Maxwell Claude Gillette, age 93, died Dec. 10, 2020, at Sutter Health Hospital, Van Ness Campus, where he was being treated for lung cancer.
Born in Des Arc, Arkansas on March 2, 1927, Maxwell was the youngest of 12 children.
In 1943, his parents, Charles and Emma Gillette moved to San Francisco from Chicago, bringing Maxwell and four of his sisters and brothers (Gladys, Edythe, Roscoe, and Harold) with them. The children attended public school in San Francisco with Maxwell graduating from Lowell High School in 1945. After earning his BA and MA in Industrial Arts Education at San Francisco State College, he was hired by the San Francisco Unified School District as an Industrial Arts teacher and taught at Ben Franklin School where he was one of its two Black instructors.