Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs
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Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs (September 16, 1855 – October 31, 1898) was a member of the 1885 Florida Constitutional Convention, served in the
Florida House of Representatives The Florida House of Representatives is the lower house of the Florida Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Florida, the Florida Senate being the upper house. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of Florida, adopted ...
, and was a school administrator. He was nominated to
West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...
by Representative Josiah Walls, who was also African American. In the legislature, Gibbs helped pass legislation establishing a white normal school in Gainesville, Florida and a "colored school" in Jacksonville. State Normal College for Colored Students was a predecessor of Florida A&M College and was relocated to
Tallahassee Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the population ...
where it opened in 1887 with 15 students. Gibbs served as its assistant principal and Vice President until his death in 1898.Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University-About The University
/ref> The only son of
Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs, II (September 28, 1821 – August 14, 1874) was an American Presbyterian minister who served as Secretary of State and Superintendent of Public Instruction of Florida, and along with Josiah Thomas Walls, U.S. Congres ...
, Thomas married Alice Menard, the daughter of politician
John Willis Menard John Willis Menard (April 3, 1838 – October 8, 1893) was a federal government employee, poet, newspaper publisher and politician born in Kaskaskia, Illinois to parents who were Louisiana Creoles from New Orleans. After moving to New Orleans, on ...
who in 1868 was the first African American elected to Congress.


See also

*
African-American officeholders during and following the Reconstruction era More than 1,500 African American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) after passage of the Reconstruction Acts in 1867 and 1868 as well as in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy, disenfranchisement, ...


References

*Canter Brown, Jr. ''Florida's Black Public Officials, 1867-1924.'' Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1998. African-American state legislators in Florida 1855 births 1898 deaths Florida A&M University faculty Republican Party members of the Florida House of Representatives 19th-century American politicians African-American politicians during the Reconstruction Era {{Florida-politician-stub