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Savannah » Historic Suburbs and Near Downtown » Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Cuyler-brownville, and West Savannah » Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum (Wage Earners Loan and Investment Company)

Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum (Wage Earners Loan and Investment Company)

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1914, Robert E. Pharrow, builder; 1995–1996 interior remodeled. 460 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Once home to the second largest black-owned bank in America, this commercial building served as the Savannah branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and is now a museum documenting the struggle for equality. W. W. Law (who served twenty-six years as president of the Savannah NAACP) and the Savannah Yamacraw Association for the Study of African American Life and History worked to ensure its reuse. The museum, which opened in 1996, honors Ralph Mark Gilbert, a religious, political, educational, and social leader who advocated African American voting, organized over forty NAACP branches in Georgia, and was the father of civil rights in Savannah.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler
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Data

What's Nearby

Interstate-16, Montgomery Street Exit Ramp
Hollingsworth Auto Services
Frogtown Lofts
St. Philip Monumental African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
Pepe Hall, SCAD (Barnard Street School)

Citation

Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler, "Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum (Wage Earners Loan and Investment Company)", [Savannah, Georgia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/GA-02-11.1.

Print Source

Buildings of Savannah, Robin B. Williams. With David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 197-198.

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