Hampton University Alum Zachary Scott to give Founder’s Day Address, University to Unveil Legacy Park
Hampton, Va. – Zachary Scott, President & CEO EboxSecure Logistics Group and Hampton alumnus ‘78, will give the keynote address at the 126th Annual Hampton University Founder’s Day ceremony on Jan. 27 at 11:30 a.m. in the Hampton University Memorial Church. Following the ceremony, the university will unveil “Legacy Park.” The park will be centered between Hampton’s noted historical landmarks Memorial Church and Ogden Hall facing the campus’ scenic waterfront. This dedicated space will serve as a memorial to a long list of contributors and stalwart supporters of the mission of Hampton University. The intricately designed park will include sculpted benches and statues commemorating the likes of US Presidents, Civil Rights icons HU alumni and a special tribute in statue to the founder of HU Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong and our visionary President, Dr. William R. Harvey, the longest seated university president in the country. The unveiling of this is breathtaking site culminates a full year of celebration of the leadership of Hampton University.
“Zachary Scott and his professional success are an example of what Hampton University founder Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong envisioned when he founded this institution for educating recently freed slaves 151 years ago. His dream was to prepare the best and the brightest to lead our great nation and the make a positive impact on the world at large,” said Hampton University President, Dr. William R. Harvey. “His comments will truly be well received on this historic day. Not only will Gen. Armstrong and his legacy be remembered, but we will also recognize the many men and women who have significantly touched our soil and shores here at Hampton University with the opening of Legacy Park. ”
Scott’s 36 year UPS career began in 1979 as a package car driver in New Jersey, after receiving his Psychology degree from Hampton University in 1978. During his career, Scott has several rotational assignments with increasing levels of responsibility, including Industrial Engineering, Business Development and Package Operations. In 2000, Scott was promoted to Senior VP of UPS, where he managed the states of Louisiana and Mississippi. In 2010, he was named President of the Midwest region’s largest district when UPS created the Ohio Valley District. As UPS Regional President, Scott managed a multi-billion dollar enterprise in UPS fast growing e-commerce footprint. During his tenue as President, Scott received UPS’ highest honor, the People Excellence award and was recognized by the corporation for Best Overall US Domestic Operation from 2011-2014. In 2016 Scott used his knowledge and expertise in the fast growing E-commerce business field to found a cutting edge logistics software organization called EboxSecure Logistics Group.
During the ceremony the Presidential Citizenship Award will be presented to Judge Richard Bray. Judge Bray, a native of Portsmouth and a product of its public schools, graduated from Randolph-Macon College and the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary. Following a tenure as law clerk to Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawrence W. I’Anson, Bray practiced law in the City of Chesapeake until 1989, when he was elected Judge of the Circuit Court of the City of Chesapeake. In 1991, he was elected Judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Judge Bray retired from the Court of Appeals in 2002 and became President and CEO of the Beazley Foundation. In 2009, he was selected to receive Chesapeake’s First Citizen Award.?
Founder’s Day activities will also include the commemorative wreath placing ceremony at the gravesite of the University’s founder, Brig. Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong, in the Hampton University Cemetery at 9:30 a.m. Following the Founder’s Day ceremony, Hampton University will also unveil Legacy Park, located next to the Memorial Church, featuring statues of founder Brig. General Samuel Chapman Armstrong and President Dr. William R. Harvey and benches recognizing others who have positively impacted Hampton University.
The individuals being recognized in at Legacy Park include:
– Martin Luther King Jr.: an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his death in 1968. Dr. King made several visits to Hampton University’s campus. His mother Alberta Williams King graduated from Hampton University in 1924.
– Rosa Parks: During the period of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and following, Mrs. Parks and her family experienced constant harassment. She and her husband were fired from their jobs and unable to secure other employment. As a result, they returned to her home in Detroit. A mere 9 months after the boycott officially ended on December 20, 1956, Mrs. Parks (mother of the Civil Rights Movement) was offered and accepted employment at Hampton University. On September 5, 1957, then President of Hampton, Alonzo G. Moron wrote to Mrs. Parks, “…I would like very much to have you come to work for us at Hampton as hostess at the Holly Tree Inn.” He further shared with her, “…in this job you have an opportunity to meet many interesting people, for we always have visitors at Hampton.” A few days later, Mrs. Parks responded, “If your offer of the job is still open, I would like to hear more about it, and will come to Hampton when you are ready for me to begin. She concluded the letter stating, “Thank you for considering me as Holly Tree Inn’s hostess.” On September 23, 1957, she arrived on campus to assume the aforementioned position. In that position, she demonstrated grace, competence, and courtesy. Mrs. Parks remained employed at the University for 1 year, after which she returned to Detroit where she lived the remainder of her life. Mrs. Parks desired “to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free…so other people would be also free.”
– William Howard Taft: U. S. President William Howard Taft visited Hampton as a recently elected trustee of the school November 20, 1909. President Taft was elected trustee of Hampton Institute in 1909 and served as president of the Board from 1914 until his death in 1930.
– Mary Jackson: an African American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She began as a computer analyst at the segregated West Area Computing division. She took advanced engineering classes and, in 1958, became NASA’s first black female engineer. Jackson’s story is featured in the non-fiction book Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race. She is one of the three protagonists in Hidden Figures, the film adaptation released the same year. Jackson graduated from Hampton University in 1942.
– Barack Hussein Obama: an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. Obama’s relationship with Hampton University dates back to 2007, when President William R. Harvey invited then Senator Obama to address attendees of the 93rd Annual Hampton University Ministers’ Conference. The Hampton University Marching Force Band, performed in President Obama’s Inaugural Parade. President Barack Obama returned to the campus when he served as the University’s 140th commencement speaker on May 9, 2010.
– Susan B. LaFlesche: an Omaha Native American doctor and reformer in the late 19th century. She is widely acknowledged as the first Native American to earn a medical degree. She campaigned for public health and for the formal, legal allotment of land to members of the Omaha tribe. She graduated from Hampton Institute in 1886, as class salutatorian.
– Mary Peake: daughter of a freed African American woman and a Frenchman who conducted the first lessons taught under the Emancipation Oak located on the University’s campus. Classes continued at The Butler School, which was constructed in 1863 next to the oak.
– George H. W. Bush: an American politician who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993. Prior to assuming the presidency, Bush served as the 43rd vice president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. His earlier posts included those of congressman, ambassador, and CIA director. President Bush demonstrated a long-standing support of Historically Black Colleges and Universities over his career. Aside from delivering the 1991 Commencement address at Hampton University, President Bush founded the United Negro College Fund chapter at Yale University during his college days. As president, he continued his overwhelmingly positive support for Black Colleges with initiatives such as appointing 23 individuals to the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities to advise him and the Secretary of Education on ways to strengthen the HBCUs; directed the Office of Personnel Management, in conjunction with the Secretaries of Labor and Education, to develop a program to improve the recruitment of graduate, and undergraduate HBCU students for part-time and summer federal positions; and signed Executive Order 12677, which directed 27 agencies to increase the opportunities for the participation of HBCUs in federal programs and others.
– Jerome Holland: Jerome H. Holland was inaugurated as the ninth president of Hampton Institute in 1960. During Holland’s service to Hampton Institute, the dedications of Thomas Turner Hall, Martin Luther King Hall and the William A. Freeman Hall were accomplished. President Holland was responsible for Virginia Hall, Academy Building, Mansion House, and Memorial Chapel being included on the Virginia Landmarks Register. President Holland served at Hampton until 1970.
– Reuben Burrell: or “Mr. B” as he was also called, said he would work until the day he died and that he did, rarely missing a day of his 66-year career as Hampton’s photographer. He worked under eight presidents recording now-historical events, student life, graduation ceremonies and famous visitors. Hampton University’s broad range of history and culture is readily apparent through Burrell’s work. His photographs and his stories were an inspiration. He touched the lives of many Hampton University administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni, friends and visitors.
– Frederick Douglass: an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. He visited the campus in 1884 and said,
“This school is too vast, too multiform, too cosmian, to be grasped in a single hour. I have seen London, I have seen Edinburgh I have seen Venice, I have seen the Coliseum, I have seen the British Museum, but I should not have seen the world if I had not seen Hampton Institute. I have seen more today of what touches my feelings, more of prophecy of what is to be, more of contrast with what has been, than I have ever seen before. I can’t talk, I can only say I am glad-glad-glad deep in my heart, with what I see.”
Frederick Douglass [January 1884]
The Founder’s Day Ceremony will be live streamed at media.hamptonu.edu.
