Born in 1894 in Henderson, Kentucky, William Marvin Gibson graduated from Howard University in 1920 and was ordained in the Baptist ministry. After graduating from Yale Divinity School, he moved to Worcester, Massachusetts and served as pastor of the John Street Baptist Church. In the 1930s, he served as a professor in the Division of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Florida A&M College. He later served as pastor of the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1955, at Gibson’s invitation, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at Union Baptist. In 1956, a newspaper article in the Chicago newspaper, the Daily Defender, said he was studying for a doctorate of divinity at Yale. Gibson died in 1957 and is buried in Chicago.
Image citation: Yale Divinity School class composite photographs, Yale Divinity School