Randall L. Gibson

Randall Lee Gibson (September 10, 1832 – December 15, 1892) was an American attorney and politician, elected as a member of the House of Representatives and U.S. senator from Louisiana. He served as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. Later he was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and a president of the board of administrators of Tulane University.

Early life Gibson was born in 1832 at "Spring Hill", Versailles, Kentucky, the son of Tobias Gibson, a planter and slaveholder. His mother was from a slaveholding family in Lexington, Kentucky. His paternal great-grandfather was Gideon Gibson Jr., a free man of color who was likely born in the colony of South Carolina in 1731.

Gibson's father moved his family to Louisiana when Randall was a child, where the youth was educated in local academies. He went to college in the North, graduating from Yale University in 1853, where he was a member of the Skull and Bones society. He returned to Louisiana to study for his bachelor of laws (LL.B) from the University of Louisiana Law School, later Tulane University. until the last moment, after which they escaped at night on April 8, 1865. Gibson was captured at Cuba Station, Alabama on May 8, 1865 and paroled at Meridian, Mississippi on May 14, 1865.

In 1882, Gibson was elected by the Louisiana state legislature (as was the procedure at the time) as United States Senator, serving from March 4, 1883, until his death on December 15, 1892.

His great-great-grandfather, Gideon Gibson, was a free man of color who was married to a white woman, and had owned land and a few slaves in Virginia (likely where he was born) and North Carolina, before migrating with other settlers to South Carolina in the 1730s. The government was worried that he might provoke a slave revolt and the colonial governor had an interview with him. Learning about his life, the governor declared him a free man with all privileges, and granted him land.

In memoriam Gibson Hall on the campus of Tulane University is named for Senator Gibson, who was instrumental after the war in helping fund and continue the public University of Louisiana as the private Tulane University of Louisiana. The town of Tigerville in Terrebonne Parish was renamed Gibson, Louisiana in his honor.