Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the United States by enrollment and the only public historically black university in Florida. It is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, as well as one of the state's land grant universities, and is accredited to award baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
FAMU campus, Lee Hall
Carnegie Library c. 1930.
Lee Hall c. 1930.
The FAMU Marching 100
Historically black colleges and universities
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving African Americans. Most of these institutions were founded during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War and are concentrated in the Southern United States. They were primarily founded by Protestant religious groups, until the Second Morill Act of 1890 required educationally segregated states to provide African American, public higher-education schools in order to receive the Act's benefits.
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth, making it the oldest HBCU in the nation
President George H. W. Bush signs a new Executive Order on historically black colleges and universities in the White House Rose Garden, April 1989
North Carolina A&T State University is the nation's largest HBCU by enrollment.
Vice President and HBCU alumna Kamala Harris with students attending HBCUs