FCS School of the Day #42 - Hampton
Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:22 pm
Hampton University Pirates
Private
Founded 1868
Hampton, Virginia
Students: 5,100
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Colors: Blue and White
Armstrong Stadium (17,000)
2008 Record: 5-3, 6-5
The campus overlooking the northern edge of the harbor of Hampton Roads was founded on the grounds of "Little Scotland", a former plantation in Elizabeth City County not far from Fort Monroe and the Grand Contraband Camp, each tangible symbols of freedom for former slaves shortly after the end of the American Civil War.
Notable Alumni:
Wanda Sykes
Booker T. Washington
Rick Mahorn
First led by former Union General Samuel C. Armstrong, among the school's famous alumni is educator Dr. Booker T. Washington. Under what is now called the Emancipation Oak tree, Mary Smith Peake taught the first classes on September 17, 1861, in defiance of a Virginia law against teaching slaves, free blacks and mulattos to read or write, a law which had cut her own education short years earlier. Several years later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was read to local freedmen under the same historic tree, which is still located on the campus today, and also serves as a symbol for the modern City of Hampton.
Private
Founded 1868
Hampton, Virginia
Students: 5,100
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Colors: Blue and White
Armstrong Stadium (17,000)
2008 Record: 5-3, 6-5
The campus overlooking the northern edge of the harbor of Hampton Roads was founded on the grounds of "Little Scotland", a former plantation in Elizabeth City County not far from Fort Monroe and the Grand Contraband Camp, each tangible symbols of freedom for former slaves shortly after the end of the American Civil War.
Notable Alumni:
Wanda Sykes
Booker T. Washington
Rick Mahorn
First led by former Union General Samuel C. Armstrong, among the school's famous alumni is educator Dr. Booker T. Washington. Under what is now called the Emancipation Oak tree, Mary Smith Peake taught the first classes on September 17, 1861, in defiance of a Virginia law against teaching slaves, free blacks and mulattos to read or write, a law which had cut her own education short years earlier. Several years later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was read to local freedmen under the same historic tree, which is still located on the campus today, and also serves as a symbol for the modern City of Hampton.
