Donald Trump won the presidential election on November 8, 2016, and the nation was irrevocably altered. However, for my family, everything changed the next night—November 9, 2016—and hasn’t been the same since.
Late that evening, my husband David informed me that our bakery, Gibson’s, had had a theft incident. In our 137 years of operation, we’ve seen our fair share of shoplifters, including one earlier that same week.
On that specific night, a student from the nearby Oberlin College attempted to take two bottles of wine and purchase a third using a phony ID. Allyn, our kid, had followed him across the street. There were two additional students participating. Allyn was severely assaulted, and the three students were taken into custody.
Since the kids told the police that my son had attacked them—not the other way around—David was concerned that the situation might escalate. He admitted to me that he was concerned about how the arrest of the black kids would affect our company since onlookers had already accused Allyn of racial profiling.
However, none of us were aware of what was going to occur.
I opened the business at seven the next morning, and I immediately realized what David had been worried about. Hundreds of students started to assemble in front of the shop during the next several hours.
They carried placards that said “We are White Supremacists” and yelled “Boycott Gibson’s.” On their bullhorns, they yelled racial slurs at us. The pupils weren’t alone themselves.
Donald Trump won the presidential election on November 8, 2016, and the nation was irrevocably altered. The following evening, November 9, 2016, however, was when my family’s world was completely upended and has never been put back in its proper place (Above, from left to right) Lawyer Lee Plakas, Allyn W. Gibson, Allyn D. Gibson, Cashlyn Gibson, David Gibson, and Lorna Gibson in Elyria, Ohio, following a 2019 court victory
Also present, college officials distributed brochures and used a bullhorn to address the audience. We have a “LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION,” the demonstrators’ leaflets said.
They blocked the entrance and yelled at people as they pushed by to reach the counter. A couple people came in to film our customers on their phones. It continued all day. The protesters were yelling at me as I went to gather the tables and chairs we keep outside for clients late that night. I was terrified, and the only thing on my mind was how to keep our colleagues safe.
The demonstrations persisted the next day, but the police generally succeeded in keeping them across the street. However, the harm had already been done to our relationship with the institution and its pupils.
Before November 9, we had a good connection with the school. Every day, we brought bagels, cookies, and pizza dough to the dining halls. For the parents’ weekend, we hosted pie and ice cream socials, and for events, we served pastry trays. Until 2002, I was employed as a nurse at a nearby hospital, but if David had a big order, I often assisted him in bringing the trays of baked goodies to campus.
The school rescinded all of our standing orders a week after the event. The catastrophe that befell my family didn’t end there.
In a statement, the school hinted that this wasn’t an isolated event. The student senate of the school approved a resolution calling on the institution to sever connections with us, which was displayed in a case in the student center. We have a little grocery shop and offer beer and wine in addition to our pastries and chocolates, but our business from the students themselves and administrators absolutely dried up. And the students persisted in demonstrating.
In an effort to persuade Oberlin to rescind its unfounded accusations that we were racist and to calm the tiny number of students who, in their zeal, had misunderstood us so badly, David spoke with the school’s president and other officials. However, Oberlin refused to even think about making a statement, which led the general public to conclude that we were in reality “racist.”
Our business from the students themselves and administrators—we have a small grocery store and sell beer and wine in addition to our pastries and candies—dried up completely. And the students kept showing up to protest.
(Above) One of the flyers handed out by students, encouraging others to boycott Gibson’s Bakery
Instead, the school suggested that if a student were ever discovered stealing in the future, we would phone the dean rather than the police. They declined because my husband and his father genuinely believe that everyone should be treated equally. Finally, in 2017, we felt that we had no option but to sue Oberlin (for libel, among other things), since David’s 89-year-old father, who had devoted his life to the company, did not want to pass away being wrongly labeled a racist.
Things had already begun to go apart by the time the trial began. We had to fire half of our staff members and drastically reduce our working hours since we couldn’t pay our personnel. My husband’s father-in-law enjoyed to spend the whole day outside the shop talking to everyone who passed by. He delivered bagels to the college until his nineties. He was a pillar of the neighborhood.
He would sit outside for a long time, but no one would speak to him since news of the business with the college had spread. It hurt both his and my hearts. Not only was it incorrect to label us as racists, but it also hurt us to the heart.
My spouse slipped out of view in the months before the trial. We stopped talking as much as we once did and started getting along in our house. He didn’t want to worry me since he was so anxious about the trial. I also had a lot going on. We had my mother, who had dementia, living with us. Because of his wife’s ALS, one of our bakers, his wife (an Oberlin grad), and their two-year-old had to relocate into our living room. My father-in-law moved in with us as well after suffering serious injuries.
In addition to everything else, my husband David received an advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis six months before the study started. Despite the terrible nature of his cancer treatments, he continued to work from seven in the morning until eleven at night. David made the decision to stop the treatments once the trial began so he could be as resilient as possible in court. He wanted the jurors to remain in the dark about his illness. He demanded that the matter be resolved solely based on the evidence.
Relief swept over me when the jury decided in our favor, declaring that we were entitled to $44 million in damages (later reduced to $31 million). I had hoped that we could finally put everything behind us and resume our work.
But when the decision was made, David and I traveled to larger medical facilities in the South and in New York to treat David’s cancer. During the study, we learned that the cancer had progressed, and we were helpless.
Allyn Sr.’s (above, right) last words to my son, a few days before he died, were: Do good, honest work.
Before he died in 2019, David asked me to keep the store going. ‘Just keep the doors open, no matter what,’ he said. He gave his life for the store, and I promised him that I would do everything I could to honor his final wish.
I still haven’t seen a penny from the school. In 2019, Oberlin appealed to have the jury verdict overturned. Ohio’s Ninth District Court of Appeals rejected Oberlin’s claims and upheld the jury’s verdict. But in May of 2022, Oberlin appealed again to the Ohio Supreme Court to try to avoid the jury’s decision. Thankfully, earlier this week, the Ohio Supreme Court denied Oberlin’s appeal and ruled that the school must pay us $36 million. But even with this most recent ruling, the college, which has about a billion dollars’ worth of assets at its disposal, still refuses to pay.
We hoped that, with time, the kids who started all this would graduate, and that new students would come in and that the whole drama would fade. But I’m told that freshmen are still told to boycott us. Parents who come in tell me that their kids have been brainwashed to hate us.
When Allyn Sr. passed away a few months ago at the age of 93, I was at his side. During his last days, we had a lot of laughs. He enjoyed telling tales, and he did so all the way to the end. Like when Stevie Wonder arrived, the most of them centered on the bakery. A few days before he passed away, Allyn Sr. told my son to “do excellent, honest job.”
I have made an effort to accomplish that. I open the business every day (except for Christmas) at 8 a.m., just like my husband, his parents, and their parents, and their parents, and their parents. I fill shelves and remove items from the kitchen before purchasing supplies, cleaning the shop, and stocking shelves again.
Our e-commerce company, payroll, and computer needs are handled by Allyn Jr. and his wife Erin, who also hand-dips our chocolates. In the evenings, I do the never-ending paperwork and bill payments. My home is suddenly silent. All of the friends and relatives I looked after have passed away.
My pals visit me throughout the week for coffee and snacks. There are some natives and residents of the nearby towns that support us, but it is insufficient. We don’t bother replenishing our shelves since there isn’t any foot traffic anymore. Before, there was a steady flow of customers entering the store. Now, during the whole morning, we may only see one or two customers. Even though we sell far less of them, we still offer whole wheat doughnuts, apple fritters, chocolates, and sweets with handmade caramels.
If the college gave me the money, I wouldn’t purchase a home, take a trip, or leave Ohio. I would swap out the fryers and dough proofers that we utilize, as well as the compressors for the freezers. I would settle the mortgages I had taken out recently on my houses. I would increase output and bring back the workforce.
We are encouraged by the Ohio Supreme Court’s recent ruling, but if the funds aren’t provided within the next several months, I’ll be forced to file for bankruptcy and permanently close Gibson’s.
I’m concerned about this town’s future right now. I was raised here. We first connected at a party in 1978, and stayed by each other’s sides till his passing in 2019. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan, my husband was given the opportunity to become a professor of chemistry there, but there was little doubt that he would return to Oberlin and the bakery. I had already started managing a Gibson’s location in Elyria at age 23, before we got married. For our wedding, he created a stunning five-tier cake.
They chanted ‘Boycott Gibson’s’ and held signs that said we were white supremacists. They called us racists on their bullhorns. The students weren’t alone.
I wish I could still make wedding cakes for this community, but I am unable to. I think there is space for both Gibson’s and the college.
A little girl entered the bakery a few months ago. She informed me that she was debating visiting the school and that she had heard dreadful things about our shop, including that we were racist and need to be boycotted. She claimed to be aware of the truth of our tale and that all of the criticism leveled at us turned her off. I advised her to use her own judgment. That is the purpose of college.
Then I told her that I’d love to see her come to school here. And I’d like to see her come into the bakery if she does. I hope we’ll still be here.