William B. Gibbs, Jr., a teacher and principal of the Rockville Colored Elementary School, challenged unequal salaries for black educators in Montgomery County after black teachers, despite meeting the same qualifications as white teachers, were paid only half as much. After the Board of Education denied his petition for equal pay, he filed suit in Montgomery County Circuit Court in 1936. He was represented by NAACP attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston, and County Superintendent Edwin Broome persuaded the school board to settle out of court by phasing in equal pay over two years. The year after the case was filed, Gibbs was dismissed from Montgomery County Public Schools on a technicality and never taught in Maryland again. Although the settlement set no legal precedent, the case became the first victory in equalizing pay and a model for later court actions that eventually led to the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
