Thelma Gibson, advocate for health, housing and Black history, dies at 99
Thelma Gibson, pioneering Black nurse, activist and Coconut Grove native, died Wednesday afternoon, her family confirmed to the Miami Herald. She was 99.
Born Thelma Vernell Anderson in 1926, Gibson grew up in a segregated Coconut Grove neighborhood, once known as Colored Town, and was the sixth of 14 children to Sweetlon and Thomas Anderson. Despite her humble beginnings, Gibson worked to become a nurse and later became an advocate for many causes, like health care, affordable housing and preserving Black history, that helped the Black community in Coconut Grove.
Read more: ‘I’m thankful:’ Black Miami pioneer reflects on 99 years of life
Kaye Woodard, Gibson’s niece, said her aunt received many accolades throughout her life for her work, but community, family and faith were most important to her.
“Nothing was more important to her and more satisfying to her than making sure that people were taken care of,” Woodard told the Herald. “I think that’s her legacy. She always wanted to take care of others, and she did.”
Tributes for Gibson poured in late Wednesday, from Mayor Eileen Higgins to Monty Trainer to the Black Archives, whose founder Dorothy Jenkins Fields, is her cousin and remembers her as “a gracious, forthright businesswoman and caring nurse.” Gibson sat on the Black Archives board and was always available to give Fields advice.
“To think that I’m saying it in the past tense is hard,” she said, holding back tears as she reminisced about her cousin.
Though she was 99, Gibson was sharp. Woodard said her aunt would call every single niece and nephew on their birthdays. “That’s a tradition that’s going to be sorely missed, because she called everybody and sang happy birthday,” said Woodard, whose birthday was Dec. 22, a few days after Gibson’s.
The Ed McMahon to her Johnny Carson
Gibson worked for the rights of Black people alongside her husband, late pastor and activist Theodore Gibson, a pioneer of desegregation who led the effort to integrate then-Dade County Public Schools. The two married in 1967 and were together for 15 years before his death in 1982.
Miami Herald columnist Bea Hines said she met Gibson through her late husband, for whom she already had a great deal of respect. So, becoming friends with Gibson was “just the icing on the cake.” The two became lifelong friends.
Hines called Gibson the Ed McMahon to her Johnny Carson. “She thought all my stories and jokes were funny, and we had a good time together,” Hines said.
Gibson’s stoicism is something to admire, Hines said, adding she embodied former First Lady Michelle Obama’s mantra, “When they go low, we go high.”
“She is a loss, not just as a friend, but as a woman who led the way, showed us how to do it, and keep your integrity,” Hines said.
The caring spirit Hines described showed up in the initiatives she created to improve the Coconut Grove community. In 1983, Gibson created the Theodore Gibson Memorial Fund, which has worked to bridge the gap between diverse communities in Coconut Grove. The fund has helped open the senior living facility Gibson Plaza Community and Educational Center and created a youth initiative focused on STEM education.
Gibson also founded the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Miami-Dade County, a forum to provide businesswomen with the resources and support to succeed. In 2000, Gibson founded the Thelma Gibson Health Initiative, a nonprofit to improve health outcomes and offset the effects of poverty, literacy, and other health and community challenges.
Merline Barton, co-founder and president of the Thelma Gibson Health Initiative said she met Gibson 37 years ago, when she had recently retired from nursing and was working to create affordable housing in Coconut Grove. “She taught us how to earn the trust of the residents by treating everyone equal, respecting them no matter what they looked like, no matter what their challenges in life for no matter what their circumstance,” Barton said.
Humble beginnings
In a recent interview with the Herald, Gibson recounted her childhood in the Grove, including how her family had to go “White Town” for groceries but had to put their money in Black-owned banks. Money in her home was tight, but she said they learned how to make the $8 a day her mom made (which was considered a lot of money for Black people at the time) stretch.
Gibson graduated from George Washington Carver High School a semester early in January 1944 at age 17, then headed to St. Agnes Nursing School, a nursing school for Black people in Raleigh, North Carolina. Gibson detailed her life in her autobiography, “Forbearance,” which Woodard said demonstrated her aunt’s formidable spirit during a segregated time.
She attended college for free through the Cadet Corp program, created by the United States government to teach and train nurses as a result of a nursing shortage during World War II. After graduating in 1947, Gibson, then 21, returned to Miami, where she worked at Jackson Memorial Hospital as one of the hospital’s first Black nurses.
“Even with those kind of humble beginnings, she was able to decide she was going to college and be a nurse,” Woodard said. “She got it done and then made sure that her siblings that came after her got it done as well.”
But the path as a nurse wasn’t without its hurdles. Gibson recalled when she insisted on being called Ms. Anderson, as her white counterparts were referred to, as opposed to simply “Nurse Anderson.” Her demands for respect were met with swift resistance and indirect threats of being fired.
Gibson was also frustrated she couldn’t work in the operating rooms because of segregation; still, she persisted in other areas of her field, such as continuing her education and working with young people. She made history in 1964 when she became the first Black Assistant Supervisor of Nursing in the Dade County Health Department.
Housing and civil rights advocate
Gibson’s work in the community did not end at nursing. She consistently advocated for affordable housing in Coconut Grove to avoid the displacement of longtime Black residents due to gentrification. Through the Coconut Grove Local Development Corporation, Gibson worked to revitalize the Coconut Grove community through housing, tackling blight, and creating youth programs.
“Miami will not be the same without her,” Fields said. “She was a daughter of Miami. She gave so much, but she touched so many that her work and her life lives on.”
Hines said that last time she visited Gibson at the home, the near centenarian was still focused on THGI. The two last spoke a few weeks ago when Gibson thanked Hines for her birthday present, a monetary gift that she figured Gibson would put toward one of her charities. “She was one of a kind,” Hines said.
In December and just days shy of turning 99, Gibson was still advocating for Black people and their rights at a time when Black history and how it is taught is being diminished at the federal and state levels and as diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have drastically decreased.
“It’s important that we have the same rights as everybody else,” she said at the time. “Blacks shouldn’t be any different from any white person that’s born in this country, that we’re born here.”
Barton and Woodard both said Gibson’s story is one of overcoming and persistence, with her legacy being one of strength and service. “She embraced everyone and taught and then taught us how to look to see life through her lens, you know, to no matter what obstacles came her way,” Barton said. “She found a way to persevere.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 8:19 PM.
