LeRoy Collins papers

LeRoy Collins was born in Tallahassee on March 10, 1909. He graduated from Leon High School in Tallahassee and received a degree in law from Cumberland University in Birmingham, Alabama. He returned to Tallahassee and married Mary Call Darby, the great-granddaughter of Richard Call who had twice served as Territorial Governor of Florida. Soon after his marriage to Mary Call, Collins was elected as the representative of Leon County to the Florida House of Representatives in 1934. He served in this position until 1940 when he filled the term of the late William Hodges in the Florida Senate. Collins purchased the Call family home "The Grove" in 1941 and shortly thereafter resigned his position from the Florida Senate to join the Navy in 1942. He was reelected to the Florida Senate upon his return from World War II in 1946. He was reelected in 1950, serving until 1954 when a special election was held to fill the remaining two years in the term of the late Governor Daniel T. McCarty, who had died in office in 1953. Collins Served as Florida's thirty-third Governor from 1955 to 1961 where he dealt with the complicated social and political issues of the time. His two greatest issues were the dismantling of segregation and the process of political patronage, both of which he employed a liberal diplomacy. Collins was also integral in the development of the Florida University system, including the University of South Florida in Tampa. He is considered by many historians to be one of the first liberal Southern Democrats to transform the political agenda of the South and is thought to be one of the best governors in Florida's History. Collins served as the Chairman of the Democratic National Convention in 1960, where he was a possible candidate for the presidential nomination due to his leadership position amongst Southern Governors and his strong stance on Civil Rights which would attract Northern liberals, however he did not seek the nomination. Upon leaving the governor’s office, he became President of the National Association of Broadcasters, where he served until 1964. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Collins to be the first Director of Community Relations, a government office created out of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was followed by an appointment to the Undersecretary of Commerce in 1965 by President Johnson. Following his service in the federal government, Collins sought reelection to the Florida Senate in 1968. He won the primary but lost in the general election. His progressive stand for Civil Rights and his highly publicized role in the Selma, Alabama march while Director of Community Relations is credited with having cost him the 1968 Senate election. Upon his retirement from public service, Collins retired from his law firm in Tampa in which he had been a partner. He then returned to "The Grove" in Tallahassee where he remained active in the community and was also a guest contributor on politics to the St. Petersburg Times until his death from cancer in 1991

Note written by JT, 2011