Mary Gibson Hundley

Mary Gibson Hundley (18 October 1897 – 1986) was an educator and civil rights activist from Baltimore, Maryland. She was born to lawyer Malachi Gibson and teacher Mary Matilda Syphax. Through her mother's side of the family, she is a descendant of Martha Washington and the granddaughter of William Syphax, the namesake of the William Syphax School in Washington D.C. She is also a relative of Douglas Syphax, a Union army officer during the American Civil War. in Washington, D.C., in 1914.

In January 1941, the Hundleys purchased and moved into a house in a neighborhood with a restrictive racial covenant. Their white neighbors brought a legal suit against them and won in December of the same year. The Hundleys were encouraged to refrain from living in their house, and they were eventually evicted in July 1942. The case was later reversed by appeal one year after its initial decision. The case was later cited in the Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 US1-23 (1948) case, which established that covenants restricting use and ownership of property to whites violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Personal life Hundley was married first to William M. Brewer. The two divorced in 1935. She married again in 1938, this time to Frederick F. Hundley, a public school art teacher. He died in 1955.

Hundley was also a participant in a number of women's organizations, and was a member in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, The Links, the Women's Auxiliary of the Freedmen's Hospital (now Howard University Hospital), the Radcliffe Club of Washington, and the American Association of University Women.

She also volunteered with a variety of institutions, offering herself as an escort and interpreter for foreign visitors via a number of organizations in Washington, D.C., and a tour leader for the National Education Association. In 1978, Hundley was honored by Radcliffe College at its Centennial Awards ceremony with the Alumnae Recognition Award for her career as an educator and courageous citizen.

Death and legacy Hundley died in 1986. Her papers were given to the Schlesinger Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts by her heir, Orlando Hobbs, that same year.