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On 2 September 2009, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US Board on Geographic Names) confirmed a place name for George Washington Gibbs Jr, the first African-American expedition member to set foot on the Antarctic continent (Fig. 1). Gibbs Point forms the northwest entrance to Gaul Cove, on the northeast of Horseshoe Island, Marguerite Bay, Antarctic Peninsula (67°48[variant prime]22''S, 67°09[variant prime]38''W) (Fig. 2).Fig. 1.
George Washington Gibbs Jr.
Fig. 2.
Gibbs Point, Horseshoe Island, Marguerite Bay, Antarctic Peninsula.
This was Gibbs' third honour. As a result of his civic and business leadership, the George W. Gibbs Jr. Elementary School was approved last year by the school board of Rochester, Minnesota. In 2002, Rochester's West Soldiers Field Drive was renamed in Gibbs' honour.
Gibbs was born on 7 November 1916, in Jacksonville, Florida, and was raised there. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in Macon, Georgia, in 1935, and four years later, Gibbs was chosen from hundreds of applicants to join an expedition with the United States Antarctic Service (USAS).
In 1939, Congress established USAS, and an expedition under Admiral Richard E. Byrd went south. Serving as a Mess Attendant 1st Class aboard the lead expedition ship, U.S.S.