Gilbert Mason

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. In 1949, Mason graduated from Tennessee State University with a BS degree and received an MD degree in 1954 from Howard University, a historically black college. He served his internship in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1955, Dr. Mason moved to the Gulf Coast and established a family medical practice in Biloxi, Mississippi. He and some other men concerned about local conditions set up a Citizens Action Committee, hoping to lessen discrimination. In 1959 he and Dr. Felix Dunn and their families, including children, went swimming at the Biloxi beach to protest the racial segregation of the 26-mile long public waterfront. He and Dunn were taken to the police station and told they could not use the sand beaches, that these were claimed as private property by adjacent homeowners.

In April 1960, Mason returned to the beach and was arrested. When other African Americans learned of this, they expressed their support of him. A week later on April 24, 1960, he and others gathered at the beach in a second wade-in to assert their rights to use the public lands. The group of 125 people included elderly men and women, as well as younger adults, teenagers and children. They were attacked by groups of whites across the beaches, in what became known as "Bloody Sunday". The Biloxi police stood by without taking action.

Next actions In 1960, Mason and other activists organized a grassroots effort for a voter registration drive. African Americans had been largely disenfranchised since the turn of the century by the 1890 constitution that imposed poll taxes and literacy tests as barriers. Administration by white officials meant that rulings were subjectively decided against African Americans.

After the wade-in protests, Mason and other activists formed the first chapter in Biloxi of the NAACP; he was chosen as president and served in that position for the next 34 years. Mason also served as president of the Mississippi state NAACP for 33 years. In addition, the state installed historic markers commemorating these civil rights events on the beach in 2009 and at the Biloxi Light in 2010, to mark the 50th anniversaries of two of the wade-in events. The current marker was replaced in 2022 after the original marker was destroyed by storms.

A Head Start center in Biloxi was named for him in 2010.

In 2019, the National Science Foundation announced that its third Regional Class Research Vessel would be named in Mason's honor. The Research Vessel Gilbert R. Mason will have dual homeports at the Port of Gulfport and Houma, LA, and will be operated by the Gulf – Caribbean Oceanographic Consortium, led by the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON).