Carol Sibley

Carol Rhodes Sibley (1902–1986), ''nee'' Rhodes, was a prominent civic activist in Berkeley, California. Sibley is perhaps best known as a member of the Berkeley School Board from 1961 to 1971, and sometimes its president, during a time when Berkeley became one of the first cities in the country to racially desegregate its schools. With her husband Robert, Sibley was also deeply involved in the community life of the University of California, Berkeley.

Biography

Carol Bates Rhodes was born on 4 April 1902 to Charles Elbert Rhodes and Mary Bates Rhodes (née Mary Williamson Bates, 1868-1944 In this three-paragraph report about her death in her husband's college alumni magazine, Mary Bates Rhodes is reported to have been born on 26 May 1868, married on 11 September 1894, and died on 12 December 1944.). She grew up with an older brother (Charles Elbert Rhodes, Jr.) and a younger sister (Ruth Mary Rhodes), in Upstate New York. She graduated in 1919 from Lafayette High School in Buffalo, as valedictorian and class poet.
Her father was a Presbyterian minister and "taught every summer at Chautauqua Institution."FULL PDF
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Houseguests when she was growing up included Norman Thomas and Pearl S. Buck.
Sibley began college studies at Wellesley College in 1919, graduating in 1923.

From 1923 to 1943 she was married to Paul Johnston, giving birth to two children, Mary Carol (b. 1925) and James Irvin II (b. 1927). They divorced in August, 1943. From 1941 to 1943, Carol Johnston was Alumnae Secretary for Wellesley College, and "travelled to nearly every Wellesley Club in the U.S.A. because alumnae could not come to College and President McAfee felt it was vital that they be kept in touch."

On 6 December 1943, in Washington, D.C.,
full page view showing Dec. 6 date on page
Article begins "The marriage in Washington, D.C., yesterday of Robert Sibley... and Mrs. Carol Rhodes Johnston... was announced in Berkeley today...."In her oral history, Sibley (1980) states that she was married "In '43, December. We never can remember whether it was December 6 or 7. It was either Pearl Harbor Day or the day before... there in Washington .C... I've got it somewhere" (p. 83); On page 304 of the oral history, her "Vitae... prepared for Wellesley College Alumnae Association, 1975" lists December 6 as the wedding day; The Dec. 6 ''Oakland Tribune'', a daily newspaper published in the afternoons, stated that the marriage had been "yesterday" in Washington, D.C. she married Robert Sibley (1881-1958), a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, who was an executive manager of the California Alumni Association (1923-1949), and later became director and president of the East Bay Regional Park District (1948-1958). She moved to Berkeley to be with him in June, 1944.
The Sibleys lived for many years in a house known as Allanoke at the corner of Le Roy Avenue and Ridge Road in Berkeley. The house "in the 1940s and '50s in particular... was a center of UC Berkeley social life and was designated a city of Berkeley Landmark in 1986."
In 1958, when Carol and Robert Sibley were traveling together in France, Robert died unexpectedly of a heart attack

Sibley was elected to the Berkeley School Board in 1961, giving the board "for the first time... a four-to-one liberal majority."
Because of their support for school desegregation, Sibley and another board member, Sherman J. Maisel, were subjected to a recall election on October 6, 1964, in which they retained their seats, and their detractors experienced a "rout," by a margin of about 23,000 to 15,000 votes.

Sibley received the 1973 Benjamin Ide Wheeler Medal for distinguished service to the Berkeley community.
Sibley received the 1975 alumna achievement award from Wellesley College.

Sibley was the focus of an oral history published in 1980 by the Regional Oral History Office of the University of California, Berkeley, based on nine interviews conducted from 21 April to 3 August 1978.

Sibley died in 1986, and a memorial service was held at First Congregational Church.

Works by Sibley

Oral history through University of California Berkeley:

FULL PDF
Other works:
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* (Kessinger Legacy Reprint, 2010; originally published by Lederer, Street & Zeus Co., 1952)
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Sibley's oral history states that wrote "about 48 articles for the California Monthly on subjects of special interest to women, 1944-1949."

Sources

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References

External links

Oral history of Carol Sibley based on 9 interviews in 1978
(PDF, 406 pages)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sibley, Carol
1902 births
1986 deaths
Wellesley College alumni
People from Buffalo, New York
People from Berkeley, California
Lafayette High School (Buffalo, New York) alumni