On Friday, Oct. 17, the past and future met on the campus of Florida Memorial University (FMU) as university representatives, community members, students and state leaders gathered for what many described as a moment of “coming home.”
Decades after leaving its former campus in St. Augustine during the Civil Rights Movement, the Florida Memorial University Foundation (FMUF) signed a historic ground lease with St. Johns County. The agreement paves the way for Florida’s first state-sponsored Black History Museum to be housed at that site, once known as Florida Normal and Industrial Institute.
For FMU President William C. McCormick Jr., the ceremony was more than a bureaucratic milestone.
FMU President William C. McCormick, Jr., during the homecoming ceremony where the leasing agreement for