When Justis Gibbs was in third grade, he begged his mother to take him to hear then-presidential candidate John Kerry speak at Tougaloo College in their hometown of Jackson, Miss.
Then he stood on a chair so he could see and hear everything.
His mother, Debra Gibbs, remembers another time in middle school when her son was excited to rush home in time to eat dinner, get ready for bed and watch the State of the Union in his pajamas.
“When the people stood up and clapped, he clapped, when they sat down, he’d sit down, so he was acting like, ‘I’m at the State of the Union,’” she says.
You might think Justis Gibbs was destined to seek office himself. But he didn’t see it that way. He ran in his first election—to represent his ninth grade class on the student council—only because a friend put in his name.
“I was very timid about it,” Gibbs recalls.
He got over that. He would go on to win that year and in subsequent years; he was student body president his senior year and was elected to the prestigious role of “Mr. Murrah” to serve as a student ambassador for his high school of the same name.
Acting the Part
Despite her son’s connection to student government, Debra Gibbs didn’t assume he would one day seek office.
“At one point, I thought he was going to be in movies,” she says, because he began acting with a Jackson theater company and performed in shows such as “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Beauty and the Beast.” But she figures that’s how he ultimately got comfortable presenting ideas in public forums and one-on-one meetings.
“I really saw, while watching her, this is how you appropriately do a job of this nature, representing 25,000 constituents.”
—Mississippi Rep. Justis Gibbs
“I think all that lent itself to being able to speak to audiences and kind of meet them where they are,” Debra Gibbs says.
Justis Gibbs attended Howard University and served in more elected roles in student government. When he saw on Facebook that his state representative was going to resign her seat in 2016, he immediately knew who should run for it.
Not him. His mom.
Gibbs recalls he told his mother, “You need to do this. You really need to put your talents toward this.”
Debra Gibbs says she had a long message from her son noting how much she had been involved in the community and supporting public education. “He said, ‘Mama, you have been engaged, you are always talking about different ideas, pushing this agenda, that agenda. Now it is your turn,’” she says.
Gibbs laughs when she recalls that she hesitated at first but realized it would be hard to refuse.
“How can I tell him I don’t want to do it when I always try to push them to be involved and be engaged?” she says of Justis and his sister, Ariana Gibbs. In any case, “He wasn’t going to let me get away with (saying no).”
Justis Gibbs worked closely with his mother—finding a campaign manager, knocking on doors and offering advice on tactics and campaign materials.
Debra Gibbs won, and her son went on to law school at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
‘In Our DNA’
Justis and Ariana Gibbs—both lawyers now—couldn’t avoid connecting to the world of service in the house where they grew up. Their father, attorney Robert Gibbs, practiced law with Southeast Mississippi Legal Services, worked in the Mississippi attorney general’s office, served as an assistant district attorney and was elected judge of the state’s 7th Circuit Court District. He also taught at the National Judicial College in Nevada. And Debra Gibbs, an attorney and now a judge, has an MBA and an accounting degree. Among other things, she directed accounting and finance for the state’s Department of Human Services, clerked for a Mississippi Supreme Court justice and practiced law.
“It’s in our DNA,” Justis Gibbs says. Dinner table conversations often covered everything from local races to Supreme Court decisions.
The judgeship Robert Gibbs held is now occupied by Debra Gibbs, 26 years after her husband left the bench to return to his legal practice. She won in a runoff, and her husband swore her in.
Then her son stepped up to run for the seat she vacated in House District 72. He was the youngest candidate running in that district, up against seasoned competitors. But Justis Gibbs was seasoned, too. He knew the district well, having learned so much from his mother’s work in the community.
“She created many meaningful connections and relationships with homeowner association presidents, with pastors, other elected officials, county-level supervisors, mayors, governors, you name it,” he says, “And I really saw, while watching her, this is how you appropriately do a job of this nature, representing 25,000 constituents.”
Justis Gibbs topped a four-person primary, then won a runoff with 61% of the vote.
History With NCSL
Justis Gibbs attended his first NCSL Legislative Summit as an elected official last August in Louisville, on the eve of NCSL’s 50th anniversary. But it wasn’t his first Summit: He also attended the annual meetings with his mother when she was in office. He says that gave him great perspective, too.
“I was able to talk about things that I think were quite surprising to people because of my age,” he says. “It showed the depth of my understanding of state government, not just in Mississippi, but a strong understanding of how other states are dealing with similar issues.”
Debra Gibbs agrees. She used NCSL as a resource during her term, especially on the key issue of education reform.
“That’s why I value NCSL and the things I learned—how to be a better legislator, how to interact with lobbyists, how to interact with my colleagues, how to do policy and kind of see what other people are doing in other states to determine if that’s something that we can do in Mississippi,” she says.
She learned through NCSL what elected officials can do as a “unified force.”
“It shows the efficiency and effectiveness of what government can do when we all unite together on a common cause,” she says.
Justis Gibbs points out that he serves in the minority party in a state with a supermajority. What he sees in NCSL gives him hope about his impact even in that setting.
“There are hundreds of legislators that are from all sides, on every part of the political spectrum,” Gibbs says. “So, to have those moments where you could just put your heads together as Americans and figure out how we can be more effective in our roles was a breath of fresh air.”
Kelley Griffin is a senior editor and the host and producer of NCSL’s “Across the Aisle” podcast.