 Bibbs' early life was spent growing up in an extended household that included his great-grandmother, Lizzie Powell, a former slave who had amassed some property; his grandfather, James Alexander Carr, whose father had died as a Union Army soldier at the end of the Civil War; and his grandmother Maria Carr, the first African-American librarian in Henderson.The Bibbs family, including his sister Eloise, moved to Terre Haute, when he was about 10 years old.While there, Bibbs attended Paul Lawrence Dunbar Elementary school and lettered in track, baseball and football at the former Wiley High School, from which he was graduated in 1927.