DAYTONA BEACH In 1958, it was time for Tyrone Presley to go to college.
His older sister was already enrolled at Bethune-Cookman College, the private Daytona Beach school serving Black students in a time of racial segregation. Florida s state universities wouldn t begin admitting their first Black students until four years later.
But a new alternative arrived just in time.
Gov. LeRoy Collins and the Legislature in 1957 agreed on a plan to greatly expand the state s community college system from five schools to 28, with six to be established that year, including one in Daytona Beach.
These were the days of segregation in the South, where the legal principle of separate but equal was in force, so instead of one school, Daytona Beach and ultimately 11 other communities around the state got two. White students attended Daytona Beach Junior College and Blacks went to Volusia County Community College.