Archibald Harnamsingh Benson came to the United States from India in 1955 as a student armed with a quick intelligence and a strong will to succeed. The native of Mohamdabad in Uttar Pradesh province had earned a bachelor’s degree at 17 at the University of Allahabad, where he also earned his law degree at 21. He joined the Virginia Union University humanities faculty in 1960 after earning master’s degrees in journalism at Syracuse University and in labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois.

When Richmonder Martin Strother began to sing, his powerful basso profondo voice—without benefit of a microphone—easily commanded an auditorium or concert hall. “He was not a tall man, but he had a tall voice—a big, booming bass voice. He had a voice you would not forget,“ said soprano Lisa Edwards-Burr, assistant professor of music at Virginia Union University. She first worked with him at Dogwood Dell, when he portrayed her father in the Scott Joplin opera “Treemonisha.“

Elvatrice Belsches found the evidence on microfilm and Tuesday night presented an enlarged copy to the president of Virginia Union University. What she found, on Roll 15 Frame 0366 from National Archives records, was further documentation “to substantiate the incredible story” of how the university grew from “the nefarious slave trade to become a beacon of hope.“

The sesquicentennial of the Civil War will put Richmond center stage nationally with both the opportunity and the obligation to tell the story of what happened here honestly. That was the message of “The Future of Richmond’s Past,“ a forum that drew about 160 people to the University of Richmond yesterday for the start of a series of discussions on how to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the war.

Freshman year at college is a time to expand your mind and your horizons. For many students, it’s also a time to unwittingly expand the waistline. Extra pounds dubbed the “freshman 15” are as much a part of college life as new-found freedom. Suddenly faced with an all-you-can-eat buffet almost around the clock—and no parents to tell them what to eat—some students lack the discipline to know when enough is enough.

A Virginia Union University student is back in class after being shot twice last month during what authorities called a melee on campus. The man accused of shooting him isn’t going anywhere in the near future. “He’s just thankful that he’s alive,“ the victim’s father said of his son, who returned to classes Monday using crutches to hobble around campus.

A judge reluctantly set bail for a Richmond city councilman’s nephew who is charged in a shooting last month on the Virginia Union University campus in which a student was wounded. At the end of a nearly hourlong bail hearing yesterday, Richmond General District Judge David E. Cheek Sr. made it clear he was not comfortable releasing Jimar Lee Jewell.

Deandria Spears turns 18 today, and it’s a happy birthday. She’s right where she hoped she might be at this age—starting college, surrounded by friends, looking ahead to a boundless future. Yet there’s no way she could have envisioned this day a few years ago when she was a 14-year-old runaway, moving from friend’s home to friend’s home, never quite knowing what the next day would bring or, sometimes, where her next meal would come from.

A Richmond city councilman’s nephew is being held without bond today in the malicious wounding of a Virginia Union University student early Sunday. Jamir Lee Jewell, whose uncle is Councilman E. Martin Jewell, was arrested Sunday about 1:15 a.m.—minutes after a student was shot in front of Newman Hall, an all-female dormitory on the northern edge of campus near Brook and Graham roads. Jamir Jewell is not a VUU student.

Its first classes were held in an old slave jail at the close of the Civil War. A half-century ago, its students held sit-ins to protest a segregated lunch counter in downtown Richmond. And sometimes, when he needs a bit of motivation to get on with his studies at Virginia Union University, Corey Gibson stops to think about that history.

Its first classes were held in an old slave jail at the close of the Civil War. A half-century ago, its students held sit-ins to protest a segregated lunch counter in downtown Richmond. And sometimes, when he needs a bit of motivation to get on with his studies at Virginia Union University, Corey Gibson stops to think about that history.

Virginia Union University has a $28 million budget, employs 300 people and is an economic engine for Richmond, its new president says. Claude G. Perkins, who was appointed president this month after serving in an acting role since Jan. 21, said VUU’s finances are tied to its enrollment—and that enrollment is growing. The university estimates it will have about 1,600 students this year, including its graduate school.

Location: 2058 Garfield Ave., Lynchburg
  Affiliation: Private, Baptist
  Number of students: 274
  Annual tuition: $7,900
  Location: 700 Park Ave., Norfolk
  Affiliation: Public
  Number of students last year: 6,325, including 287 white students
  Annual tuition and fees: $5,972 in-state; $18,030 out-of-state

In 1970, the federal government targeted predominantly black colleges in Virginia, charging them with racial discrimination. Ten years later, the word “predominantly” had changed to “historically” and a new approach had emerged. Historically black colleges were defined as such in the Higher Education Act of 1965, but, for years after, the schools were viewed more as vestiges of a dual system than a means of economic mobility for African-Americans.

Former Richmond schools Superintendent Lucille Brown; former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder; Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones; Detroit Pistons basketball player Ben Wallace; former NBA player Charles Oakley
  Virginia State University
Msician and composer Billy Taylor; jazz violinist Joe Kennedy Jr.; musician Phil Medley, author of “Twist & Shout”; author Daryl C. Dance; actor James L. Avery Sr. (attended 1968-70), Uncle Phil on television’s “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”; former Del. Jean W. Cunningham, D-Richmond; Del. Rosalyn R. Dance, D-Petersburg