Thelma Gibson – still giving in the Grove

Thelma Gibson. Photo by Chelsea Matiash

Thelma Gibson remembers a time when news traveled through Coconut Grove by bicycle, not by Internet, television or even telephone. She recalls a community where everyone looked out for each other and Grand Avenue was a friendly place to socialize over an ice cream cone in the evening. Her memories come from a Coconut Grove much different from the neighborhood she still calls home today—one where her section of town was labeled “Colored Town”.

“Coconut Grove to me was a place where everybody was family,” said Gibson, 83. “A lot of us were from the Bahamas, and the Bahamians who came brought most of their relatives with them. We used to boast of knowing everyone.”

Gibson was born in Coconut Grove on Dec. 17, 1926, the sixth of 14 children, 11 of whom lived past infancy. She graduated from segregated George Washington Carver High School in 1944.

“All of the colored children – we knew our place and we stayed in our place,” Gibson said. “We knew we couldn’t go to the white schools, drink from the white fountains. But there was always a desire to make things better, to make things change.”

This desire is what has driven Gibson to succeed throughout her life and what keeps her active today, 30 years after her last day of work on a payroll.

Gibson graduated from the Saint Agnes School of Nursing at Saint Augustine’s College in Raleigh, N.C., in 1947, becoming a nurse for the United States Cadet Corps during World War II.

She attended a six-month graduate program at Meharry Medical College in Nashville to train in operating room techniques. She enhanced her knowledge with extra courses at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., Florida A&M University and the University of Miami. She studied cancer nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned a Bachelor of Science in nursing education at the Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City in 1959.

“I was determined to get an education,” Gibson said. “Whenever any courses became available, I took them.”

Gibson devoted her time to the “Colored Wards” at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, hoping that her skills, hard work and advanced education would lead her to the operating room. Gibson was never able to realize her dream. The color line barrier, however, seemed to give her determination.

“You have to work for what it is you want,” she said. “You don’t have to get angry. You have to show people what you can achieve.”

Gibson took this blow and kept fighting. She became the first black assistant supervisor of nursing at the Dade County Health Department, where she worked from 1963 until 1967. From there she worked at Mount Sinai Hospital in the outpatient clinic and then as a part-time social worker until she retired from nursing in December 1980. After retirement, volunteering became her full-time job.

“She is as sharp as a razor,” said Jihad Rashid, president and CEO of Coconut Grove Collaborative, an economic development organization on Grand Avenue. “She brings insightfulness to the biggest issues and always has some suggestion to make it better.”

In 1984 Gibson was one of 21 women who started the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Dade County, Miami-Dade’s first women’s chamber. She was also instrumental in the formation of the Black Investors of Dade County and the Grovites United to Survive.

Gibson has been honored in many ways for her dedication and service. She was named a founder of the Jewish Home for the Aged, is on the University of Miami Board of Trustees and was granted the Lifetime Achievement Award by the United States Department of Commerce-Minority Business Enterprise. She served as interim Miami City Commissioner for four months in 1997.

Of all her accomplishments, Gibson said she is most proud of the land she has helped acquire for Coconut Grove through the Theodore R. Gibson Memorial Fund,  a non-profit organization she started in 1983 in memory of her late husband. The Gibson Memorial Fund began buying land from Grove residents in 1985 and now owns 11 lots, nine of which have been cleared and paid off.

“Affordable housing is the Grove’s greatest challenge,” Gibson said. “I am hopeful that with the land we have acquired we can help change take place. Grand Avenue used to be full of Mom and Pop stores. Hopefully, the developers that destroyed them will come back, rebuild some of those and build some affordable housing.”

Gibson’s late husband, Rev. Theodore Gibson, was an Episcopalian priest, prominent civil rights and community activist in Coconut Grove and the city of Miami. Gibson met her husband at their shared community church, Christ Episcopal Church, where he served as rector from 1945 until 1982.

“My husband was an unusual type of person,” Gibson said. “He was always out there trying to make change take place and I was excited by that.”

Theodore Gibson, who earned his bachelor’s and honorary law degree from Saint Augustine’s College, desegregated Dade County public schools, the Crandon Park County Beach and downtown Miami lunch counters through lawsuits in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was president of the Miami chapter of the NAACP from 1954 to 1964.

He allied with the white community of Coconut Grove to improve the lives of local blacks. In 1946 he formed the Coconut Grove Citizens Committee for Slum Clearance, which transformed Coconut Grove by passing ordinances and acquiring funding to require running water and septic tanks, creating community organizations to improve law enforcement, children’s services and health care.

Charles Gibson, 35, grandson of Theodore and Thelma, is now president of the Theodore R. Gibson Memorial Fund.

“My grandmother is one of my best friends,” Charles Gibson said. “She has a real love for life. I can sit and talk with her for hours. She has this unique comedic delivery; she can really make you laugh.”

Most days Charles Gibson finds himself working next door to his grandmother, who volunteers much of her time at the Thelma Gibson Health Initiative on Grand Avenue.

The initiative was created in the heart of the community to fight drug addiction, homelessness, mental illness and HIV/Aids. The initiative reaches out to Grove residents through education, HIV testing and counseling. It has since grown to provide tutoring for children and a program for the elderly.

“Grand Avenue was a drive-by supermarket for drugs,” said Merline Barton, executive director and co-funder of the project. “Substance abuse and HIV/Aids were everywhere. We knew something had to be done and we knew that no matter what it took, Mrs. Gibson would be right there with us.”

Today Thelma Gibson guides the program, does fundraising and manages fiscal operations, Barton said.

This organization, Thelma Gibson said, has been instrumental in cleaning up Grand Avenue and creating a brighter future for Coconut Grove.

“We are helping people accomplish the things they want to accomplish in life,” Gibson said.