( Condensed Excerpt)

Horace & Rose Gillison — A Civil Rights Love Story

For Black History Month, I want to honor two people whose legacy shaped not only my family, but the city of Richmond itself: Rev. Horace Gillison and Rose Gillison, my great-uncle and great-aunt. Their civil rights work did not always make headlines—but it changed systems.

Before they ever met, they came from very different worlds. Horace was a Virginia country boy with barely a sixth-grade formal education, big ideas, and—by most accounts—a big mouth. Others saw his limited schooling and dismissed him. Horace saw no limits at all. He believed doors were meant to be opened, systems challenged, and no one was qualified to tell him what could not be done.

Rose was polished and poised, barely grown, hailing from North Carolina before family loss dictated a move to Virginia to live with cousins. Where others saw Horace as rough around the edges, Rose became—for him—a beautiful princess of a challenge. And Horace loved a challenge.

Rose maintained a bail fund solely for Horace’s protests and sit-ins, understanding that resistance required preparation as much as courage. Horace challenged Richmond institutions like Thalhimers and Miller & Rhoads, demanding they hire college-educated Black women on their sales floors. He later took great joy in seeing that pressure bear fruit when I secured my first professional job in their credit offices—proof that justice delayed is not justice denied.

He rattled newspapers by insisting they run his ads—with his beautiful Black skin in all its glory—or face legal action. He was also arrested for earning a pilot’s license in Virginia and flying a plane to Culpeper so his mother could experience his joy of flight.

He was arrested again for attempting to sell a house to a Black family in the then all white neighborhood I now live in. He was rumored to have taken black families to house showings in rented limousines.

When Firestone Tire—a place where Black customers could barely purchase goods, let alone work—hired him as their first Black salesman, Horace did not simply succeed. He excelled.

Together, Horace and Rose ran soup kitchens, Christian charities, wig shops, and a modeling school that taught Black women poise, job readiness, and confidence—quietly fueling economic growth in local Black families. Rose’s porcelain beauty and charm made her the perfect choice to become one of the first Black spokespersons for Carnation Milk during the war. Horace ministered churches and broke corporate barriers as the first Black member of the Richfood board.

Their love story was just as intentional as their activism.

They met at a birthday party—for Horace’s then girlfriend. Upon seeing Rose, Horace declared, “That’s the woman I will marry.”

Rose did not make it easy. Before accepting his proposal, she handed him a list: get a good job, secure transportation, build a house. Each time Horace returned with a checkmark, she added another requirement—a lesson she later passed down to the women in our family: know your worth and make him work for it.

When Horace finally had enough, he arrived with friends, a new dress, and a pair of nylons—nearly impossible to find at the time—and dragged her to the courthouse.

They would reach their fiftieth wedding anniversary before Rose declared they finally had what she considered a proper wedding. Loving attended by 4 generations of the Gillison family

Though they never had biological children, Horace and Rose adopted two, fostered many more, and opened their lives wide enough to shape generations. Their influence rippled through the Gillison family and beyond—teaching love without limitation, legacy without bloodlines, and the quiet truth that family is often chosen, cultivated, and sustained by intention.

Lives, I believed patterned straight from the Bible;
“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression.” — Isaiah 1:17
“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” — Amos 5:24
“Two are better than one… because they have a good reward for their labor.” — Ecclesiastes 4:9

Horace learned to do good and refused to wait for permission. Rose ensured that righteousness had structure and love behind it. Together, they made justice move.

BREADCRUMB
Justice does not roll on its own.
Someone has to push.
Someone has to prepare.
Someone has to stand side by side when the system pushes back.

Legacy does not always look like applause.
Sometimes it looks like a bail fund.
Sometimes it looks like insisting your image run in full color.
Sometimes it looks like flying anyway.

SALUTE
We see you, Rev. Horace Gillison and Rose Gillison — for seeking justice, correcting oppression, and laboring together so the stream would keep moving and building an extended family that walks in your shoes while still standing on your shoulders.

Bread Crumbs — for those coming after us.
Victorious without reward. Still here.



This is a condensed excerpt from the forthcoming work,

Horace and Rose: A Civil Rights Love Story.

Love,
Chelle
defygravitywithoutwings.com