Mifflin Gibbs

First black person to hold public office in Victoria 1867. He left a significant impression on the city and British Columbia despite its racism.

In 1858, nearly 800 free Blacks left the oppressive racial conditions of San Francisco for a new life on Vancouver Island. One of those people was Mifflin Wistar Gibbs whose name and life was commemorated on a bronze plaque at Irving Park in James Bay in 2019. The plaque, commissioned by the Canada’s Historic Sites and Monuments Board, honours Gibbs, w…