Virginia State University will be the first historically black college or university (HBCU) to host a general election presidential debate, the school announced Monday.
Candidates will face off at the school, located near Petersburg, Virginia, just south of the state’s capital city, on Oct. 1, 2024.
"We are honored and grateful to have been chosen as a host for a 2024 Presidential Debate,” VSU President Dr. Makola M. Abdullah said in a statement. "This is a historic moment for our university and for HBCUs nationwide."
Virginia is home to five HBCUs across the Commonwealth. In 2019, a Democratic presidential debate was held at an HBCU, Texas Southern University, for the first time.
The debate will be held in the university’s Multipurpose Center on campus and will be the second of three scheduled presidential debates in 2024.
The first will be on Sept. 16, 2024, at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas and the third and final will be on Oct. 9, 2024 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
The only vice presidential debate next year is scheduled for Sept. 25 at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.
It’s not the first time a university in Virginia has hosted a prestigious political debate.
Back in 2016, Longwood University in the small town of Farmville, Virginia hosted a debate between vice presidential candidates Mike Pence and Tim Kaine.
The University of Richmond was the site for a 1993 presidential debate between President George Bush, Democratic challenger Bill Clinton, and third-party candidate Ross Perot. That debate was the first presidential debate conducted in a town hall-style forum.
This story was originally published by the CBS 6 Web Staff at Scripps News Richmond.
Dates set for presidential, vice presidential debates
The first presidential debate will take place on Sept. 16, 2024, at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.
