He founded what would later become the only functioning secondary school in Mississippi during the American Civil War and was the state Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1876.
[9] Gathright would later write a letter defending the brother of murder victim John William Gully, who was charged with instigating the massacre of Chisolm and his family.
[12] Early in July, Gathright wrote a letter to county superintendents of education to explain why the Mississippi Legislature had proceeded with the reduction of salaries for public teachers and county superintendents, which construed "the teachers engaged in the public schools of Mississippi, as a class, do not reach the plane of respectability".
[2] On July 15, 1876, Gathright was elected president of the newly founded State Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.
I may not be suited to my place, and may retire; still this great work, in which all the people of this good state are interested, must go on and must succeed.Gathright also became the chief executive of what was founded as the Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth, now known as Prairie View A&M University, as part of his role as president.
The institution was constructed upon the ruins of the old slave plantation known as Alta Vista, owned by Jared Ellison Kirby, a colonel in the Confederate States Army.
[18] In the A&M College of Texas's first year he was the president, head of the commercial department, and professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Belles-lettres.
[21] In November of 1879, the college's board of directors conducted an investigation and passed a resolution that determined "there exists... such a want of harmony and co-operation as to prevent its proper and successful management."
[23] Gathright was reportedly at odds with some members of the faculty, and a few prominent members of the Bryan community,[24][25] who felt that he was opposed to the "agricultural and mechanical features of the institution" and "preferred to make of it a military training school and a purely literary institution", especially Alexander O. Hogg, the professor of pure mathematics.
[29] Gathright's administration faced the burden of organizing the college, an undefined curriculum,[30] unreliable water cisterns,[31] a shortage of student housing, and enrollment difficulties.