Florida Memorial University (FMU) was founded in 1879 and is presently located in beautiful Miami Gardens, Florida. It was originally founded in Live Oak, Florida as the Florida Baptist Institute. However, white supremacists did not like the idea of this institution’s existence and unknown suspects shot into one of the school’s buildings. This prompted then President Matthew Gilbert and a few other staff members to flee Live Oak for Jacksonville. They sought to continue their work to educate African Americans and founded Florida Baptist Academy in the basement of a local church. Sarah Ann Blocker was the inaugural instructor. Meanwhile, the school established in Live Oak continued to operate despite the attack. In 1896, Sarah Ann Blocker and Nathan Collier combined the two schools as The Florida Normal and Technical Institute. Collier served the institution as president until 1941, and Blocker served as Dean of Women and vice-president until 1944. The school moved to St Augustine, Florida until 1968 when it relocated to its current site in Miami Gardens.
J. Rosamond Johnson, younger brother of poet and activist James Weldon Johnson, taught at the school and is most famously known as the music composer of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. The song was first performed by 500 Black students of Florida Baptist Academy (Florida Memorial University).
Zora Neale Hurston was an instructor at the school in 1942 during the editing of memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, and lived close by in a house just east of the school’s campus.
Today, the institution offers 28 undergraduate degree programs and 3 master’s programs. It has a diverse offering of degree programs in STEM, Education, and Aviation. FMU is home to the Wayman Aviation Academy for student flight training.
FMU is the home of the Lions! It offers sports in basketball, football, track and field, soccer, baseball, volleyball, beach volleyball, flag football, and softball.
Notable Alumni:
Captain Barrington Irving Jr.: Youngest person to pilot a plane around the world solo in 2007.
Harry T. Moore: Civil rights leader, Founder of the first branch of the NAACP in Brevard County, Florida.
Freddy Lee Peterkin: aka Freddie Lee, Author, singer-songwriter, actor.
