Founded as the Florida Baptist Institute, today it claims a focus on broader Christianity and is a member of the United Negro College Fund.

In April 1892, after unknown persons fired shots into one of the school's buildings, then-President Matthew Gilbert and other staff members fled Live Oak for Jacksonville, where they founded the Florida Baptist Academy in the basement of Bethel Baptist Church.

Florida Normal and Industrial Institute moved to St. Augustine in 1918 and operated in buildings on a 110-acre (0.45 km2) tract of land, the site of the "Old Hanson Plantation".

The young author Zora Neale Hurston taught at the school in 1942; she lived on the second floor of a two-story house at 791 West King Street, just east of the campus.

Florida Memorial College celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1979 and began a series of expansion projects on the 44-acre (180,000 m2) campus.

In 2017 she left to become the first female President of Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina in its 147-year history.

[8] For years the college was based in what was classified as the Opa-locka North census-designated place,[9][10] in an unincorporated area.

The institution has offered an honors program for 10 years that is designed to target and challenge students to their highest level.

The institute offers several programs that focus on academic achievement and higher learning, with an emphasis on physical fitness, dropout prevention, religion, financial management, entrepreneurship, and personal development.

Collier was responsible for tireless fundraising and advocating; acquiring property and land; increasing enrollment and attracting nationally renowned faculty.

The Collier library houses 120,000 volumes, two Information Commons areas as well as separate Electronic, Teaching, Periodicals, Audiovisual and Group study rooms.