Delaware Valley Archivists Group

William B. Gibbs, Jr. as he appeared in his West Chester High School graduation photograph, 1927 After much work by many diligent people, an elementary school in Germantown Maryland is being named for William B. Gibbs, Jr. who was born and educated in West Chester, PA. Gibbs is deserving of the honor for fighting for equal pay for African American teachers is a time when schools for black and white were  separate, but were hardly equal.  It happened that in 1936, Gibbs was a teacher and acting principal at Rockville Colored Elementary School in Maryland.  He didn’t believe that it was fair for the the black teachers to receive only half as much pay as their white counterparts. Gibbs turned to the NAACP for help and found a young lawyer named Thurgood Marshall who was interested in rectifying this situation.  Gibbs presented a petition to the school board for a salary schedule for teachers without regard to race. As expected, the School Board refused to grant the petition. The next step was to file a suit against the school board. With Marshall arguing the case, the board was forced to negotiate a settlement. In 1937 the African American teachers received an incremental pay raise and the following year they recieved the same salary as white teachers. Gibbs was fired by the school board over a technicality dealing with his principal’s certificate. He was unable to teach in the state of Maryland again. Gibbs came from a family which had been rooted in Chester County for several generations. His family was centered in sucessful businesses, community life and church.   He was a man who had the strength of character to do what was right even at a tremendous cost. The William B. Gibbs Elementary School in Germantown Maryland will be dedicated on Mary 15, 2010.    Pamela Powell, Photo Archivist