Edward Waters University

History

Edward Waters was founded in 1866 by ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church to educate freedmen and their children in the aftermath of emancipation. The first AME pastor in Florida, William G. Steward, originally named the institution Brown Theological Institute. It was later renamed for Bishop Edward Waters, the third bishop of the AME Church.

The original Edward Waters campus was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1901, which leveled much of Jacksonville. By 1904, the institution had acquired new land and begun rebuilding at its present location in the city's Northwest neighborhoods. Edward Waters was accredited as a junior college in 1955 under the leadership of President William B. Stewart, and by 1960 had restored a full four-year curriculum. Regional accreditation as a baccalaureate institution by SACSCOC followed in 1979.

The university navigated a serious accreditation crisis in 2004, when SACSCOC voted to revoke Edward Waters' accreditation after a Florida Times-Union investigation revealed that documents submitted in support of reaccreditation contained plagiarized material from a comparable Alabama A&M University filing. The institution and SACSCOC ultimately reached a settlement that preserved accreditation pending corrected documentation, and Edward Waters has remained accredited since.

In 2021, the institution was reclassified as a university by SACSCOC and granted the authority to offer master's-level degrees for the first time in its history — a milestone that capped a decade of institutional rebuilding.

Notable Alumni

A representative selection of graduates whose careers reflect Edward Waters' civic and cultural reach in northeast Florida and beyond.

Significance

Edward Waters' significance lies in two distinct claims. First, chronologically: it is the oldest independent institution of higher learning in Florida, predating the state's secular universities by decades and standing as the first HBCU in a state where, at the time of founding, the formal education of Black children was openly contested. Second, denominationally: it is the flagship institution of the AME Church in Florida, embedded in a religious tradition that built one of the most consequential parallel educational systems in 19th-century America.

Edward Waters' 2021 elevation to university status — and the launch of its first graduate programs — marks a structural shift in northeast Florida's HBCU landscape. The institution has reframed itself around graduate workforce pipelines in business, education, and public administration, betting that its long civic presence in Jacksonville and its AME church network can sustain a small, mission-anchored university through a period of HBCU enrollment competition. In December 2025 the university secured full SACSCOC decennial reaffirmation of accreditation with zero recommendations, extending its accreditation through 2035, and its Fall 2026 enrollment of 1,281 students marked a twenty-year high, within 39 students of the highest figure in the institution's 160-year history and achieved alongside six consecutive years of operating surpluses. President A. Zachary Faison Jr., who has led the institution since 2018, received a seven-year contract extension in May 2025. In July 2026 the university named Dr. Brian L. Johnson — a former HBCU president — Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, a hire framed as strengthening the institution's operational capacity as it scales its graduate offerings.

Source notes: Founding and AME affiliation drawn from Edward Waters University institutional records and AME Church historical documents. Accreditation events sourced from SACSCOC public records and contemporaneous Florida Times-Union reporting. Notable alumni details verified through Baseball Hall of Fame records and public service records.