Florida A&M University
public, historically black university in Tallahassee, Florida (U.S.)
Florida A&M University (FAMU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. Founded in 1887, it is the third-largest historically black university in the US by enrollment and the only public historically black university in Florida. It is a member of the State University System of Florida and is accredited to award baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral degrees by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Florida A&M sports teams are known as the Rattlers, and compete in Division I of the NCAA. They are a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC).
History
Black abolitionist Jonathan C. Gibbs first introduced legislation to create the State Normal College for Colored Students in 1885, one year after being elected to the Florida Legislature. The date also reflects the new Florida Constitution of 1885, which prohibited racial integration in schools. The college was located in Tallahassee because Leon County and adjacent counties led the state in African-American population, reflecting Tallahassee's former status as the center of Florida's slave trade. (See Tallahassee's black history.) The site of the university is the 375-acre slave plantation of Florida governor William Pope Duval, whose mansion, today the site of the Carnegie Library, burned in 1905.
On October 3, 1887, the State Normal College for Colored Students began classes, and became a land-grant college four years later when it received $7,500 under the Second Morrill Act, and its name was changed to State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students. However, it was not an official institution of higher learning until the 1905 Buckman Act, which transferred control from the Department of Education to the Board of Control, creating what was the foundation for the modern Florida A&M University.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Florida A&M University” is public, historically black university in Tallahassee, Florida (U.S.). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Florida, University and public, not as a finished interpretation.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1430048. VIAF identifies the subject as 122497687. The Library of Congress control number is n81139282. Authority coordinates are 30.418, -84.284. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1885 and 1905.
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This entry incorporates text from “Florida A&M University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.