Hampton and its students

Opened in 1868 to serve freedmen living near Hampton, Virginia, the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) was one of the early success stories in the struggle to educate former slaves in the South. Armstrong, Ludlow, and Fenner seek to convey in this book the story of Hampton and its students to the public, and to justify the ideals upon which the school was founded. The long term goal of Hampton's efforts was not merely to prepare its students for manual labor but to educate them and thus improve them as citizens. Ludlow's contribution to the story of Hampton is a series of testimonies, portraits, speeches, student journal entries, and letters that attempt to alter the public's general perception of former slaves and to document the qualities of the students enrolled at Hampton. Also included are are Fenner's arrangements of fifty spirituals that he collected from Hampton's student body.