ABSTRACT
By the 1950s Theodore Gibson had become the most prominent black figure in Miami, Florida. The Episcopalian rector led the Miami branch of the NAACP and waged a fierce battle to desegregate the Jim Crow city. It was under his leadership that the Miami branch of the noted civil rights organization faced its greatest challenge. In an attempt to discontinue the branch's activism and eventually eradicate it, the state of Florida accused the civil rights organization of harboring Communists and launched a campaign to gain the organization's membership list. The Miami branch of the NAACP refused to cave in to the state's demand and waged a diligent battle for its existence. The battle between Gibson and the state would eventually be settled in the U S Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the NAACP leader. Despite his activities and this major victory in the Supreme Court, Gibson is barely mentioned by scholars, though he receives a mention in Eric Tschechlok's “‘So Goes the Negro': Race and Labor in Miami, 1940–1963.” Tscheschlok portrays Gibson as a militant voice that helped transform the NAACP from a nonactivist to a more proactivist organization, challenging racial discrimination. However, the author is silent on Gibson's anti-Communist efforts and his fight to protect his and the NAACP's constitutional rights. Author Marvin Dunn's Black Miami in the Twentieth Century takes an uncritical but more extensive look at Gibson. However, he offers little assessment of Gibson's leadership. One of the most insightful portrayals of the fight between Gibson and the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee is Robert W. Saunders's Bridging the Gap: Continuing the Florida NAACP Legacy of Harry T. Moore. Saunders, who served as head of the Florida NAACP, recalls how he and members of the NAACP stood up against the legislative body. But Saunders's personal account relied, for the most part on his memory. 1
