Founders Award for Civic Leadership
James O. Gibson is honored for his leading advocacy in urban revitalization, community development, and race relations. His demonstrated commitment to social equity for more than three decades on issues ranging from civil rights to economic opportunity has provided critical progress for our country’s social fabric.
For more than three decades, James Gibson has been a leading figure of urban affairs in the United States for his work in civil rights, community development, and philanthropy. His spirited commitment and determination to promote needed social change through both grassroots and institutional action have facilitated critical growth in American society.
Currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, Gibson is involved with efforts to utilize responsible redevelopment initiatives as tools for revitalizing Camden, New Jersey. Earlier he served as a Senior Associate at the Urban Institute where he focused on civil rights policies and the promotion of social and economic opportunities. Gibson also served as Director of the Equal Opportunity Program at the Rockefeller Foundation (1986-1992), and as President of Washington, D.C.’s Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation (1983-1985).
As a young man, Gibson worked to eliminate the Jim Crow structure of the South as Co- Chairman of the student movement in Atlanta and, subsequently, as the Executive Secretary of the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP. In 1964, he became the Director of one of the nation’s first comprehensive neighborhood development programs, a unit of Washington’s United
Planning Organization (UPO), part of the Ford Foundation’s national Gray Areas Project. There, he led a community development program in what is now the Columbia Heights and Shaw Neighborhoods. In 1967, and for the next 13 years, as Executive Associate at The Potomac Institute, Gibson designed and organized numerous projects in urban policy, municipal planning, and affirmative action, including the Central City Technical Assistance Project, which provided municipalities with information and technical assistance in emerging black-majority cities.
Gibson utilized his extensive knowledge and leadership in social equity efforts, working through appointments to the President ’s National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty, the National Capital Planning Commission, and as a Delegate to the United States-Great Britain Community Development Policy Exchanges. He also served as the District of Columbia’s Administrator for Planning and Development.
Today, James Gibson continues to serve nationally as Chair of the Board of PolicyLink and on the Board of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he remains involved in the local scene and is known as a national model for American civic leadership for his founding ingenuity and passion.