Tallahassee has a strong black history. Before the Civil War Leon County led the state in cotton production, and had the greatest cluster of plantations in the state. (See Plantations of Leon County.) Centrally-located Tallahassee—only north Florida had any significant population—was the center of Florida's slave trade. In 1860, Leon County's population was 73% black, almost all of them slaves; there were more slaves in Leon County than in any other county in Florida. (Adjacent Gadsden County is according to the 2010 census the only county in Florida with a majority African-American population.) In addition, and the two facts are loosely linked, it is the site of the state's largest and only public historically black institution of higher education, Florida A&M University, founded in 1877 as the State Normal (four years later, Normal and Industrial) College for Colored Students. (Legislation leading to its creation was introduced by former abolitionist and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jonathan C. Gibbs, who was elected a Tallahassee city councilman in 1872.) According to the 2010 Census, Tallahassee's population is 34% black, whereas Florida as a whole is 17% black. Juneteenth (commemoration of the Emancipation Proclamation) is celebrated on May 20 of each year, at the Knott House (run by the Museum of Florida History), where the proclamation was read on May 20, 1865.