Hampton University at 150: Activism, protests, demonstrations pepper school's history

Newport News Mayor McKinley Price was 32 years old when he walked across the stage as a graduate of Hampton Institute.

He actually graduated a decade earlier, in 1971, but he didn’t get to participate in a graduation ceremony until he and more than 100 classmates donned caps and gowns and took the walk with the Class of 1981.

During the spring of ’71 there was enough unrest on the Hampton campus that the school’s administration — in the name of student safety — chose to end the school year early and completely dispense with commencement exercises.

“At one time, students had taken over the administration building,” Price says. “I don’t remember specifics, but I think it was more national and international issues. This all went on for a month or two. It was a small number of students, really, and they were antagonizing anti-administration, anti-war, just general ‘anti-‘ period. But they stirred some people up and at some point the administration got tired of it and said, ‘Let’s just shut it down for this year.’ ”

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