In 1887, the Florida Legislature created a pair of two-year normal schools. The school for whites was established in DeFuniak Springs – and Tallahassee fought off challenges from Jacksonville and Ocala to remain home to the normal school for black teachers. The school was named the state Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students, and it moved into a new building constructed on the grounds of Lincoln Academy, the forerunner of Tallahassee’s celebrated Lincoln High School for black students.
Established on the site where Florida State is located
Interestingly enough the State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students was located on the corner of Copeland Street and Park Avenue, just north of the current Westcott Building on what is now the campus of Florida State University.
Four years later, 1891, the college moved to its current site at “Highwood,” a former slave plantation owned by former Governor William P. Duval, on a hill just south of downtown. In 1909, it began offering four-year degrees and became Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College. And in 1953, it became Florida A&M University.
Plantation roots
It's not clear how many slaves were enslaved at the former Highwood Plantation, but during this time there were about 8,200 enslaved people in Leon County, Florida.
The fact Lincoln Academy and FAMU was established on the on the site where FSU is exactly the lesson FSU history professor Jennifer Koslow wanted to impart to her students.
Koslow said the project topic arose one fall, when FSU students were protesting the statue of Francis Eppes, which was erected at Westcott Hall in 2002.
This history is lost to many FAMU students and alumni
The fact Lincoln Academy and FAMU was established on the on the site where FSU is exactly the lesson FSU history professor Jennifer Koslow wanted to impart to her students.
Koslow said the project topic arose one fall, when FSU students were protesting the statue of Francis Eppes, which was erected at Westcott Hall in 2002.
This history is lost to many FAMU students and alumni
To say that people are standing on the shoulders of history is more than a metaphor. In fact, the saying has a great degree of accuracy on the highest of seven hills.
“People have died where we stand,” said Jianna Hopkins, a psychology major told the FAMUAN in 2004. “We have a connection to that because so many have died for us to have an education.”
The 22-year-old Cincinnati native, said she was not previously aware that FAMU was built on plantation grounds.
“It’s unsettling because of the fact that our people were degraded and dehumanized right here,” Hopkins said. “But it’s positive because although born on a plantation, look at how far we have come now.”
James Eaton, a former FAMU history professor and founder of the Meek-Eaton Black Archives Research Center and Museum, who died in 2004, had done extensive research regarding the University’s history. “Gov. Duval and his brother owned it.”
During the term of former President William H. Gray Jr., Eaton said the administration had a slave tree on campus chopped down.
‘The tree located on the southwest side of the library was cut down because they needed space,” Eaton said. “There was a chain wrapped around it that was removed by President (John Robert E.) Lee’s daughter and was never found again.”
Some students around campus believe FAMU’s location on an old plantation puts the state of blacks in America in perspective.
Hopkins said she thinks slavery still exists today but on a psychological level.
“The visible chains are gone, but now we have to break out of the invisible chains,” Hopkins said. “I think we are still, in essence, slaves.”
Eaton agreed that remnants of the past are still afflicting black people today.
“Things haven’t gotten that much better,” Eaton said. “Klan robes have been exchanged for business suits.”
Although collective progress is evident, Eaton said black people still have quite a journey ahead.
From humble beginnings in 1887, FAMU this past fall jumped up 10 spots in the U.S. News & World Report’s “2024-2025 Best Colleges" rankings to No. 81 moving from the No. 91 spot, a year ago.