The Reverend Canon Theodore Gibson, 1915-1982
Rev. Canon Theodore Gibson was an active member of the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, Florida, undated.
Theodore Gibson was born in Miami, Florida in 1915, received his bachelor’s degree from St. Augustine’s College in 1938, and earned an honorary law degree from the same institution in 1964. After graduating from Bishop Payne Divinity School with his Bachelor of Divinity in 1943 he was ordained a deacon and a priest in 1944.
Before beginning his ministry in Miami, Gibson served as Minister-in-Charge at four parishes in the Diocese of East Carolina and as Priest-in-Charge at St. Cyprian in Hampton, Virginia from 1943 to 1945. While ministering as rector in Coconut Grove, Florida he served as vicar of St. Cyprian’s Mission in Orlando. He was made an Honorary Canon of what was then the Diocese of Southern Florida (now Southeastern Florida) centered in Orlando.
In 1945, Gibson returned to his native Miami to begin his long-standing commitment as rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Coconut Grove, Miami’s oldest neighborhood and the first Black settlement on the South Florida mainland. While in Miami, Gibson exercised his voice as an active proponent of the Civil Rights Movement. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he filed lawsuits that desegregated the downtown lunch counter, the county beach at Cradon Park, and the Dade County public schools.
Theodore Gibson served as president of the Miami chapter of the NAACP from 1954 to 1964. In 1959, he was arrested, fined, and sentenced to six months in jail for refusing to reveal the names of members of the local NAACP chapter to the Johns Committee, a Florida state legislative to investigate subversive activity and communist links to American political organizations. In response, the Miami Times published a series of persuasive editorials, which fueled church rallies in support of Gibson and fellow Black Civil Rights leader Rev. Edward T. Graham. All accusations were cleared in 1963 by the U.S. Supreme Court, effectively putting an end to the McCarthy-inspired search for communist subversives within the Miami chapter of the organization.
Theodore and Thelma Gibson receive a resolution from Miami-Dade County for their service to the community, c. 1981.
Upon Gibson’s return to Miami in 1945, he took up work in a largely poor community and immediately recognized the advantage and opportunity of making an ally in the white community to address and improve the many issues facing the Black population living in Coconut Grove. Between 1946 and 1947, he and Elizabeth Virrick (a locally prominent philanthropist) formed the Coconut Grove Citizens Committee for Slum Clearance. Together they were responsible for the transformation of this community, which included the passage of ordinances requiring running water, flushing toilets, septic tanks, as well as funding sources to comply with the regulations. The Committee also created many community organizations, including a health clinic and day-care center, and improved law enforcement by Black policemen. Gibson was appointed a Miami City Commissioner in 1972, serving until 1981. He was the third Black member of the Miami City Commission.
Gibson’s influence extended beyond Coconut Grove. With his encouragement, members from Black congregations in Dade and Broward counties in Florida formed the Theodore Gibson Chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians. Miami Dade College and Miami Dade County Public Schools ventured together to establish the Theodore Gibson Oratorical, Declamation and Advocacy Project, which was dedicated to providing pre-kindergarten to high school students with the opportunity to develop and improve their public speaking skills through education and competition while exposing them to the wide range of writings about the Black experience.
For his achievements, Gibson’s name has been given to the parish hall of Christ Church, the local UBE Chapter, and the Miami Dade Community College Gibson Health Center. Gibson Park (at NW 3rd and 12-14 streets) was named in his honor by the city in 1980. In 1997 Carita Swanson Vonk chronicled the life of the Miami civil rights leader in the book Theodore R. Gibson: Priest, prophet and politician: positive, practical, pragmatic.