A Guiding Light: Ralph Mark Gilbert

Ralph Mark Gilbert

One of Savannah’s greatest citizens was Ralph Mark Gilbert. Gilbert was born on March 17, 1899 in Jacksonville, Fl. He was a Renaissance man. He was known for his tenor voice, his superb oration, his plays, and civil rights work. He was Savannah’s Paul Robeson and more.
Gilbert earned his degree from Michigan University. He was in his prime at the age of forty in 1939 when he became the pastor of the historic First African Baptist Church (one of, if not the oldest black churches in the United States). He would lead this church until his death in 1956.
His leadership of the Savannah NAACP from 1942 to 1950 would bring great change in the lives of his fellow black and white citizens.  He reorganized and politically jumpstarted the organization. He led a voter drive in which hundreds of blacks were registered to vote. Their new found voting power led to the election of a progressive white mayor (John G. Kennedy) and the city’s police department hiring their first black police officers. They became known as the Original Nine and were some of the first black officers to serve in the South.
But Gilbert did not stop wielding his power as a leader in the new Black voter’s  bloc he helped to organize Savannah’s Greenbrier Children’s Center (still in existence today). He also was influential in orchestrating black and whites to found the West Broad Street YMCA for the black community located on May Street.  
Stepping up as the organizer, convener, and first president of the Georgia NAACP, he was responsible for forty NAACP chapters being organized in Georgia. Gilbert was mentor and precursor of W.W. Law who would become Savannah’s civil rights leader in the tumultuous sixties on through to the 21st century. Law would also receive national recognition for his work in the preservation of black history in Savannah.
It was Law’s work as a preservationist and civil rights leader that led to the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum’s creation in Savannah. The museum’s building history is unique and important. It was originally constructed in 1914 as an African American bank and built by an African-American contractor Robert Pharrow. It later served as the Guaranty Insurance Company (owned by a black Savannah millionaire) and as the Savannah office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The museum has a bronze bust of Gilbert on its first floor. Gilbert is an often unsung hero of Savannah but his impact is still felt today in many of our institutions.
 
 
 
 
​

---

Savannah's Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum

First African Baptist Church

---