A historically black junior college in Panama City, Florida (1958–1966) founded to resist school integration.
Rosenwald Junior College opened in 1958 as part of a deliberate strategy by the Florida Legislature to maintain racial segregation in higher education following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. It was one of eleven black junior colleges founded in the late 1950s to demonstrate a "separate but equal" system for African American students. The college was named after Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish philanthropist known for funding schools serving Black communities throughout the American South.
The college initially operated from facilities at Rosenwald High School on Bay Street before obtaining its own classroom building in 1962. Calvin Washington, principal of the high school, served as the college's first president and became full-time president in 1963. According to Washington, the institution struggled with inadequate facilities and insufficient seed funding for full-time faculty. Enrollment grew from an initial 27–35 students to a peak of 177 in 1964–65.
Rosenwald Junior College was merged with the previously all-white Gulf Coast Junior College in 1966, effectively ending its independent operation. The merger was abrupt, with only one faculty member securing employment at the consolidated institution. In 2014, Gulf Coast Community College established the Rosenwald Junior College Center for Social Change and Inclusion to commemorate the college's historical significance.