Hampton, Virginia, has emerged as a new hotspot for tourism. What’s the reason behind this shift?

"Hampton? A tourist hotspot? You've got to be kidding me."

Over chips and margaritas at El Diablo Loco Cantina & Tequila Bar in Phoebus, my longtime friends, Judy and Brandon, looked at me with skepticism. Our town of about 137,000 isn’t exactly a tourist haven—that title belongs to Virginia Beach, a short drive south, or Colonial Williamsburg, America’s largest outdoor museum. Yet, these streets have a rich history to tell.

Locals are quick to correct anyone who claims that basketball legend Allen Iverson hails from Philadelphia. Long before he became an NBA sensation in 1996 and landed lucrative Reebok deals, Iverson was a star athlete at Bethel High in Hampton, where a gym has been named in his honor.

It was the brilliant mathematician Katherine Johnson from Hampton, whose calculations at NASA’s Langley Research Center helped launch the first American into space. Long before these athletes rose to fame and Black women played key roles in space exploration, Hampton was crucial in shaping the foundation of the United States.

As someone from Hampton, I wish I could say I was aware of this, but it wasn't something I learned in school or from my neighbors and elders—many of whom were unaware themselves. I discovered the truth over a decade later, far from home, while reading the 1619 Project in the New York Times.

Like many young professionals who left home after high school without looking back, my feelings about Hampton are complex.

It's my home, where I spent countless hours cracking crabs at Buckroe Beach and indulging in the Bay Days festival. Yet there were aspects of my childhood that I never questioned, such as why I attended Robert E. Lee Elementary School, named after a Confederate general, or why streets like Kecoughtan bore the names of Native Americans displaced by the British.

As an adult, if anyone inquired about my origins, I would say I was from the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area. No one knows where Hampton is anyway, I would think, despite nearly 2 million people living in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It felt small, and it seemed like few people ever left. As a child, I'd gaze up at the planes flying overhead from my expansive yard, dreaming of the day I'd be on one. Once I left, I rarely looked back. Hampton was where I had lived—where my grandma, aunties, cousins, church, and neighbors guided me in navigating life both there and beyond—but I always sought home elsewhere.

Yet here I am, back in Hampton to confront the history beneath my feet in a place I thought I had outgrown. I’m here to engage with the past—and to discover what scholars and historians are doing to share that history with both tourists and locals.

To truly grasp the essence of Hampton, Virginia, one must reflect on the very ground it stands upon.

During a guided history tour organized by the city, visitors can discover the Emancipation Oak, which boasts a canopy that stretches over 100 feet wide at Hampton University. This tree is a historic site; beneath its vast branches, newly freed enslaved individuals found relief from the sweltering Virginia heat and the brutalities of slavery. Here, abolitionists, including a Black educator named Mary Peake, taught those newly liberated how to read and write. In 1863, the Emancipation Oak hosted the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in the South.

Seventy years later, just five miles away, Aberdeen Gardens emerged in 1934 as a model community for African American families. It was the only such neighborhood in the nation—"built by Negroes for Negroes"—developed by a Black architect and contractors. This lesser-known but equally significant aspect of the Civil Rights Movement saw Hampton Institute students stage a sit-in at a lunch counter to protest Jim Crow laws in 1960.

However, the year 1619 stands out as perhaps the most crucial. It marks the arrival of the first enslaved Africans—"20 and so odd Negroes," as noted by the English colonizer John Rolfe—at Old Point Comfort, now Fort Monroe, at the far edge of what was then known as the Colony of Virginia, laying the groundwork for chattel slavery in the United States.

Tales of Old Point Comfort’s significance in the establishment of slavery in the U.S. were shared orally through families and neighborhoods. Some educators would stray from official learning standards to recount how the first Africans arrived. Yet, in my upbringing, I don't recall being taught this history. There have been longstanding financial motivations for neglecting Hampton’s narrative: Tourism thrives in Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg, attracting history enthusiasts from around the globe. Tourists contributed $728 million to Greater Williamsburg in 2020, with $446 million spent in the city itself. By contrast, visitors spent $263 million in Hampton in 2019. While Hampton possesses unique attractions, it has often been overshadowed by the more glamorous destinations in the area.

This began to shift in August 2019, when thousands gathered in Hampton to mark the 400th anniversary of the onset of slavery. Dressed in white, they washed their hands and bodies at Buckroe Beach, invoking the spirits of the past through song, dance, and prayer.

For many young people, including myself, who have called this city home, there’s a deep pain, anger, and sorrow stemming from a history that was, for various reasons, hidden from us.

"We simply didn’t know," my friend Brandon remarked as we reminisced about a decade’s worth of history lessons, comparing our past education over drinks just a mile from where our history began.

The last time I visited Fort Monroe, in 2010, it was an operational Army base.

It’s notable that a place once so heavily fortified became the birthplace of a history that has been so closely guarded.

It was a chilly, rainy day as military police, armed with rifles, carefully searched the vehicles we arrived in. Today, Fort Monroe is no longer an Army installation; it became part of the National Park Service after being decommissioned by President Barack Obama in 2011. The area now features coffee shops, summer concerts, elegant homes available for rent—but not for purchase—and million-dollar waterfront views. It resembles a college campus more than the military base it once was, or the entry point for the enslaved Africans who arrived in 1619, cold and exposed.

The first Africans, originally from Angola, were never meant to reach North America. They were aboard the San Juan Bautista when it was intercepted by the White Lion and subsequently taken to Point Comfort in exchange for food and supplies.

To gain insight into the past and present, I visited the Fort Monroe National Monument. There, I met Eola Dance, a Hampton native and superintendent for the National Park Service, along with Phyllis Terrell, the director of communications at the Fort Monroe Authority. I inquired about what attracts visitors to this site.

"Many [national] parks commemorate a single day in history—like a battle or a significant event. Fort Monroe remains a place of continuous historical importance," Terrell explained.

Regarding the obscurity of so much of Hampton’s history, historians trace it back to the mid-20th century when groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans campaigned for revisions to how slavery was taught in public schools. The UDC, in particular, championed the "Lost Cause" narrative, which downplayed the role of slavery in the Civil War.

"Typically, we would learn about Jefferson Davis’s imprisonment and Robert E. Lee’s engineering work here. Beyond that, we rarely heard about other histories—like women’s history or Native American history," noted Dance, whose office at Fort Monroe is located in the former home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

"At times, there are consensus points in history," Dance remarked. "Other times, our work challenges those agreements—this is what we are witnessing now."

The 1619 Project, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2020, ignited national discussions about the place of critical race theory, or CRT, in education. Virginia educators and historians I spoke with are closely monitoring developments from Richmond. The new governor, Glenn Youngkin, inaugurated this past January, ran on an anti-CRT platform, and his first official act was to create a hotline for reporting educators accused of teaching it. A month later, Youngkin visited Fort Monroe, tweeting that it was vital to "tell all our history"—a reflection, some argue, of the ongoing struggle over historical narratives among pundits and politicians.

"What we are experiencing is normal; it’s what we’re meant to do," Dance stated, referring to the CRT debates. "We should embrace diverse perspectives. Different methodologies and resources are essential to this process."

"In this moment, I see the beauty of how history, journalism, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and public history converge to provide a fuller understanding of our past," she added.

Eager to learn how educators were teaching this history, I contacted Fredricka Conyers-Brinkley—whom I fondly refer to as my "Mama"—an African American history teacher at my former school, Phoebus High. Over beers at the 1865 Brewing Company, a Black-owned brewery and speakeasy in the Phoebus neighborhood, I found that today’s students have far more inquiries about the past than I did at their age. They aren’t hesitant to question those responsible for their education.

"I recently spoke with a student who was upset because they thought [the 1619 commemoration] celebrated slavery. I had to clarify the distinction between celebration and commemoration. Knowing your history allows you to hold your head high—there’s a profound sense of self-pride that comes with it," she explained.

For those who consider Hampton home, that self-pride motivates them to share their version of “their” Hampton with both tourists and locals. William Comer, the founder of 1865 Brewing Company, mentioned that he’s benefited from the influx of visitors to Hampton, particularly those paying respects at Fort Monroe.

"It’s a beautiful city," he shared with me across the bar on a warm April afternoon. "It’s evolving. This is why they say Phoebus has come alive—it started from nothing."

Hampton is indeed a beautiful city, rich in complexity and intrigue. It’s emerging as a tourism hotspot for travelers wanting to pay tribute to the path of those 20 and odd enslaved individuals from 400 years ago. The city now offers driving and bus tours for interested visitors, along with online tours for those unable to travel.

As a journalist, I returned to the city to gain a clearer understanding of why the events of 1619 felt like a hidden truth to its residents. I left with as many answers as questions, but like the visitors who came to Buckroe and Point Comfort in 2019, I gained a deeper insight into both myself and the history of this nation. For the first time, I felt a sense of longing for home as I departed.