Putnam County is a county located in the northern part of the state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 73,321. Its county seat is Palatka.
St. Johns County is a county in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 273,425. The county seat and most populous incorporated city is St. Augustine, although the nearby community, St. Johns, has a higher population. St. Johns County is part of the Jacksonville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Lakeside is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Clay County, Florida, United States. It is part of the greater Orange Park area and is included in the Jacksonville, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 31,275 at the 2020 census, up from 30,943 at the 2010 census.
Palatka is a city in and the county seat of Putnam County, Florida, United States. Palatka is the principal city of the Palatka Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is home to 72,893 residents. The Palatka micropolitan area is included in the Jacksonville—Kingsland–Palatka, FL-GA Combined Statistical Area.
Florida Memorial University is a private historically black college in Miami Gardens, Florida. Founded as the Florida Baptist Institute, today it claims a focus on broader Christianity and is a member of the United Negro College Fund.
St. Augustine High School is a private Catholic high school for young men under the direction of the Order of Saint Augustine, located in the North Park district of San Diego, California, and founded in 1922. It is located in the Diocese of San Diego, and is a member of the Augustinian Secondary Education Association.
The Jacksonville Metropolitan Area, also called the First Coast, Metro Jacksonville, or Northeast Florida, is the metropolitan area centered on the principal city of Jacksonville, Florida and including the First Coast of North Florida. As of the 2020 United States census, the total population was 1,605,848. The Jacksonville–Kingsland–Palatka, FL–GA Combined Statistical Area (CSA) had a population of 1,733,937 in 2020 and was the 34th largest CSA in the United States. The Jacksonville metropolitan area is the 40th largest in the country and the fourth largest in the State of Florida, behind the Miami, Tampa, and Orlando metropolitan areas.
State Road 207 is a four-lane state highway in northeast Florida, extending from US 17 in East Palatka, Florida at the southwest end to US 1 in St. Augustine, Florida at the northeastern end.
Bishop Kenny High School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational Catholic high school in Jacksonville, Florida. It is located in and administered by the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine. The founder Archbishop Joseph Patrick Hurley established the school in 1952, following the merger of three previous Catholic high schools in the Jacksonville area. Bishop Kenny High School was renamed in honor of William John Kenny, the third bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine.
Kelley R. Smith is an American former politician in the state of Florida. He served as a representative in the Florida House of Representatives.
Robert L. McLendon Jr. was an American academic, and the former president of St. Johns River Community College based in Palatka, Florida. He served as the president from 1972 to 2008. With his 36-year tenure he was one of the longest-serving presidents in the history of the Florida Community Colleges System.
Education in Jacksonville, Florida is available through both public and private sources.
Palatka High School is a public high school located in Palatka, Florida, operated by the Putnam County School Board. The school was established 1977 after merging two existing schools - Palatka Central and Palatka South. The campus has completed several renovation projects with science labs, new classrooms, a performing arts area, and office areas. Palatka High School serves the Palatka and East Palatka areas. Current student enrollment is about 1,400, drawing students from Jenkins Middle School. Students attend 7 classes per day, taking a wide variety of courses, including dual enrollment courses at St. Johns River State College. PHS offers Honors and AP courses and a variety of elective classes including Art and Journalism. Florida Virtual School is also an option for students.
Gibbs Junior College was created in 1957 by the Pinellas County Board of Public Instruction to serve African-American students in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was the first and most successful of Florida's eleven new African-American junior colleges, founded in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the racial integration mandated by the unanimous 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision. It was named for the minister and abolitionist Jonathan C. Gibbs, who opened a private school for freed slaves after the Civil War, and was later Florida's Secretary of State (1868–1872) and then Superintendent of Public Instruction, the first African-American member of the Florida Cabinet.
Collier-Blocker Junior College, located at 1100 N. 19th Street in Palatka, Florida, opened its doors in 1960. It was one of eleven black junior colleges founded in the late 1950s at the initiative of the Florida Legislature. The Florida Constitution of 1885 had established legal racial segregation in schools and other facilities. But the unanimous Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 ruled that segregated facilities were unconstitutional. The legislature founded new junior colleges to add access to the segregated higher education system in the state. They wanted to demonstrate that a "separate but equal" higher education system existed in Florida for African Americans.
Lincoln Junior College, located in Fort Pierce, Florida, United States, opened its doors in 1960, at the same time as Indian River Junior College, restricted to white students. It was designed to serve Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee, and St. Lucie counties. It was one of eleven black community colleges which were founded, at the urging of the Florida Legislature, in the late 1950s and early 1960s to show that a "separate but equal" educational system for blacks existed in Florida; the Legislature wished to avoid the integration mandated by the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. At the time, there was no nearby college for Negroes, while the distances and lack of funding effectively closed off most local blacks from college.
Johnson Junior College, located at 1200 N. Beecher St. in Leesburg, Florida, opened its doors in 1962 for black students at the same time as Lake-Sumter Junior College for white students. It was designed to serve Lake and Sumter Counties. It was one of eleven black community colleges which were founded, at the urging of the Florida Legislature, in the late 1950s and early 1960s to show that a "separate but equal" educational system for blacks existed in Florida; the Legislature wished to avoid the integration mandated by the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. At the time, there was no nearby college for Negroes, and the distances and lack of funding effectively closed off most local Blacks from college.
The Indian Removal Act provoked many Seminole Indians and their allies to revolt against being forcibly relocated from their lands and homes in the Florida Territory to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. After the Dade Massacre on 28 December 1835, the Second Seminole War was escalated with armed skirmishes and guerilla warfare. Early in the Second Seminole War, the strategically located town of Palatka, Florida Territory was attacked and burned by a group of Seminole Indians and their allies. Most surviving white settlers and black slaves fled to St. Augustine for safety, and the area was mostly abandoned except for free roaming groups of Seminole Indians and their allies. Realizing the importance of a militarily protected and efficient supply line along the St. Johns River General Walker Keith Armistead ordered the main depot moved from Garey's Ferry on Black Creek to Palatka where the U.S. Army built Fort Shannon.
