Warmoth T. Gibbs

Warmoth Thomas Gibbs Sr. (5 April 1892 – 21 April 1993) was an American educator, retired Second Lieutenant in the United States Army, civil rights activist, and fourth president of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Gibbs was one of the first black commissioned officers in World War I and served as president of then North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College from 1955 to 1960. During his presidency, North Carolina A&T became accredited by the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges.

Early life Warmoth T. Gibbs was born on April 5, 1892, in Baldwin, Louisiana, a town in the southern Louisiana region of Acadiana. Because of the lack of public education for African-Americans in the area, Gibbs received his primary education from a United Methodist Church boarding school for blacks. Gibbs earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas. He later earned bachelor's degrees in political science and history, in addition to a master's degree in Education from Harvard University.

Career Gibbs enlisted in the United States Army during World War I and became one of the few black officers of that time. After the death of then president, Dr. Ferdinand D. Bluford in 1955, Gibbs was appointed as the acting head of North Carolina A&T College. He would be officially inaugurated as president of the college on November 9, 1956.

On February 1, 1960, one of the most dramatic events during the Gibbs administration occurred when four freshmen students, Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond sat down at a segregated lunch counter at the downtown Greensboro Woolworth's store in protest of the company's policy of excluding African Americans from being served there. During the height of the protests, Greensboro's white city leaders urged Gibbs to use his authority as President to quell the student protesters who had taken to the streets to march; to which he responded "We teach our students how to think, not what to think." A building on N.C. A&T's campus is named for Gibbs. Constructed in 1980, W.T.Gibbs Hall houses The Graduate School, as well as various social sciences. Gibbs was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and was instrumental in the establishment of fraternity on the campus of North Carolina A&T.