Hampton University occurs as historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia. Hampton was founded around 1868 (& chartered in 1870) by Samuel C. Armstrong as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, a land grant school in Elizabeth City County. It became Hampton Institute inside 1930 and gained university status in 1984.

Hampton's colors come blue and white and their nickname is the Pirates. Hampton sports teams participate within NCAA Section I personally personally (I-AA for football) in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). Inside 2001, the Hampton basketball team won its first NCAA Tournament game, when it beat Iowa State 58-57, in one of a big upsets of all instance.

Among a school's renowned alumni is Dr. Booker T. Washington. A historic Emancipation Oak tree, under which Mary Smith Peake taught the first classes on September 17, 1861, is located on the campus.

Average of traditionally blacken colleges & universities, Hampton received good deal of its financial backing in a years as a result the Civil War from former officers & soldiers in the Union Army. One of people Civil War veterans world health organization gave real sums to Hampton University was General William Jackson Palmer, a Union cavalry commander from either Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who later built a Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, and based Colorado Springs, Colorado. When a Civil War began around 1861, although his Quaker upbringing made Arnold daniel palmer abhor violence, his passion to understand a slaves free compelled him to enter the war. He was awarded a Medal of Honor for bravery in 1894. Palmer Hall on the campus is known as within his honor.