Black
abolitionist Jonathan C. Gibbs first introduced legislation to create the
State Normal College for Colored Students in 1885, one year after being elected to the
Florida Legislature. The date also reflects the new
Florida Constitution of 1885, which prohibited racial integration in schools. The college was located in Tallahassee because
Leon County and adjacent counties led the state in African-American population, reflecting Tallahassee's former status as the center of Florida's slave trade. (See
Tallahassee's black history.) The site of the university is the 375-acre slave plantation of Florida governor
William Pope Duval, whose mansion, today the site of the Carnegie Library, burned in 1905. . On October 3, 1887, the State
Normal College for Colored Students began classes, and became a
land-grant college four years later when it received $7,500 under the Second
Morrill Act, and its name was changed to
State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students. However, it was not an official institution of higher learning until the
1905 Buckman Act, which transferred control from the Department of Education to the Board of Control, creating what was the foundation for the modern Florida A&M University. This same act is responsible for the creation of the
University of Florida and
Florida State University from their previous institutions. In 1909, the name of the college was once again changed, to
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes, and in 1953 the name was finally changed to
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Florida A&M is the only surviving publicly funded historically black college or university in the state of Florida. (
Twelve publicly funded junior colleges serving primarily the African-American population of Florida existed for different periods between 1949 and 1966.) In 1923, there was a student strike that led to the destruction of multiple campus buildings. The strike was a response to Governor
Cary A. Hardee's attempts to eliminate the liberal arts program at the university and convert it to a purely vocational school. Hardee believed that a more educated black populace would be more likely to leave the state, which would negatively impact Florida's economy, and thus believed it was necessary to prevent African-American Floridians from being able to access non-vocational education. The conflict led to the resignation of university president
Nathan B. Young, which in turn sparked a student protest that burned down multiple campus buildings. Ultimately, the liberal arts program was restored after the end of Hardee's term and the appointment of
J. R. E. Lee as the fourth president of the university. In 1951, the university started a pharmacy and nursing program. In order to give these students hands-on experience, the university built a hospital. Until 1971
Florida A&M Hospital was the only one within of Tallahassee to serve African Americans. It closed in 1971, after then-
Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, under federal pressure, started serving African Americans. In 1992, 1995, and 1997, Florida A&M successfully recruited more
National Achievement Scholars than Harvard. FAMU tied with Harvard in 2000, recruiting 62 new National Achievement Scholars, although by 2006 that number had declined to one. The National Achievement Scholarship Corporation discontinued naming scholars in 2015. In the fall of 1997, Florida A&M was selected as the
Time-
Princeton Review "College of the Year" and was cited in 1999 by
Black Issues in Higher Education for awarding more baccalaureate degrees to African-Americans than any institution in the nation. In 2011 Robert Champion, a band member, was beaten to death in a
hazing incident. Two faculty members resigned in connection with a hazing investigation and thirteen people were charged with felony or misdemeanor hazing crimes; one student, a band member, was convicted of manslaughter and hazing charges and sentenced to six years in prison. The scandal resulted in the resignation of Florida A&M's president and played a role in the university's
regional accreditor, the
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, placing Florida A&M on probation for one year. In 2019, Florida A&M and other HBCUs developed a partnership with
Adtalem Global Education and its for-profit
Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados. In May 2024, Florida A&M administrators announced during a commencement ceremony that it had received a $237 million donation, the largest single personal donation to Florida A&M in its 136-year history and the largest gift ever to a
HBCU, from Gregory Gerami, CEO of Batterson Farms Corporation. The gift quickly came under scrutiny due to questions about its legitimacy. The donation was stock from Gerami's private company and its value could not be determined. In response to the public skepticism, Florida A&M paused the acceptance of the gift and initiated an external investigation to determine the soundness of the Gerami donation. The following month, university president Larry Robinson resigned. His resignation followed the May 2024 resignation of Shawnta Friday-Stroud, Florida A&M 's former vice president for university advancement and executive director of the FAMU Foundation, who played a key role in negotiating the Gerami donation. In August 2024, Florida A&M released a final report prepared by
Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney that concluded that the Gerami donation was of no real cash value. The report suggested that the proposed donor may have knowingly misrepresented his financial holdings and outlined how much the failed gift cost the university in actual travel and entertainment expenses as well as negative impact on the university's reputation.
Florida A&M student activism during the Civil Rights Era Demonstrations such as the
Tallahassee bus boycotts and
CORE-led sit-in protests were influenced by the efforts of Florida A&M students to challenge racial segregation during the
Civil Rights Movement. These protests brought national recognition to issues involving interracial dynamics and called attention to the importance of reform in the Tallahassee area. Both Jakes and Pattersin were let out on bonds, but later returned home to crosses burning on their yards that had been placed by members of the
Ku Klux Klan. After this incident FAMU students agreed to boycott the Tallahassee bus system and encouraged other African Americans in the Leon County area to do the same. These student-led protests started what is now known as the
Tallahassee bus boycotts, which sought to end racial segregation in the employment and seating arrangements of city buses. Thanks to the leadership of FAMU students and sisters Priscilla and
Patricia Stephens Due, Florida A&M's
CORE chapter played an active role in several protests across Tallahassee from 1959 to 1964. In November 1959, CORE members conducted their first of many "tests" that attempted to challenge the parctices of racial segregation in the Tallahassee area, with their focus being on whether the city's bus system continued to operate under segregated lines out of "cultural habit" or an "officially imposed pattern." Similar tests were carried out at dime stores around the city, which attempted to measure "discrimination on an empirical level" rather than act as an early version of what would eventually be the student's sit-in protests. Further testing of the bus system took place around the same time as the dime store tests, where students attempted to but inter-state bus tickets from "whites-only" terminals. In February 1960, news spread to Tallahassee's CORE chapter about the
Greensboro sit-ins and the group was encouraged to participate in their own as an act of solidarity. Eight Florida A&M students and two local high schoolers volunteered to participate in the group's first sit in at their local Woolworth lunch counter. After being refused service, students remained at the counter for two hours and did not leave until law enforcement arrived. The CORE chapter later agreed to return to Woolworth the following week with a larger, more well-trained group of students. Rather than letting protestors disperse like before, Tallahassee police arrested 11 out of the 17 protestors present on the grounds of "disturbing the peace." Among those arrested were the Due sisters along with 6 other Florida A&M students. Throughout February and March 1960 numerous other planned sit-ins occurred in the Tallahassee area, with among the most notable taking place March 11 at both the McCrory and Woolworth lunch counters. Throughout September 14–16, mass protests led to around 350 arrests, many of which were FAMU students. Major arrests occurred on September 14 following a protest on the segregated State Theater led by Patricia Stephens Due, with over 248 student arrests in one day on the ground of "willful trespass." Around 250 more student protestors arrived to the jail under the guidance of Reverend's
C.K. Steele, E.G. Evans, and David Brooks to protest the arrest of their peers the night before along with the
16th Street Baptist Church bombing that occurred the same day, leading for the arrest of 100 more students.
University presidents • Thomas Desaille Tucker 1887–1901 •
Nathan B. Young 1901–1923 • William A. Howard 1923–1924 •
John Robert Edward Lee 1924–1944 • J.B. Bragg April 5, 1944 – September 1, 1944 • William H. Gray Jr. 1944–1949 • H. Manning Efferson July 7, 1949 – April 1, 1950 •
George W. Gore 1950–1968 • Benjamin L. Perry Jr. 1968–1977 •
Walter L. Smith 1977–1985 •
Frederick S. Humphries 1985–2001 • Henry Lewis III January 2002 – June 2002 •
Fred Gainous 2002–2004 •
Castell V. Bryant January 2005 – May 2007 •
James H. Ammons July 2, 2007 – July 16, 2012 •
Elmira Mangum April 1, 2014 – September 15, 2016 •
Larry Robinson November 30, 2017 – July 2024 (interim: May–July 2007, July 2012 – April 2014, September 2016 – November 2017) • Timothy L. Beard August 5, 2024 (interim) ==Academics==