Bro. Russel Gideon
Brother Russel S. Gideon was a pharmacist, a businessman, a pioneer in the development of senior housing, a soldier, and a community activist. From 1977 to 1985, Brother Gideon was recognized yearly by Ebony Magazine as one of the nation’s 100 most influential Black citizens. Brother Gideon was initiated into the Beta Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma in 1935 as a charter member of Phi Beta Sigma’s first undergraduate chapter in New England. He would later charter Phi Beta sigma’s first chapter in the Pacific Northwest—Beta Omicron Chapter. National honor came to Russell Gideon in 1977 when he was elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the United Supreme Council Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Prince Hall Affiliation, Northern Jurisdiction. In that post, he led the 22,000 Prince Hall Masons north of the Mason-Dixon Line. His appointment marked the first time in 84 years that a Mason west of the Mississippi had been elected to hold this post. A bust was commissioned in 1984 honoring his time in office and was placed in the Masonic Cathedral’s Hall of Fame in Philadelphia, PA. Today, in honor of his accomplishments, the Western Region of Phi Beta Sigma has named an academic scholarship in his name, “The Russel S. Gideon Scholarship.”
In 1932 at age 28, Gideon left Calgary and came to the United States to study at Boston’s Patrick School of Pharmacy, an all-black pharmacy school. This school was founded by A Haitian immigrant who was trained in pharmaceutical sciences in Trinidad and Tobago. It would produce over 5,000 pharmacists during the years of its operations. After Bro. Gideon’s training at Patrick’s School of Pharmacy, and soon after Massachusetts’ white pharmacy schools began admitting blacks, Gideon enrolled in the Western Massachusetts School of Pharmacy in 1937 and graduated from that institution in 1941. Upon graduation, his horizons expanded to include positions as a national officer in both the National Negro Business League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
During World War II Gideon served in the US Army in North Africa and Italy as a technical sergeant in the 366th Infantry Medical Corps. There he led the Pharmacy Corps. Bro. Gideon as one of many Sigma Brothers from Boston to answer the ‘Call of Duty.’ In fact, in the Phi Beta Sigma’s Spring 1945 edition of the Crescent Magazine, it was duly noted that Sigma membership in Boston had been decimated from Brothers going to war. After returning from the War, Bro. Gideon returned to his pharmaceutical career in Boston. In 1946 he moved to Seattle, Washington, and by 1947, purchased a drug store which he operated until 1963. This was the first Black-owned Pharmacy in Seattle, WA.
Russell Gideon served on numerous boards in Seattle, among them the Florence Crittenden Home for Unwed Teenage Mothers, the Seattle Urban League, the Foundation for International Understanding created by students at the University of Washington, and the East Madison YMCA.
In 1963, Governor Albert Rossellini appointed Gideon to the Washington State Board of Prison Terms and Paroles. He was a charter member of the Central Area Kiwanis Club and a trustee at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Seattle.
Russell S. Gideon died on September 29, 1985, ten days before his 82nd birthday. On September 13, 1986, a housing complex for low-income seniors and disabled residents was named the Gideon-Mathews Gardens in his honor.