Virginia State University

K-324

The Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute was chartered on 6 Mar. 1882. The Readjuster Party was instrumental in supporting a state institution of higher education in Virginia for African Americans with some unusual features to the institute's charter. It called for six of the seven members of the board of visitors be black, an all-black faculty, as well as the authority to grant college degrees. This is in contrast to many African American agricultural and industrial schools established at that time. Classes began in October 1883 with 62 students, six faculty members, and one building. In 1920 land grant status was acquired and the current name was conferred in 1979.

Department of Historic Resources, 2005

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Acts of Joint Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Virginia during the Session of 1881-1882 (Richmond: RF Walker, Superintendent Public Printing, 1883), 282-287; James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988); “Institutions of Higher Learning Among Negroes in the United States of America,” Negro College Quarterly 5(June 1947); Emily J. Salmon and Edward D. C. Campbell, Jr., eds., The Hornbook of Virginia History, 4th ed. (Richmond: Library of Virginia, 1994), 266; James Wesley Smith, Who’s Who Among Virginia State Graduate (Petersburg, Va.: The University, 1982), viii; Edgar Allan Toppin, Loyal Sons and Daughters: Virginia State University 1882 to 1992 (Norfolk, Va.: Pictorial Heritage Publishing Company, 1992), 13-15; Virginia State University Minute Books, Virginia State University.