Samuel C. Armstrong

Samuel Chapman Armstrong was a soldier and general during the American Civil War who later became an educator, particularly of non-whites. The son of missionaries in Hawaii, he rose through the Union Army during the American Civil War to become a general, leading units of Black American soldiers. He became best known as an educator, founding and becoming the first principal of the normal school for Black American and later Native American pupils in Virginia which later became Hampton University. He also founded the university's museum, the Hampton University Museum, which is the oldest Black American museum in the country, and the oldest museum in Virginia.