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Created by Aimee Reist and John Nemmers. Send comments to FSU Libraries Special Collections
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LeRoy Collins Letters
Biographical Note:
A native of the state capital, Tallahassee, LeRoy Collins studied business
and law. He was first elected to public office in 1934 at age twenty-five
as Leon County’s representative in the state legislature. Collins served
in the House of Representatives and the state Senate until 1942, when he
resigned to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In 1946 he was
re-elected to the state Senate and served until 1954, when he was elected
governor to serve the remaining two years of the term of the late Governor
Dan McCarty. In 1956 he was elected again, the first Florida governor in
modern times to win two consecutive terms.
During Collins’s years as governor, he emphasized education and worked
to strengthen the state’s public school system from the primary grades
through the university system. He created the first community colleges
in the state and promoted industry, agriculture, and tourism through state
sponsorship. Among his most important accomplishments was the moderate
course he took to deal with the racial unrest of the 1950s and early ’60s.
Collins counselled progress under law and, unlike many other southern states,
Florida experienced only minimal disorder.
Governor Collins went on to become the first director of the Community
Relations Service under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While serving in this
capacity he went to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 and negotiated a peaceful
conclusion to a national civil rights march led by Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. Collins ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1968, then retired
to his law practice in Tallahassee. Collins is remembered today as one
of the greatest and most far-sighted governors to have led the state of
Florida. (Source: Museum of Florida History, Florida Governors Portraits)
Scope and Content:
This collection consists of letters from LeRoy Collins to Dr. Daisy
Parker. Among the subjects mentioned are Judge Taylor and Parker's campaign
assistance. The fifth item in the collection is a copy of a letter to Malcolm
Johnson that was enclosed in a 1968 letter to Dr. Parker.
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Created by Aimee Reist and John Nemmers. Send comments to FSU Libraries Special Collections
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