Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1823. In a varied career he worked as a carpenter, campaigned alongside abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass, and became a successful retail merchant in San Francisco. Gibbs then moved to Victoria, British Columbia, where he became the first African American elected to the city council. Gibbs headed to Reconstruction era Little Rock in 1871, passed the bar exam, and set up a law practice. In 1874, Gibbs was elected police judge, making him the first African American municipal judge in the United States. Gibbs won a number of patronage jobs from Republican presidents including appointment as U.S. consul to Tamatave, Madagascar, in 1897. Gibbs returned to Little Rock and died there in 1915. The city’s Gibbs Elementary School is today named in his honor. I’m John Kirk of the UALR History Department and this has been an Arkansas moment.