"Lift Every Voice and Sing" was publicly performed first as a poem as part of a celebration of Lincoln's Birthday on February 12, 1900 by 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1983, Barrington Irving spent his childhood in inner-city Miami, where he and his friends found little opportunity or incentive to get off the dangerous streets and pursue a professional career.
Florida Memorial University is the only Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in Miami, Florida. The University is the product of two institutional mergers in 1941 involving Florida Baptist Institute established by the Black Baptists of Florida in Live Oak in 1879 and the Florida Baptist Academy established in Jacksonville, Florida in 1892 by Reverend Mathew Gilbert, Reverend J. T. Brown, and Sarah Ann Blocker. Both institutions espoused industrial education, domestic arts, teacher education, agricultural, mechanical, religious training. In Jacksonville, college President Nathan White Collier recruited noted faculty, including J. Rosamund Johnson, who later assisted his brother, James Weldon Johnson in composing the Black national anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” while employed at Florida Baptist Academy. Both institutions received financial support from the Rockefeller General Education Board, Baptist organizations, the Bethany Association, and the American Home Mission Society.
In 1918, the institution relocated to St. Augustine, Florida, where it remained until 1968. From 1924 to 1940, the institution achieved numerous milestones, including construction of several new buildings and dormitories, a change of name to Florida Normal and Industrial Institute, and accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, and the Florida Department of Education in 1931. The institution changed its name to Florida Memorial College in 1963, relocated to Miami, Florida in 1968, and became Florida Memorial University in March 2006, with 41 undergraduate degree programs and graduate programs in education and business administration. Florida Memorial University is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the National Association of Schools of Music, and the Council on Social Work Education.
Rose C. Thevenin
In Carole Boyce Davies eds. The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora, (ABC-CLIO, 2008), 446.
The University was established by, and remains closely affiliated with, the Baptist Church. However, our motto, “Leadership, Character, and Service,” emphasizes Christian values. Strong moral character, mutual respect, freedom of worship, and a commitment to serve are the hallmarks of what it means to be a Florida Memorial Lion.
15800 N.W. 42nd Ave, Miami Gardens, Florida 33054 | (305) 626-3600
© Copyright Florida Memorial University | All rights reserved.
ACCREDITATION: Florida Memorial University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and
Schools to award baccalaureates and master’s degrees. The University is also chartered by the State of Florida.
