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

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