Josiah Walls and John W. Menard

While largely forgotten today, this generation of Floridians played a leading role in the state’s politics in the late 1860s and early 1870s.

One of the most prominent African-American political leaders was Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs, a Dartmouth graduate and a minister who moved to Florida in 1867. One of the leaders of the Mule Team faction of the Republicans, Gibbs played a prominent part in shaping the state’s Constitution in 1868 and called for greater rights for African-Americans. Gibbs often clashed with the more moderate members of his party, including Harrison Reed. Despite their differences, Reed appointed Gibbs to serve as his secretary of state. Gibbs would later serve as state superintendent of public instruction before dying at the age of 52 in Tallahassee. His son Thomas would attend the 1886 state constitutional convention, serve in the Florida House and help found what would become Florida A&M University.

Jonathan C. Gibbs

While Gibbs focused on state politics, Josiah Walls played a role in national affairs. Born into slavery in Virginia, Walls was released by the Union army which he would eventually join before heading to Florida in the late stages of the war. Walls would work as a teacher and farmer near Gainesville before representing Alachua County in the 1868 constitutional convention before winning election to the Legislature later that year.

As the Republicans continued to factionalize during Reed’s tenure in office -- the governor himself survived four impeachment attempts -- Walls ran for Congress in 1870 in what proved to be one of the most chaotic and violent campaigns in the state’s history. Walls himself came very close to being assassinated during the campaign. While Walls would win the election by more than 600 votes, the House Committee on Elections would eventually overturn the decision.

Walls would bounce back to win a second and third term only to once again have the Committee on Elections rule that he had, in fact, lost the election. He would later serve in the Florida Senate in the late 1870s but subsequent comeback attempts failed. He would join Thomas Gibbs in helping found Florida A&M before his death in 1905.

John Willis Menard could probably understand Walls’ frustrations. The first African-American ever elected to Congress when he lived in Louisiana in 1868, Menard -- who was born in Illinois and educated at Iberia College in Ohio -- was denied his congressional seat. Moving to Jacksonville in 1871, Menard would be elected to the state House in 1874. He published various newspapers and magazines, including the Island City News, the Florida News and the Southern Leader. Menard also wrote "Lays of Summer Lands," a collection of lyrical and often haunting poems covering politics, religion, nature, love and race. His daughter Alice would eventually marry Thomas Gibbs.