In Hampton, where colonial and Civil War markers abound, the tree is perhaps one of the best known, if sometimes taken for granted, reminders of history.
Most locals don’t know exactly how long it’s been here. They say at least 300 years.
It’s where abolitionists - in the midst of the Civil War - secretly taught blacks from the Tidewater region to read and write. On a winter day in 1863, enslaved people flocked to it to hear the first Southern reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Today, the Emancipation Oak rises on the far eastern edge of Hampton University, pushed up against an Interstate 64 ramp and protected by a short half-circle metal fence and a withering marker on one side and tall pine trees on another.was just months into the Civil War in 1861 when Union leaders declared that slaves who reached Union lines would not be returned to their Confederate owners and instead be considered “contraband” of war since they came from a self-proclaimed foreign land.
“That tree is integral to Hampton University’s history, to the city’s history as a whole,” said Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Norfolk State University history professor. Moments later, Chad Tyson, who parks his blue BMW each day near the tree to attend courses at Hampton University, walked over to pause and reflect under its leaves in a daily ritual.
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