PRESS RELEASE: FEBRUARY 20, 2025

Special visit with Collier-Blocker Junior College alumni

Alumni from the Collier-Blocker Junior College recently made a special trip to the St. Johns River State College Palatka Campus to share memories of their college days in the early 1960s and to visit the exhibit wall dedicated to the heritage and history of CBJC.

Collier-Blocker opened in 1960, offering postsecondary educational opportunities for black students from Clay, Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns counties. The college began classes at the Shiloh Baptist Church in Palatka with an enrollment of 59 students. The College later merged with St. Johns River Junior College in 1965.

The college was named after black educators Dr. Nathan W. Collier and Sara Blocker. According to Smith’s book, both had combined efforts to establish the Florida Normal and Industrial College in St. Augustine in 1918.

Front row, from left: Levetta Pierce Parker (’65), Vivian McRae (’63-‘64), Annie Jackson (‘62-’63), and Targie Rhim (’64). Second row, from left: Sammie L. Tomblin (’60-’62, first student body president), SJR State President Joe Pickens, Donal DeBose ’64, Sean C. Higgins (son of Cleo Higgins – first Black instructor at SJR State).