Juanita Gamble Coleman was born August 5, 1926 in Thomaston Alabama to the late Deacon Seymour and Mrs. Laura (McCloud) Gamble.
The eldest of nine children, Juanita was still an infant when the family moved to Mobile, Alabama. She lived there for 21 years until marriage. Juanita graduated from the Mobile County Training School of Plateau, Alabama. She loved to run and absences from team training because of absences caring for younger siblings, she still achieved All-State in the high jump and relay for her school.
Juanita believed that “there’s a limit to how high you can jump. There’s a limit to how fast you can run, but there’s no limit to how much you can learn.” Desiring to be a Beautician, and with seven of her eight children, she attended a Mobile beauty college and earned her Cosmetology License. She was an independent beauty proprietor until her mandatory state retirement after twenty years.
Juanita was very active in many organizations, including: President/Secretary of several PTA’s; Secretary of City Council of Prichard under Mayor A.J. Cooper; an Official with District 3, Municipal Election in Prichard; Member of Non-Partisan Voters League; Secretary of NAACP; One of the organizers of the Mobile area Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She was instrumental in getting many illiterate citizens registered to vote while battling the unfair Jim Crow laws. On December 3, 1970 Juanita received a certificate from Alabama State Department of Education in Oral Communication.
Juanita had a wonderful sense of humor up to the very end and wrote in her memoirs that she was a “Had Been” -- Had been the “Neighborhood Hairdresser,” the “Avon Lady,” the “Tupperware Lady,” the lady with the Petition for the City to cut the underbrush near Carver Elementary School where several little boys were molested, the lady doing a survey with the Mobile County Health Department, the lady doing a survey with Mr. Joe Dortch to get at least three children to attend Vigor High School when Blacks first got clearance to go there, Black and White together.
Juanita accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior at an early age and was baptized at the Delaware Street Baptist Church by Reverend Washington.
She was preceded in death by her parents Seymour and Laura Gamble, her son Dwain Conrad Coleman, her sister Elouise Gamble Pettway, and brothers Stallworth, Seymour Jr. (Arthurine), all Mobile AL and most recently, Will Howard Gamble of San Diego CA; granddaughter Deanna Carol Jones-Moses of Pensacola FL, and niece Laura Ann Pettway of Mobile AL.
On September 4, 1947 Juanita married Dan Coleman (now deceased Montford Point Marine) and raised eight children: Charles Allen (Shirley) Coleman of Woodbridge VA, Cherryl C. Howard of Mobile AL, Carol C. Jones of Ocean Springs MS; Christal Anita MSG (RET) John L. Hill Jr of Stone Mountain GA, Columbus Eugene (Tammie) Coleman of Las Vegas NV, Constance Darlene Rogers of Lithonia GA, Dannye Coleman (Lorenza) Bodie of Madison AL.
Juanita departed this life August 22, 2018 at 11:25 AM at her home in Mobile AL. and will truly be missed. She leaves to mourn her passing her seven remaining children and four remaining siblings of Mobile: Yahya Abdullah, Josey Gamble Earl, Dorothy Lee Gamble Yelder, Helen Gamble Matthews (Ezekiel), Bernice Stephens, and Altheria Pouncey; twenty- five grandchildren, thirty-four great-grandchildren, and twenty-eight great great- grandchildren including Allen D. Jones, Jasmine Hill, Akira Das; and three great- grandchildren. Devoted: Sherman M. Howard and Warren A. Jones; a host of nieces, nephews, cousins, other relatives and friends.

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