TEXAS A&M DEDICATES NEW STATUE IN HONOR OF MATTHEW GAINES
A statue honoring Washington County’s first African American state senator was unveiled Friday on the Texas A&M University Campus.
(courtesy Texas A&M University)
Hundreds of Aggies attended a ceremony to dedicate the statue of Matthew Gaines, which now stands near the Memorial Student Center and Rudder Plaza.
Gaines, born into slavery in 1840 in Louisiana, was instrumental in the 12th Texas Legislature’s passage of the Morrill Act, which created the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.
Gaines spent much of his life in Washington County, where he established himself as a leader of the freedmen both as a Baptist preacher and a politician. He died in Giddings on June 11, 1900.
Private donors and the university committed over $350,000 toward the effort to build the statue.
Click here to read more about the history of Matthew Gaines.