FAMU Alum Creates Picture Book Honoring The HBCU’s Band And Music Programs’ Legacy

Dale Thomas, a Florida A&M University alum, has self-published a 236-page picture book, Bands on “The Hill”: A Pictorial History of Bands at Florida A&M University, capturing the history of FAMU’s band and instrumental music programs and detailing some early events, directors and students associated with them.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Thomas published the book in October 2023 to celebrate the band program’s 130th anniversary, which he said he worked on for nearly a decade.

“I’m sort of like a history buff, so anything dealing with African American history, music, or band history, that’s me,” Thomas told the outlet.

He remarked on the time-consuming task of compiling the book’s research, saying, “It’s 130 years (of history) and so it was really hard to cover all of … the band program.”

Thomas, an academic advisor at Tallahassee State College, earned an undergraduate degree in music education from FAMU before receiving master’s degrees in educational administration and leadership and library and information studies from Florida State University, per the Democrat.

He mentioned, “I worked on campus as a librarian at FAMU … in the African American history collection area and was exposed to a lot of the historical documents from the Black Archives.”

Thomas shared that’s where he began his research on the band program and music department. In 1996, he compiled and edited America’s Band of Legend: A Pictorial Collection on Bands at Florida A&M University 1892-1996. This fall, he’ll release another picture book, A Band in Every School: Portraits of Historically Black School Bands in Florida.

Bands on “The Hill”: A Pictorial History of Bands at Florida A&M University is available through Thomas’ Harmonie Publications.