(majestic band music) - [Narrator] Historically black colleges and universities are vibrant centers of education.

- [Cheerleader] Let's go, Rattlers!

- [Cheerleader] C'mon, Rattlers!

- [Narrator] They hold a special place in African American culture.

- [Both] Strike and strike and strike again!

- [Narrator] At their peak in the 1930s, there were 121 HBCUs across the country.

But in the years since integration, these institutions, these centers of community, they've been slowly disappearing.

(crowd chattering) - That loss is something Florida A&M University knows well.

It's lived it before.

FAMU is an HBCU that's still a center of community in Tallahassee.

But it's been fighting for survival for decades, ever since the closure of one of its most notable institutions.

(melancholic string music) Today, FAMU's Foote-Hilyer building houses the school's admissions offices, financial aid, and student account centers.

But nearly 50 years ago, it was a hospital.

- I did not know that FAMU had a hospital.

- No, I did not know that FAMU had a hospital.

- I actually did.

My advisor, Mr. McCaskill, shared in class that he was born there.

- [Narrator] Ed Holifield's mother, Millicent, was a nurse at the hospital.

He grew up to be a doctor of Internal Medicine.

But when Ed Holifield was a child, FAMU's hospital was the only one that treated African Americans in north Florida.

- You've talked to FAMU students.

And they don't have a clue as to the role that this hospital played.

And as far as I'm concerned, that's totally unacceptable.

That's administrative malpractice.

They need to know about this hospital, the role that it played, and the role, and how it helped keep black people alive.

- [Narrator] The roots of this social center go back to the end of the Civil War, when schools like FAMU were established to educate a newly emergent, free black population.

- You have the confluence of a variety of worlds, and segregation and reconstruction, the Civil War, freedmen.

African Americans, or previously slaves, they're now understanding the banking system, and land ownership, and independence.

- [Narrator] Dr. Nashid Madyun is the director of the Southeastern Meek-Eaton Archive on the campus of Florida A&M.

- [Dr. Madyun] The argument between W.E.B.

Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, about what takes your path to independence is a higher education or vocational skills.

- [Narrator] FAMU's hospital started in 1911, combining the vocation of nursing with higher education.

- We as children thought we would be like them.

Because I thought, surely I'd be a nurse.

There was no way I wouldn't be a nurse, because they were just simply beautiful to me in the white uniforms, you know, the white stockings.

And the white shoes and the caps.

And I thought they were just gorgeous.

My name is Rhonda Little Ransom.

And I'm from, born in Pensacola, but Tallahassee is my home site.

That's what I always say.

The nurses, I remember as a child, were so pleasant to us.

And so kind to us.

This hospital, for us, particularly the ones that lived in this neighborhood, was a social center.

- [Narrator] FAMU became the first school, black or white, to have a nursing baccalaureate program in the state.

These nurses, as well as the school's teachers, lawyers, and other graduates, would go on to form the foundation of the city's black middle class.

Among them, the doctors who staffed the hospital.

- The primary physicians were all black physicians, as I say.

And there were just a few of us.

And the sub specialists were the white physicians who, on call from us, would come over to do work that we didn't feel comfortable in taking care of.

- [Narrator] Dr. A.D. Brickler is a retired obstetrician who's delivered more than 30,000 babies in a six-decade career.

That career began at the FAMU hospital.

- The five-year-old and the six-year-old boy or little girl that wake up, they probably woke up in the 1880s, 1890s, and did not see a positive, identifiable character to model after.

But in the 1950s and 60s, you start to see more of that.

1970s, certainly, you saw someone you can identify, whether it's in your household or in your neighborhood.

And now I can see that I can be something.

I can contribute to society in a powerful and meaningful way.

- [Narrator] Historically black colleges like FAMU were instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement.

In Tallahassee, FAMU students led the Tallahassee Bus Boycott of 1956, and the Woolworth's sit-in.

Their actions had an impact and things began to change in 1964, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

It paved the way for widespread integration.

- The Civil Rights Act was supposed to be, of course, to help uplift and provide more strength and balance, equilibrium, to African Americans, opportunity.

- [Narrator] Yet, there was an unforeseen cost, and that cost was paid by black institutions.

- Here's the Civil Rights Act that says, "Separate but equal makes no sense."

So we have an opportunity.

If I'm a legislator that believes in oppressing African Americans, we have an opportunity here to use this Civil Rights Act to say, "We want to take away funding "if you're not serving a white population.

"We wanna take away funding "if you don't have a staff that reflects America."

- [Narrator] FAMU began to see its programs threatened, as more people began to question the need for two state universities in one city.

Florida State University was just across the railroad tracks.

- There's a law school at FAMU, you have a hospital's flagship nursing program, researchers.

And you have FSU that had none of those programs.

- [Narrator] The first FAMU institution to close was its law school.

The state defunded it in 1965 and it shuttered in 1968.

Its assets went to Florida State University, the predominantly white school.

Three years later, the FAMU hospital began to face threats of closure.

It lost its federal healthcare funding to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, which was now integrated.

And facing financial hardship it couldn't overcome, the university hospital officially closed its doors in 1971.

- The hospital was taking care of all black indigent patients, and subsequently, more of the white indigent patients in the community before it closed.

And if you take care of a lot of sick people who don't have any money, you're gonna (laughs) run out of funds.

And that's exactly what happened to A&M hospital.

- Everybody was heartbroken.

There was so much about it we didn't understand, some we did understand.

Most of the staff, somebody in the community, knew somebody who worked here.

We all knew somebody who was going through something as a result of the closure.

- [Narrator] That was the beginning of what would become a five decade fight for survival for Florida A&M.

- Here's an opportunity to consider, which became a fight later, to merge FSU and FAMU.

We can close their hospital, take on their programs, take on their leading faculty, integrate some of their students who are strong academically.

- [Narrator] Over the years, different programs were targeted for removal.

Nursing, agricultural sciences, even football.

- So, the merger of these two institutions made sense to some people, not necessarily to all.

You had African Americans on both sides of the equation, especially the rising middle class.

- [Narrator] In 2014, the reminders of loss and racial resentment, embodied in the closure of the hospital and law school, were again reignited when an effort to split the joint FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, was unveiled in the legislature.

Former State Senator, Arthenia Joyner, was among the last class of students to graduate from the law school before it closed.

- This is different for me than anybody else here, because it takes me back to a time when I sat in the stacks studying, and the books were removed and taken to Florida State University.

I sat there as the lights were dimmed, and the door closed, knowing that no other black student would have the opportunity to come to Florida A&M University, because someone envisioned that it would be best at Florida State.

- [Narrator] In that same Senate debate, former Senator, Dwight Bullard, noted FAMU's racial history is etched in stone, a reminder of decades of losses and struggles.

- As a student of Florida A&M University, you don't know how bitter it feels for a student to pass by their library door, turn the corner, and see, carved into the marble, "College of Law," and know that that building does not exist.

You don't know how disheartening it is to go to the law library at Florida State University to study statute, and see "Florida A&M University" stamped in the books at Florida State.

- [Narrator] And though the battle to split the College of Engineering died on that Senate floor, it revealed wounds that never healed and injuries no hospital can treat.

The FAMU community believes there are lessons to be learned in its long fight for survival.

- We need to learn about our own history.

It needs to be a part of our education, just as it is for other institutions.

- The people that worked there were outstanding in their devotion to what they were doing.

They were taking care of their people, and they were very devoted to it, but they did what they did because they wanted to contribute to the community.

So that kind of medical spirit was very inspiring to me.

- We had a lot of pride, and we still do, for those who remember the opening.

And hearing about it from our family members, and experiencing it at some point.

It served its purpose.

It was a good place, it was a kind place.

- You know, on this campus right now, there are people working in Foote-Hilyer, the building where the hospital resided, that were born in that building.

There was a president, the former Dean of the School of Pharmacy, that led this university, but was also cared for in that building.

And speaks to his life being saved because of the care.

There are people who remember that time as being progressive and a source of pride, and speak of it proudly.

And so the legacy is that, I remember when FAMU had a hospital when no other facility was available in a 150-mile radius.

And it shows that FAMU was able to be a leader, and can be a leader again.

- FAMU is the same university that we fell in love with in 1887.

FAMU yesterday, FAMU today, FAMU tomorrow, FAMU forever.

(Star-Spangled Banner music) (audience applauding)