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). 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." 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,