Florida Memorial University

Florida Memorial University is a private coeducational institution with the distinction of being one of the oldest academic centers in the state, and the only historically Black university in South Florida.

In 1879, members of the Bethlehem Baptist Association founded the school, then called Florida Baptist Institute, in Live Oak, Fla., to create “a college of instruction for our ministers and children.” Amid racial tensions, then President Rev. Matthew Gilbert and other staff members fled Live Oak for Jacksonville, Fla., where he founded the Florida Baptist Academy in the basement of Bethel Baptist Church, with Sarah Ann Blocker as the main instructor.

In 1896, Nathan White Collier was appointed president of the Academy, a post he held for 45 years. J. Rosamond Johnson was recruited to teach music at the school, where he composed music for the poem “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” creating the song now known as the “Negro National Anthem.”

Due to a growing student body, in September 1918, the school began its third incarnation at its new home in St. Augustine, Fla., as the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute. The students were encouraged to be industrious and self-sufficient, receiving hands-on training in the practical fields that would allow them to support themselves and their families. In 1942, the school merged with the still-operating Florida Institute at Live Oak and became Florida Normal Industrial and Memorial College. Florida native and writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, served as an instructor for the school during this time.

The advent of the civil rights movement brought change to St. Augustine. Florida Memorial students protested segregation by participating in sit-ins, wade-ins, and swim-ins, orchestrated in part by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In light of the turbulent times, Dr. Royal W. Puryear oversaw the relocation of the school to a 48-acre former air strip near the South Florida City of Opa-locka in Miami-Dade County.

In November 1968, the new campus opened as Florida Memorial College. In December 2004, the institution’s charter was amended, and the name Florida Memorial University was adopted.