A public historically black university, Norfolk State University, spreads out in front of you here in Norfolk, Virginia. It is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and of the Virginia High‑Tech Partnership. The institution began on September 18, 1935, as the Norfolk Unit of Virginia Union University, when eighty‑five students attended the first classes.
The first director was Samuel Fischer Scott, a Virginia Union alumnus and Portsmouth native, whose primary focus was to maintain the solvency of the school. In 1938 Dr. Lyman Beecher Brooks, also a Virginia Union alumnus, succeeded Scott; he later served as provost from 1963 to 1969 and as the university’s first president from 1969 to 1975. In 1942 the school became independent of Virginia Union and was named Norfolk Polytechnic College; within two years, by an act of the Virginia Legislature, it became part of Virginia State College, now Virginia State University.
By 1950, at the fifteenth anniversary, the faculty had grown to fifty and student enrollment to 1,018. In 1952 the college’s athletic teams adopted the Spartan name and identity. Your eye can travel now to Corprew Avenue, the permanent site the City of Norfolk provided for the college.