A College Preparatory Magnet Program for Academically Talented and Gifted Students

1701 North Davis Street    Jacksonville, Florida  32209     (904) 630-6800   FAX: (904) 630-6811

The Reverend S. B. Darnell was a Methodist minister who moved to Jacksonville to serve as pastor of Ebenezer Methodist-Episcopal Church.  He founded the Cookman Institute, which was located at Beaver and Hogan Streets.  It was the first institution of higher education for African-Americans in the state of Florida specializing in the religious and academic preparation of teachers. Under the leadership of Reverend Darnell, the school served thousands of young Black men and women until it was destroyed in the great Jacksonville fire of 1901. 

Before rebuilding, the school changed locations in order to get the school a little farther from the center of town. The Reverend Alfred Cookman, a friend of Reverend Darnell’s, helped raise money to rebuild the school at its current site.  After rebuilding, the enrollment was about two hundred and fifty. The Cookman Institute for Boys had classes in all the elementary grades and in the four high school grades. In addition, there were special courses in normal training, music, domestic science, and public speaking. They added sewing, shoemaking, printing, business, and agriculture.  In 1923 the Cookman Institute merged with the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute forming what would later become Bethune-Cookman College.  The Cookman Institute was later purchased by the Duval County School System.  Eartha White, a well known Jacksonville activist, suggested naming the Jacksonville school to honor both Reverend S. B. Darnell and Reverend Alfred Cookman. 

Darnell-Cookman has been through many changes. It served elementary grades one through six before becoming a junior high school. Later it would become an alternative school for troubled students in grades 1-12.  Then in 1991, the school was turned into a neighborhood middle school.  Just two years later, the school changed from a neighborhood school to a dedicated magnet school serving academically talented and gifted students from throughout Duval County.  In 2007, the school was award a grant from the U.S. Department of Education that allowed the school to begin the process of growing the dedicated magnet school into a Medical Arts School for grades 6 – 12. 

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11/01/2009 08:02 PM