Jack Thompson (activist)
He is also known for his unusual filings to The Florida Bar, including challenging the constitutionality of The Florida Bar itself in 1993. Later the Florida Supreme Court described his filings as "repetitive, frivolous and insulting to the integrity of the court". On March 20, 2008, the Florida Supreme Court imposed sanctions on Thompson, requiring that any of his future filings in the court be signed by a member of The Florida Bar other than himself. In July 2008, Thompson was permanently disbarred by the Supreme Court of Florida for inappropriate conduct, including making false statements to tribunals and disparaging and humiliating litigants.
Henry Adams Thompson
Henry Thompson was born in Stormstown, Centre County, Pennsylvania on March 23, 1837, the son of John Thompson and Lydia Blake Thompson. John Thompson was the manager of an ironworks in Centre County, and later owned a general mercantile business in Stormstown. Lydia Blake was a Quaker from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, who was disinherited when she married Thompson, a Presbyterian. John Thompson was politically active and served two terms as county sheriff. He was active in anti-slavery and temperance causes, in both of which his son Henry followed him.
Thompson graduated from Jefferson College (now Washington & Jefferson College) in 1858 with a bachelor's degree, and studied for two years at the Western Theological seminary (now Pittsburgh Theological Seminary). In 1861, he was appointed professor of mathematics at Western College (now Leander Clark College), a United Brethren-affiliated college in Shueyville, Iowa, and taught there for one year. The United Brethren, a pietist church that arose first among Pennsylvania Germans during the Great Awakening, was one of the earliest churches in the United States to embrace abolitionism. By Thompson's time, they had also joined the fight for the prohibition of alcohol, though most did so from within the Republican Party and did not join the small single-issue Prohibition Party.