Qualla: Hampton University https://qualla.com/hampton-university en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:07 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/d/hampton-university-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Hampton University https://qualla.com/hampton-university Hampton University: Introduction https://qualla.com/hampton-university/ Photo credit Douglas W. Reynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before there was a school, there was a tree. In September 1861, a free Black teacher named Mary Smith Peake gathered her first students - children and adults who had walked away from slavery toward the Union guns at Fortress Monroe - under the spreading branches of a live oak near the Hampton River. Virginia law forbade teaching enslaved people to read. Peake had been teaching them anyway, in secret, for years. Now, with Union troops a short walk away, she could teach in daylight. Two years later, on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was read aloud beneath the same tree - the first reading in the Confederate states. The tree is still standing. So is the school it shaded into existence.

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Image: Douglas W. Reynolds | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/d/hampton-university-wp/dq9d-hampton-university-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Hampton University: Contraband of War https://qualla.com/hampton-university/ Photo credit Douglas W. Reynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0. The story begins with a legal trick. In May 1861, three enslaved men named Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend slipped across Hampton Roads to Fortress Monroe, the only Union-held fort on Virginia's southeastern coast. When their owner came to demand them back, fort ...

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Image: Douglas W. Reynolds | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/d/hampton-university-wp/dq9d-hampton-university-contraband-of-war.mp3 0:06 2 full Hampton University: Armstrong's Institute https://qualla.com/hampton-university/ Photo credit Douglas W. Reynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the war, the American Missionary Association formalized the work Mary Peake had begun. In April 1868, on the grounds of a former plantation called Little Scotland overlooking the Hampton River, the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute opened its doors. Its first princi...

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Image: Douglas W. Reynolds | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/d/hampton-university-wp/dq9d-hampton-university-armstrongs-institute.mp3 0:06 3 full Hampton University: Native Students, Difficult History https://qualla.com/hampton-university/ Photo credit Douglas W. Reynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1878, Hampton expanded its program to include Native American students - initially seventy-two warriors held as prisoners of war from the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, and Caddo nations, who had been incarcerated at Fort Marion in St. Augustine. Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt con...

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Image: Douglas W. Reynolds | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/d/hampton-university-wp/dq9d-hampton-university-native-students-difficult-history.mp3 0:06 4 full Hampton University: The Singers Who Saved the School https://qualla.com/hampton-university/ Photo credit Douglas W. Reynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1872 Hampton was nearly broke. Armstrong hired Thomas P. Fenner to form the Hampton Singers - originally called the Hampton Jubilee Singers - modeled on the wildly successful Fisk Jubilee Singers tour of 1871. The Hampton choir toured the North performing spirituals to mixed a...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/d/hampton-university-wp/dq9d-hampton-university-the-singers-who-saved-the-school.mp3 0:06 5 full Hampton University: The Campus Today https://qualla.com/hampton-university/ Photo credit Douglas W. Reynolds, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 314-acre campus along the Hampton River was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1974. The Emancipation Oak still stands and was cited by the National Geographic Society as one of the ten great trees in the world; the City of Hampton uses it on its official sea...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/9/d/hampton-university-wp/dq9d-hampton-university-the-campus-today.mp3 0:06 6 full