory retrofitted from a converted hospital barracks. In 2010, the man who agreed to give the commencement address accepted only two such invitations: President Barack Obama. You’ve come a long way, Hampton U.General Samuel Chapman founded the school with a plan to educate the newly emancipated African Americans. Today Hampton University is one of the most popular black colleges in America, boasting a student population of more than 5,000. Hampton has a $180 million endowment, the highest SAT scores of entering freshmen for any historically black college, state-of-the-art facilities, a distinguished faculty, and an innovative curriculum. It offers a variety of programs including especially strong ones in science, engineering, pharmacy, business (including an MBA degree), architecture, and nursing.Hampton offers a strong athletic program as well with 14 sports, including a men’s and women’s sailing team.The university, which stresses the importance of leadership through its Leadership Institute, also reaches out to the community with its A Plus (A+) Summer Program for Pre-College Students. The monthlong program for 13- to 15-year-olds offers everything from mentoring and mathematics to art and scuba diving. Listed among famous graduates is Booker T. Washington, class of 1875, who took what he learned here south, where he founded Tuskegee Institute. Other grads include Spencer Christian (class of ’70 and former weatherman on ABC’s Good Morning America), Ms. Frankie Freeman (class of ’37 and former U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner), and Vanessa D. Gilmore (class of ’77 and a federal judge in Texas). The Hampton University Museum is worth seeing. And no visit to Hampton University would be complete without a stop at the Emancipation Oak—a massive shade tree on the northeast side of the campus. It was under this tree in 1863 that Hampton’s black community—people who the law then prohibited from attending school—gathered to hear the first southern reading of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.