{"id":165232,"date":"2026-02-23T02:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/165232\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T02:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:11:10","slug":"the-history-of-activism-at-famu-the-famuan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/165232\/","title":{"rendered":"The\u00a0history of\u00a0activism at FAMU\u00a0 \u2013 The FAMUAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Students at FAMU have decades of stories of activism from the civil rights movement to\u00a0modern police brutality. Many times, the stories go untold\u00a0and unnoticed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Sisters\u00a0jailed in\u00a0student\u00a0lunch\u00a0counter\u00a0protest\u00a0visit\u00a0here;\u00a0tell of\u00a0experiences\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Patricia Stephends Due being arrested after defying restraining order with others at
the State Theatre in Tallahassee, 1963. (State Archives of Florida<\/p>\n

\"\"Activists Patricia and Priscilla Stephens with their mother Lottie in Philadelphia.(State Archives of Florida<\/a>)
<\/p>\n

\"\"Priscilla Stephens (later Kruize), from CORE, being arrested at the Tallahassee Regional Airport.(State Archives of Florida<\/a>)<\/p>\n

A headline\u00a0in\u00a0The Philadelphia Tribune\u00a0from May 24,\u00a01960,\u00a0about FAMU students,\u00a0and sisters,\u00a0Priscilla\u00a0Stephens\u00a0Kruize\u00a0and Patricia Stephens\u00a0Due\u00a0while on a national tour sponsored by the\u00a0Congress of Racial Equality.\u00a0The students held a \u201cjail-in\u201d\u00a0where the pair spent 49 of their 60-day sentence in the Leon County jail\u00a0after refusing to pay a $300 fine\u00a0they received after a non-violent sit in protest\u00a0at\u00a0the Woolworth\u2019s lunch counter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey kicked off the civil rights movement in the entire state of Florida,\u201d said\u00a0Dana\u00a0Dennard,\u00a0Ph.D.,\u00a0a psychology professor at FAMU.\u00a0\u201cKing wanted to come down and meet them because of this. This is how serious it was.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sisters founded the Tallahassee chapter of CORE\u00a0and\u00a0innovated the concept of the \u201cjail-in\u201d for civil rights\u00a0activists across the country\u00a0eventually coining the term \u201cJail, No\u00a0Bail,\u201d garnering\u00a0attention\u00a0from Martin Luther King Jr.\u00a0due to the courage of their actions,\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo stand up like that as a student, you are risking your future,\u201d said Corey\u00a0Johnson, 2022\u00a0Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist\u00a0and FAMU graduate.\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re also going up against the administration because anytime\u00a0students are clashing with the dominant society,\u00a0that puts pressure on the university president and the\u00a0university as a whole.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a 1963 leaflet published by the Miami chapter of CORE, the organization urges readers to \u201cPetition the FAMU administration to defend its students and join the battle for Freedom in America,\u201d as\u00a0Patricia Stephens Due\u00a0had been suspended from the university following three months of demonstration in Tallahassee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A Miami CORE flier describing demonstrations in Tallahassee in which Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU) and Florida State University (FSU) students were arrested and released on bail. Two FAMU students, Patricia Stephens Due and Rubin Kenon, were suspended as a result. The flier is encouraging people to contact FAMU Administration and encourage the university to \u201cdefend its students.\u201d (State Archives of Florida<\/a>\/Congress of Racial Equality. Miami Chapter)<\/p>\n

\"\"News special relating the sleep-in demonstrations of three FAMU students who were protesting the suspension of fellow students Patricia Stephens Due and Rubin Kenon.(State Archives of Florida<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In\u00a0retaliation, FAMU students held a sleep-in to protest the suspension\u00a0at the home of university president at the time, George W. Gore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The\u00a0repeating\u00a0history\u00a0behind\u00a0the\u00a0closure\u00a0of\u00a0Florida A&M University\u2019s\u00a0hospital\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Nurses with patient at the FAMU Hospital in Tallahassee, 1965(State Archives of Florida<\/a>\/Finch)<\/p>\n

In a 2019 deep dive by WFSU, the often-untold history of FAMU\u2019s trials with\u00a0closure and dissolvement are documented by alum\u00a0Lynn Hatter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the late\u00a0\u201860s and\u00a0\u201870s, FAMU faced two detrimental closures with the defunding\u00a0and closure\u00a0of FAMU Law School in 1968 and the closure of\u00a0the FAMU hospital in 1971.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"FAMU president Dr. George W. Gore being congratulated during award ceremony in Tallahassee.(State Archives of Florida<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"FAMU president Benjamin L. Perry presenting diploma to new graduate in Tallahassee.(State Archives of Florida<\/a>)<\/p>\n

During the presidency of George W. Gore (\u201850 \u2013 \u201968) and Benjamin L. Perry (\u201868 \u2013 \u201977), the burning question of both administrations was whether FAMU should be merged into Florida State University.\u00a0At this time, the argument presented by the legislator and the Board of Regents was that, following\u00a0integration,\u00a0\u201cFAMU did not have a clearly defined mission or \u201cunique\u201d role and scope\u201d as stated\u00a0in\u00a0\u201cFlorida\u00a0Agricultural and Mechanical University: A Centennial History\u201d\u00a0by\u00a0Leedell W. Neyland and John W.\u00a0Riley.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This\u00a0time in\u00a0FAMU\u2019s history\u00a0inspired many students to take\u00a0a more radical stance\u00a0with their position as\u00a0Black students and people.\u00a0This radicalism\u00a0was\u00a0largely\u00a0done\u00a0in\u00a0the campus\u00a0newspaper,\u00a0The FAMUAN.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question of merger and the\u00a0apparent\u00a0insensitivity of the BOR and legislators alike to the needs of black students helped to push the paper and many of FAMU\u2019s student leaders into a more radical posture,\u201d Neyland\u00a0said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"FAMU students protest \u2013 Tallahassee, Florida, 1984. (State Archives of Florida<\/a>\/Thomas)<\/p>\n

In the November\u00a01967 issue of The FAMUAN and beyond,\u00a0students began to publish their criticisms of the administration, demands that were more inline of their newfound Black consciousness and pieces describing their distaste for the\u00a0frequent\u00a0proposal to merge their beloved university.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe paper began to speak boldly on restrictive administrative measures,\u00a0Black power, civil rights, group oppression,\u00a0and also\u00a0to demand greater emphasis on black history and culture in the curriculum as well as more black activist speakers on campus,\u201d Neyland\u00a0said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Graduate of FAMU\u00a0not quite finished\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was seen as\u00a0being like\u00a0a champion of a little guy, because I went up against Dr.\u00a0Humphries\u00a0and administration, and I won,\u201d\u00a0Zaccai Free\u00a0said. Free,\u00a0known as Larry Tait\u00a0while attending FAMU, was\u00a0Student\u00a0Government Association\u00a0president\u00a0from 1994 to 1996.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Throughout\u00a01996,\u00a0James Harper of\u00a0The Tampa Bay Times\u00a0profiled and\u00a0kept tabs on\u00a0Florida A&M University SGA president of the time, Larry Tait, who he described as a\u00a0\u201cFlorida\u2019s best known\u00a0student radical.\u201d\u00a0In leadership and making waves on campus during a time he describes as\u00a0\u201cFAMU\u2019s Golden Era of Black Consciousness,\u201d\u00a0Free says that he\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0initially\u00a0want to be SGA president\u00a0but became a voice on campus through his student zine, \u201cTHOUGHTS\u00a0Magazine.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The first edition of \u201cTHOUGHTS Magazine\u201d dated Oct. 15, 1992. (Zaccai Free)<\/p>\n

\"\"Black History Month edition of \u201cTHOUGHTS Magazine\u201d, featuring a cartoon about Thurgood Marshall on the cover.\u00a0(Zaccai Free)<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a very popular president of SGA,\u201d said Corey Johnson. \u201cHe tried to bring a lot of consciousness and progressive type things to the university, and they fought\u00a0President Humphries\u00a0and administration, fought tooth and nail.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tensions on campus between administration and the student body were high\u00a0following the\u00a0tragic\u00a0killing of student, Tamika S. Stewart in 1995 on campus in Palmetto South Apartments.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents started holding a bunch of forums and were inviting them to show up,\u00a0and\u00a0they\u00a0wouldn\u2019t\u00a0show up,\u201d\u00a0Corey\u00a0Johnson\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cAnd that ultimately led to a bunch of us marching on the administration and marching into President Humphries office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indifference from administration partnered with\u00a0subpar university operations brought the clash to a head.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOver a period of three or four days, students all began to descend on Tucker Hall and held meetings that just grew and grew,\u201d Johnson\u00a0said. \u201cAt one point,\u00a0there was a good 300\u00a0of us,\u00a0and we just said we\u2019re not going to class anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Free and Johnson both\u00a0single\u00a0this\u00a0protest\u00a0out as a \u201cstudent\u00a0uprising.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Students took over the\u00a0WAMF (now\u00a0known\u00a0as WANM 90.5)\u00a0radio station, at the time\u00a0located\u00a0inside Tucker Hall, taking turns on-air speaking about what had been taking place on campus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately,\u00a0the students\u2019 efforts came to an end with police\u00a0force and administration making the stride to come break the occupation up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Administrations\u00a0attempted\u00a0to ease the tension that boiled over with\u00a0on-campus\u00a0implementations\u00a0like a new parking garage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt forced the\u00a0administration to have\u00a0to make some lasting improvements to the university,\u201d Johnson\u00a0said. \u201cBut in the short term, after the dust settled, they arrested Larry\u00a0Tait;\u00a0they arrested a bunch of students. They kicked some students out of FAMU. It\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0come without a cost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Free says he still has not been back to FAMU since graduating in 1996.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTait now faces felony and misdemeanor charges, stemming from a student protest he helped lead a month before graduating,\u201d reads the article by Harper in\u00a0The\u00a0Tampa Bay Times\u00a0following Free\u2019s graduation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI really love FAMU;\u00a0I love the experience I had there,\u201d\u00a0Free\u00a0said. \u201cI was very traumatized by the things that happened to me at the hands of the police chief and then later on when we had the student uprising and we took over the radio station.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Free encourages current students to not let fear stop them from\u00a0making a change.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go around\u00a0being scared of\u00a0everything,\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0not going to live your life,\u201d\u00a0Free\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cI was afraid when they\u00a0said they were going to kick me out of school.\u00a0My parents did not send me there to start a magazine\u00a0\u2026\u00a0but the anchor to me is always your spiritual\u00a0strength.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Students hit the streets after Anderson verdict\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

A headline pulled from The FAMUAN chronicling the\u00a0collective effort of FAMU, FSU and TCC\u00a0after the\u00a0acquittal of the guard who killed Martin Lee Anderson in January\u00a02006 at a Panama\u00a0City\u00a0boot\u00a0camp.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The march was an effort of student body president Phillip Agnew and word was spread through flyers and through Facebook, the only social media platform at the time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Flyer of Martin Lee Anderson for the 2007 Protest shared among the three campuses in Tallahassee. (Erica Baker) <\/p>\n

\u201cThousands of students came,\u201d said Erica Baker, activist and 2011 FAMU graduate. \u201cWe blocked those streets off; cars could not come either way. So, we gridlocked traffic, demanding justice for Martin Lee Anderson\u00a0and\u00a0his family.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baker chronicles her time as a young adult, finding herself\u00a0through activism\u00a0at FAMU in the late 2000s and early 2010s, citing the Martin Lee Anderson protest and an NAACP\u00a0organized march to the Leon County Courthouse to vote for Barack Obama in fall 2008.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe walked to pay homage to those who walked before us, those who gave their lives trying to vote, and to extend history by walking to vote for a Black man,\u201d\u00a0Baker\u00a0said. \u201cFor many of us, like me, that was our first time ever voting in any election.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baker credits her time at FAMU with her urge to\u00a0continue\u00a0her work as an activist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were\u00a0acclimated\u00a0to using our\u00a0voice,\u201d\u00a0Baker\u00a0said. \u201cKnowing\u00a0that you\u00a0come from such a long lineage of standing up to issues and using your voice to be an instrument. I really\u00a0bought\u00a0into\u00a0it.\u00a0\u2026\u00a0So\u00a0FAMU really was a pivotal point in that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The image of Baker (far right) reacting to the George Zimmerman verdict in the NBC database in 2012. (Erica Baker)<\/p>\n

Baker\u00a0has gone on to participate in\u00a0several direction action movements from Sanford, Florida,\u00a0after\u00a0George\u00a0Zimmerman was found not guilty, where her reaction from outside the courthouse has become a moment frozen in history\u00a0through\u00a0museums\u00a0and documentaries, to the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement in Atlanta\u00a0on the frontlines with her students.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While\u00a0retired\u00a0from\u00a0on-ground protesting, Baker has taken her activism to the business world with\u00a0\u201cBlack & Bilingual\u201d,\u00a0publishing books and\u00a0educational\u00a0products for\u00a0language\u00a0learners.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students at FAMU have decades of stories of activism from the civil rights movement to\u00a0modern police brutality. Many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-165232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-tallahassee","9":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","10":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}