Gibson, William F. 1933–

views updated

William F. Gibson 1933–

Chairman of the NAACP’s National Board of Directors

Continued Fight for Human Rights, Equal Opportunity, and Economic Parity

William F. Gibson has devoted his life to serving people both within and beyond his community. By profession, he is a dentist. By design, he is an active civil rights advocate. After receiving his B.S. in biology from North Carolina A & T State University and his D.D.S. from Meharry Medical College-School of Dentistry, Gibson interned in New York at Harlem Hospital. In 1959, after finishing his internship, he returned to his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, where he has been practicing dentistry ever since. During these same years, Gibson was also active in local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and earned many civic awards for his work. In 1985, he was elected chairman of the NAACP’s national board of directors.

The NAACP began as an interracial organization devoted to fighting for equal rights for African Americans. In response to race riots and the rampant lynching of blacks at the turn of the twentieth century, a group of concerned black and white citizens formed the National Negro Committee in 1909; the committee adopted a new name—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—the next year. By 1914 the association had 50 branches throughout the country.

From the beginning, members of the NAACP focused their energy on the civil rights struggle through litigation, legislation, and education. The association has lobbied U.S. Congress in support of civil rights bills, including the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The educational arm has provided scholarships enabling many young African Americans to pursue a college education. The NAACP has also developed school curricula to sensitize students to the effects of discrimination and heighten citizen awareness on the activities of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has taken the fight for equality to the courts to ensure that civil rights legislation passed by Congress is carried out. Lawyers for the association have argued in the lower and higher courts of the United States on behalf of blacks for fair housing, political equality, and school desegregation, to name but a few issues. One of their most significant victories came in 1954, when the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that separate schools could never be equal.

Gibson became chairman of the national board of the NAACP at a time when governmental administration seemed to be negating some of the association’s earlier

At a Glance…

Born William Frank Gibson in 1933; raised in Greenville, SC Education: North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, B.S.; Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry, D.D.S. Religion: Member of John Wesley United Methodist Church.

Dentist practicing in Greenville, SC, 1959—; chairman of the national board of directors, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 1985—. Contributor to Crisis.

Member: Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.; various masonic orders.

Selected awards: Operation Leadership Award, Citizen Development for the Eighties, Furman University; Forum 68 Award, Phillis Wheatley Association; Leadership Award, South Carolina Council on Human Relations; Recognition of Service Awards, South Carolina State Human Affairs Commission; Citizen of the Year Award, Mu Pi Chapter, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.; Invaluable Community Services Award, Local 319, National Association of Postal and Federal Employees; key to the city of Fayetteville, NC; NAACP Leadership Award; Speaker’s Award, Southeastern Province, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Addresses: Office— 239 East Broad St., Greenville, SC 29601.

gains. Rulings by conservative Supreme Court judges appointed by U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush included some that made it more difficult to prove discrimination and others that even revoked earlier rules mandating protection against racial harassment. Shortly after his election, Gibson told Jet that the Reagan administration was “anti-Black, anti-woman, anti-minority, and anti-civil rights.” He added that the NAACP was “developing tactics and strategies to make certain that the Reagan-created court will not turn back the clock as it relates to blacks gaining their fair share in the public marketplace.” Gibson amplified this position later in an article for Crisis, a publication of the NAACP: “We are turning our political efforts toward our local communities and to Congress, where we continue to secure important victories for civil rights,” he wrote.

The Struggle for Empowerment

As chairman of the national board in the 1980s and 1990s, Gibson has taken the NAACP in a new direction. Some critics claim that the NAACP should address pressing issues such as poverty, drugs, and violence, rather than limit their activities to civil rights. Gibson came to the chairmanship with a new agenda—one centered on the premise that the association must become more actively involved in the nation’s economy. “The economic arena is where the game is being played now,” he told Jet magazine shortly after assuming office. “That’s where the jobs are, that’s where the power is.”

His first goal as new chairman was, as quoted in Jet, to actively seek “economic parity within the corporate community. We want blacks to do more than simply get jobs—we want them to be able to own their own businesses, become consultants, professionals, hold positions on boards of directors.” Economic power has been a theme for Gibson throughout his chairmanship. In 1991, he told the New York Times that the NAACP plans to “be more firm and aggressive with corporate America over economic empowerment. If negotiations fail, we will be prepared to use economic clout through boycotts.”

The Expanding Role of the NAACP

Throughout his tenure in office, Gibson has sought, with both words and actions, to answer criticisms that the NAACP has not been meeting the needs of today’s African Americans. Gibson understands the concerns; he told the New York Times that “the NAACP is the accepted leader of the black community,” but admitted, “We [have gotten] a little complacent. We didn’t modernize, for example—didn’t do the things we should have. Now we’re into new ideas, new technology, a new period for us.” Explaining his objectives and how they fit into the association’s historical mission, Gibson focused on the need to confront a new set of problems with new strategies: “We must do something to lessen the increase in gun-related violence that besets the black community, he wrote in Crisis. “We must focus more on education and employment as important elements in the black community and as alternatives to a life of crime.…We must also focus more directly on the health care needs of African Americans.…Finally, we must…develop long-term solutions to the economic woes that affect African Americans.”

Gibson’s leadership has not been without controversy. Some members of the board, led by former executive director Benjamin Hooks, disagreed with the new directions and actions taken by the association. “We should continue the age-old civil rights fight,” Hooks told USA Today in early 1993, shortly before his retirement. “It’s a fight that is far from over.” Gibson and others on the board have countered that growth in other areas is just as important.

The conflict came to a boil in 1992, at the end of Gibson’s second term as chairman. He sought to repeal term limits so that he could serve as chairman for a third term but was opposed by Hooks. Other board members aligned themselves with one of the two men, and the argument sparked growing concerns and criticism regarding leadership. When the fighting was over, Gibson won his right to another term; Hooks and several others tendered their resignation; and Hazel Dukes was voted out as national president. The crises shook NAACP supporters, but Gibson was not worried. He told the New York Times, “There’s no question there is some political damage” but that no one was “ready to tear up their local branches over this.”

Continued Fight for Human Rights, Equal Opportunity, and Economic Parity

The first year of Gibson’s third term in office was highlighted by negotiations between the NAACP and Flagstar Companies, the parent company of Denny’s restaurant chain, which was charged with discriminating against black customers in May of 1993. Gibson was a driving force in the NAACP’s coordination of a Fair Share Agreement with Flagstar, requiring the company to increase recruitment and training of minorities, obtain goods and services from minority-owned firms when possible, and submit to random testing for discrimination at restaurants throughout the country.

Gibson remains optimistic about the future of the NAACP and the advances it can make, but he realizes that unwavering leadership is crucial to the achievement of such goals. In a 1992 issue of Crisis, he cited the acquittal of four white Los Angeles police officers in the brutal, video-taped beating of black motorist Rodney King as a prime example of the continuing need for strength within the NAACP: “This national farce of justice, as carried out by the confused and apathetic jury in California, should reinforce support for the principles of the NAACP.…Blacks are being beaten and unjustly persecuted every day by a society that continues to deny equal pay, upper mobility and employment, quality education, fair housing, and economic parity.” He concluded: “I agree that we’re at a crossroads. African Americans are looking for new solutions. We’re either going to be part of those new solutions or we may get left at the crossroads.” Gibson is determined see to it that people of color are not left behind.