Emma Belle Gibson Sykes

Emma Belle Gibson Sykes (October 8, 1885 – December 31, 1970) was a suffragist and civil rights activist.

Biography Sykes née Gibson was born on October 8, 1885, in Christiana, Delaware. She attended the segregated Howard High School in Wilmington. After her graduation in 1903 she began her teaching career. In 1911 she married George J. Sykes, a dentist. The couple settled in at 208 East 10th in Wilmington.

Around 1914 Sykes was involved with the formation of the Equal Suffrage Study Club in Wilmington along with other Howard High School teachers Alice Gertrude Baldwin, Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar, Nellie B. Nicholson, Susie Estella Palmer Hamilton, Caroline B. Williams, and Blanche Williams Stubbs . At the same time, she was involved in the formation of the Wilmington branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The amendment was not ratified by the Delaware legislation. "First Negro woman to hold public office in Delaware" (appointed New Castle County Register of Wills