The Buckman Act was a Florida law passed by the state legislature in 1905. It reorganized the state's institutions of higher learning and created a

Florida Board of Control The Florida Board of Control (1905-1965) was the statewide governing body for the State University System of Florida, which included all public universities in the state of Florida. It was replaced by the Florida Board of Regents in 1965.

to govern the system. The act, named for legislator

Henry Holland Buckman Henry Holland Buckman (1858–1914) was an attorney from Duval County, Florida, who became a member of the Florida Legislature and served on the Judiciary Committee. Buckman is known for being the author of the Buckman Act, a 1905 law that reor ...

, consolidated the state's six institutions of higher education into three: one for white men, one for white women, and one for

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

. Four institutions—

Florida Agricultural College The history of the University of Florida is firmly tied to the history of public education in the state of Florida. The University of Florida originated as several distinct institutions that were consolidated to create a single state-supported un ...

in Lake City (called University of Florida in 1903–1905), the

East Florida Seminary The East Florida Seminary was an institution of higher learning established by the State of Florida in 1853, and absorbed into the newly established University of Florida in 1905. The school operated in Ocala from 1853 until 1861. After being clos ...

in Gainesville, the St. Petersburg Normal and Industrial School in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, and the South Florida Military College in Bartow—were merged into the new University of the State of Florida for white men. Gainesville was chosen for the location of the new school among several competing cities, and the UF campus opened in 1906. The Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (the future

Florida A&M University Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the U ...

) in Tallahassee served

, and the Florida Female College, later named the

Florida State College for Women Florida State University (FSU) is a public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher e ...

(the future

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

), also in Tallahassee, served white women. A fourth school in St. Augustine provided specialized training and education for the deaf and blind (the

Florida School for the Deaf and Blind The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (FSDB) is a state-supported boarding school for deaf and blind children established in 1885, in St. Augustine, Florida, United States. History In 1882, Thomas Hines Coleman, a young deaf man, was ...

). The Buckman Act was discontinued after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, when the

GI Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

provided a college education for returning U.S. military veterans, the overwhelming majority of them male. It was replaced by a Board of Regents. Single-gender provisions of the Buckman Act at the University of Florida (UF) and the Florida State College for Women (FSCW) were officially eliminated in 1947. FSCW returned to coeducational status as

, while UF became coeducational for the first time. Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes, the future

, taught both genders from its founding. Civil rights efforts and federal legislation in the early 1960s also led to all three institutions becoming racially integrated during that decade, although FAMU remains a

historically black university Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...

, with over 87% of its student body African-American as of 2014.

References

{{cite book , last1=Armstrong , first1=Orland K. , title=The life and work of Dr. A.A. Murphree , date=1928 , publisher=University of Florida , location=Gainesville, FL , page=41 , url=http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00055592/00001/citation , accessdate=20 April 2019 , language=en 1905 in Florida Education in Florida