Originally known as Hampton Institute, Hampton University is a predominantly black university in Hampton, Virginia. It was founded shortly after the Civil War ended. Beneath what is now known as the "Emancipation Oak," Mary Smith Peak first taught classes in 1861, defying a Virginia law against teaching free Blacks, slaves, or mulattoes to read and write. Years later, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was read aloud beneath the same tree. The tree is still on campus.