An Idea: Hampton University

Hampton University opts to celebrate the birth of its Founder, General Samuel Chapman Armstrong.  Most universities will celebrate its founding or maybe the day the school opened its doors.  Perhaps, lost to the Hampton University community is the day that the school was founded, which was April 1, 1868.  Both the school's founder and its history is well documented in books, magazines, scholarly journals and the like.  Generations of students have graduated from this Institution and have gone out and made a way for both themselves and the communities, in which they found themselves.  The Institution's Alma Mater, like the Founder and the founding of the Institution, is packed with vision and ideas.  Equally important, to (the Founder, the reasons for the school, and the Alma Mater), is the way that the school and its residences have been portrayed in pictures.  There is an Idea, also at work.  Here are just a few, to celebrate the Institution's "founding," in which it is both a continuing and evolving, IDEA!

From the lips of the Founder, General Samuel Chapman Armstrong to your eyes:
"The thing to be done was clear: to train selected Negro youth who should go out and teach and lead their people first by example, by getting land and homes; to give them not a dollar that they could earn for themselves; to teach respect for labor, to replace stupid drudgery with skilled hands, and in this way to build up an industrial system for the sake not only of self-support and intelligent labor, but also for the sake of character."

Hamptonians BUILD, LEARN, and HEAL!

Creating a Twitter Quilt of HBCUs

First graduates of Virginia State University (1886)

Click this link to listen to the sounds, the cheering, and commoradery at a Black College while you read!

The Historically Black College and University saga began with the founding of the following schools; Cheyney (1837), Lincoln (1854), and Wilberforce (1856).  Additional "Black" schools recommenced during with the period of Reconstruction(1865-1877) and into post-Reconstruction, with the founding of schools (not limited to) Howard University (1867) and Hampton University in (1868).  Because the writer of this blog is from Virginia, I will take this space to recongize the HBCUs of Virginia, that began at Emancipation Oak (on the campus of Hampton University) which are; Hampton Institute (1868),"a school on a hill" Virginia State University (1882), Saint Paul's College (1888), Virginia Union University (1899) and Norfolk State University (1935).
These schools, while they have largely educated African Americans (resulting from years of racism and segregation), they have never denied any American admissions on the basis of race.  These schools have a wonderful "mosaic" history.  This is to say, that each individual school has contributed successfully to the image, culture, the intellectual contribution, and spirituality to both America broadly and African Americans, those that attended these American institutions most specifically.  Most importantly, the pride, rich tradition, and heritage of these schools, have rebirthed those that have attended and graduated from these institutions.  Its alumni are to be found and counted everywhere within American landscapes and institutions.  While these schools have been around for 174 years, new generations of potential students yearn to know of this wonderment that these now 105 HBCUs possess .  Recently, the 44th President of the United States of America, Barack H. Obama, held a reception on HBCUs at the White House.  This acknowledgement of the HBCU by President Barack Obama, to both remain committed and strengthen the HBCU, added excitment and further inquiry into the story of these American treasuers.
The social network of Twitter has created a space for all Americans and most specifically African Americans to connect and reconnect with unknown and known persons.  These connections, like a quilt, is both broad and loving.  With each connection, like a pattern, has a story to tell. This is the story of the HBCU, a broad patchwork of loving people, with a story to tell that is both unique and interconnected. The world of Twitter reenforces the oral tradition, which has been a corner stone of the African American community. Share your HBCU story through Twitter with these potential students.  Tell them your beautiful story of why they should attend your HBCU? (To learn more about Virginia's Black Colleges)