Thread by @profgabrielle

Jonathan Gibbs became Florida's 4th Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1873 after serving as its first and only Black Secretary of State. Gibbs advocated for education as a civil right in the 1868 Constitution and oversaw a rapid expansion of public education.

In Florida, the KKK was so enraged by Jonathan Gibbs's success in the realm of education and civil rights and by his roles as Secretary of State and Superintendent of Public Instruction that he slept armed in his attic to better defend himself if attacked.
dartmouth.edu/library/rauner…

As the first Black superintendent of schools, Jonathan Gibbs supervised every county’s standard of education and established uniform textbooks across Florida. I hope his ghost is haunting Ron DeSantasis and Florida state legistlators who undermine and attack public education.

Jonathan Gibbs's son, Thomas Van Renssaler Gibbs, is a founder of #FAMU which, we can only imagine, will be directly hit by Florida's HB999 and WOKE acts. He served in the Florida legislature; like his father, he advocated for Black educational justice. famu.edu/about-famu/his…

(Mifflin Gibbs was a successful businessman and newspaper man, who, facing racial violence in CA moved to Canada and became their 2nd Back elected official. He's the 1st Black elected judge in the U.S. He and his brother Jonathan were active in the Colored Conventions Movement).