Gilbert Mason

Life & Legacy

Dr. Gilbert R. Mason Sr. (October 7, 1928 – July 8, 2006), was a physician with a family practice, a civil rights leader, and author in Biloxi, Mississippi. He organized three wade-ins from 1959 to 1963 to desegregate the city's federally funded public beaches. This was the first nonviolent civil disobedience action conducted in Mississippi in the 1950s.
After conducting the second protest on April 24, 1960, which was attacked by white mobs, Mason helped found the Biloxi chapter of the NAACP, and was elected president. He served in that position for more than 30 years, as well as head of the Mississippi state NAACP.
In addition to his practice, Mason gained full privileges at Biloxi Regional Hospital and later served as chairman of family practice there. Late in life he wrote a memoir about his early political activities, called Beaches, Blood, and Ballots: A Black Doctor's Civil Rights Struggle (2000).