Mercedes Gilbert

Mercedes Gilbert (July 26, 1894 – March 2, 1952) was an African American actress, novelist, and poet born in Jacksonville, Florida. She attended Edward Waters College, where she initially trained as a nurse before relocating to New York and pursuing a career in entertainment. Her entry into the profession came first through songwriting and subsequently through work as a stage actress. She was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority.

Gilbert's stage career spanned more than two decades, with Broadway appearances from 1927 to 1950. Her credits included Lysistrata, The Searching Wind, How Come, Lawd?, the musical Carib Song, and a 1950 all-Black cast production of Tobacco Road. Away from Broadway, she portrayed Zipporah, the wife of Moses, in the original touring production of The Green Pastures in 1930. In the mid-1940s, she toured historically Black colleges across the United States performing a one-woman show.

Her screen work began in the silent era. She appeared in The Call of His People in 1922 and Body and Soul in 1925, followed by Moon Over Harlem in 1939, in which she played Jackie's mother. Her television work included the episode "The Green Dress" from the series Lights Out. Gilbert also worked in radio, most notably in a 1943 broadcast called "Heroines in Bronze," a tribute to Black women in America in which she played Sojourner Truth. She additionally wrote and produced radio skits and appeared on other radio programs.

In 1938, Gilbert published the novel Aunt Sara's Wooden God. She died on March 2, 1952, at Queens General Hospital in New York following a three-week illness, at the age of 57.