The Archival Gallery at Florida Memorial University is housed on the first floor of the Nathan W. Collier Library. It has been established not only to further establish historical order, but also to give a terse account of university records items that have been received and maintained throughout their life cycle.
These records are kept as accurate historical evidence of value as they have been accessioned and barcoded for permanence in the University archival and special collections. The resources are definitely available for their historical and research value for academic and business usage.
Florida Memorial University stems out of the mergers in 1941 of 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.
In Jacksonville, President Nathan White Collier , then president, recruited the renowned composer, J. Rosamund Johnson, who later assisted his brother, James Weldon Johnson, with the poem “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” and setting it to music (Rose Thevenin). By 1919, the NAACP adopted the hymn as “The Negro National Anthem.”
Today, the Archival Gallery exhibits cultural, social, and intellectual resources, and artifacts selected from the regular archives for Record Retentions .
Florida Memorial University , accredited by SACSCOC, is under the leadership of Dr. Jaffus Hardrick.
All of the exhibits in the Archival Gallery extend from when the University relocated to St. Augustine, Florida, and remained until 1968 to Florida Normal and Industrial Institute, before relocating to Miami, Florida in 1968.
Mondays thru Fridays, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm; and by appointment