Florida A&M University History in Tallahassee, Florida

Florida A&M University began in Tallahassee on October 3, 1887, as the State Normal College for Colored Students, with 15 students and two instructors.

The FAMU history page traces the school to Thomas Van Renssaler Gibbs, a Duval County educator elected to the Florida Legislature in 1884, who orchestrated the passage of House Bill 133 that year. The bill established a white normal school in Gainesville and a school for African Americans in Jacksonville, and the state then decided to relocate the school for African Americans to Tallahassee. Thomas DeSaille Tucker, an attorney from Pensacola, was chosen as the first president and served from 1887 to 1901, and Gibbs, whose political career ended abruptly because of the resurgence of segregation, joined Tucker as the second faculty member.

The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the State University System, gives the same founding date, name and opening count of 15 students and two instructors. FAMU's presidents page lists Gibbs as first vice president from 1887 to 1900. The state historical marker at Lee Hall, placed in 1998 by the Florida Division of Historical Resources, adds that FAMU is the only historically state supported educational facility for African Americans in Florida and that it has always been co-educational.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by rereading FAMU's history, presidents, About, Carnegie Library and Lee Hall pages, the Board of Governors profile of FAMU, and both Leon County entries for the Florida A and M University state marker.

The college moved in 1891 to the Tallahassee hill once called Highwood, after the second Morrill Act of 1890 made it Florida's Black land-grant college.

The state marker at Lee Hall says the second Morrill Act enabled the school to become the Black Land Grant College for the State of Florida, and that in 1891 the college moved from its original location west of town to its present location, once the site of Highwood, Territorial Governor W.P. Duval's slave plantation, on one of the highest hills in Tallahassee. The FAMU history page records that in 1891 the college received $7,500 under the Second Morrill Act for agricultural and mechanical arts education and that its name changed to the State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students.

The same marker text stands at two Tallahassee sites listed by the Division of Historical Resources: on South Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at Lee Hall and at the intersection of West Palmer Avenue and South Adams Street. Both markers are dated 1998.

Between 1905 and 1949 the Tallahassee college became a four-year, degree-granting institution and built much of the campus that still stands.

In 1905, according to the FAMU history page, management of the college moved from the Board of Education to the Board of Control, which officially designated it an institution of higher education. That year a fire destroyed Duval Hall, which housed the school's first library. FAMU's Meek-Eaton Black Archives says President Nathan B. Young asked Andrew Carnegie for help, that Carnegie donated $10,000 in 1906 for a two-story brick library that opened in 1908, and that it was the first Carnegie Library built on a black land-grant college campus. The Black Archives traces its own roots to that 1905 fire.

In 1909 the Tallahassee school's name changed to Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes, and the following year, with an enrollment of 317 students, the college awarded its first degrees. Young, president from 1901 to 1923, built it into a four-year institution offering the Bachelor of Science in education, science, home economics, agriculture and mechanical arts. The state marker says the school was known as Florida A and M College from 1909 until 1953.

John Robert Edward Lee Sr., president from 1924 to 1944, gave the Tallahassee campus much of its present shape. FAMU's presidents page says that by the end of his tenure FAMU had 48 buildings, 396 acres of land, 812 students and 122 staff members. The administration building and auditorium named for him, Lee Hall, was erected in 1927, according to FAMU's venue office, and its auditorium seats 677 on the floor and 513 in the balcony. Under William H. Gray Jr., president from 1944 to 1949, the college obtained an Army ROTC unit and enrollment grew to more than 2,000.

The Tallahassee college became Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1953, during the presidency of George Gore.

The FAMU history page says the Florida Legislature elevated the college to university status in 1953, and that between 1953 and 1968 the Schools of Pharmacy, Law, Graduate Studies and Nursing were created. FAMU became the first Black institution to join the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and enrollment grew to more than 3,500. Twenty-three buildings went up between 1950 and 1968, at construction and renovation costs of more than $14 million, among them Gibbs, Tucker and Truth Halls, the Student Union Building and the Music and Fine Arts Complex. FAMU's presidents page adds that Gore, its second longest serving president after Lee, resisted an encouraged merge with Florida State University, and that the Gore Education Complex and nearby Gore Avenue are named for him.

Benjamin L. Perry Jr., president from 1968 to 1977, led FAMU while federal laws were demanding a desegregated unitary system, and FAMU credits his administration with preserving its autonomy. In 1971 FAMU was recognized as a full partner in the nine-university public higher education system of Florida. The Black Archives Research Center and Museum, the program in medical sciences in conjunction with FSU and the University of Florida, the School of Architecture and a Naval ROTC unit date from his tenure, and enrollment rose from 3,944 in 1969 to 5,024 in 1970.

FAMU nearly doubled its Tallahassee enrollment between 1985 and 1992 and was named the first College of the Year in 1997.

Under Walter L. Smith, president from 1977 to 1985, the FAMU history page says the university grew to eleven schools and colleges and in 1984 gained authority to offer its first Ph.D., in pharmacology. The Gaither Athletic Center added a Women's Athletic Complex, Bragg Memorial Stadium was renovated and expanded to seat some 25,500 spectators, and construction and renovation projects amounted to more than $34 million.

Frederick S. Humphries became the eighth president in 1985 and presided over the Centennial Celebration from October 2, 1986, to December 31, 1987, built around the theme A Legacy to Preserve, A Future to Design and closed with the burial of a time capsule. Enrollment rose from 5,100 in 1985 to 9,551 in 1992 and reached approximately 12,000 in the 1998/99 academic year, and in 1992, 1995 and 1997 FAMU enrolled more National Achievement finalists than Harvard, Yale and Stanford. FAMU's presidents page calls its selection as the first TIME Magazine/Princeton Review College of the Year in 1997 the crowning achievement of his tenure.

The Tallahassee campus also gained federal recognition. On May 6, 1996, the state marker records, the historic Florida A and M College campus was listed in the National Register of Historic Places for the school's historic significance and the architectural style of its buildings.

Marva Johnson has been FAMU's 13th president since August 1, 2025, with her office in Lee Hall on the Tallahassee campus.

The list below follows FAMU's presidents page, which also names acting and interim presidents between these terms, most recently Timothy Beard from August 2024 to August 2025. The page records that Elmira Mangum became the 11th president on April 1, 2014, and the first permanent female president, and that Larry Robinson was named 12th president on Nov. 30, 2017. The Board of Governors lists the president's office at 400 Lee Hall, Tallahassee.

FAMU's About page describes it today as a public, historically Black university in Tallahassee, part of the State University System of Florida, enrolling nearly 10,000 students from across the United States and more than 70 countries, with a College of Law in Orlando and pharmacy and public health sites in Crestview, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami. Its history page lists 54 bachelor's degrees, 29 master's degrees, three professional degrees and twelve doctoral degrees, and the main Tallahassee campus is at 1601 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.