Armstrong High School, part of the Richmond Public Schools, is a high school located in Richmond, Virginia, with grades 9-12.Known at first as the Richmond Colored Normal School, Armstrong was the first public school in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, for African American students (see racial segregation). Founded in the early 1870s, the Colored Normal School was initially financed by the federal Freedmen's Bureau until it was made part of the Richmond city school system in 1876. The school's name was changed to Armstrong High School in a 1909 transition to a new building.The school's namesake is former Union General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a white commander of a U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) regiment during the American Civil War. General Armstrong later founded the Hampton Institute, a historically black college now known as Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. Among General Armstrong's legacies in education is the fact that he was a principal mentor of Dr. Booker T. Washington.
