Thelma Gibson, a pioneering Black nurse and civil rights leader, died at 99 on February 11, 2026, at home in Coconut Grove, surrounded by family and her priest. She grew up in the neighborhood’s segregated “Colored Town,” on a street then called Evangelist Street, in a home with no electricity or running water.
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After graduating from nursing school in 1947, Gibson was hired at Jackson Memorial Hospital but was barred from the operating room because of segregation and assigned instead to the hospital’s “colored floors.”
Early Life and Nursing Career
Thelma Vernell Anderson Gibson was born on December 17, 1926, in Coconut Grove. After graduating from nursing school in 1947, she was hired at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she said she was told she could not work in the operating room because of segregation and was instead directed to gain experience on the hospital’s “colored floors.” She went on to become the first African American assistant supervisor at the Miami-Dade County Department of Health.
Civil Rights Work With Reverend Gibson
In 1967, she married the Rev. Theodore Gibson, a pioneering Episcopal priest and civil rights leader who later served on the Miami City Commission. Together, the couple advocated for desegregation and pushed for basic infrastructure improvements in historically Black neighborhoods across the city.
In 1984, Gibson founded the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Dade County to support female entrepreneurs and professionals in the region, and in August 1997 she served as Miami’s interim City Commissioner.
Legacy in Coconut Grove
Later in life, Gibson ran the Thelma Gibson Health Initiative, focused on mental health, HIV, substance use, housing and jobs, the kind of social factors that still shape patient health today. Her family and organizations including the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Bar Association have honored her as a trailblazer in both healthcare and civil rights, and for her enduring ties to Miami’s Bahamian roots.
Gibson’s death leaves a void in Coconut Grove, the historically Black, Bahamian-founded neighborhood she spent her life documenting and defending. More on the neighborhood’s history is available in our Florida category.
