Interview with WWII Army Veteran Marvin Gilmore
This quarter, Beasley Best Community Of Caring is dedicated to helping our veterans who have served our country, as well as their families. We’re working with Home Base, a national organization that provides mental health services for Veterans who have served our grateful nation. The organization, based in Boston with a division in Southwest Florida, provides extensive mental health and wellness support for vets and their families.
Home Base also creates content that is relevant to the well-being of vets and their families. Their podcast, Home Base Nation, focuses on this. This week, we’re calling attention to a recent episode featuring an interview with WWII Army Veteran Marvin Gilmore. Not only did he fight on the battlefield in that war, but he fought against racism in the 1960s.
Knowing that it wasn’t a conventional battle, he turned his energy to economic development within the African American community. Mr. Gilmore founded the first African American-owned bank in New England, he led Boston’s NAACP branch, created the Boston Community Development Corporation, brought jobs to and impacted thousands in and out of the city.
He’s also a musician; he graduated from the New England Conservatory in 1951, he would endow a chair at Brandeis, own and operate a jazz nightclub…and a lot more. In this interview, he discusses his experiences, lessons from his grandmother born into slavery, his mother who thrived in real estate and would always teach Marvin to “look ahead of the ball.” Marvin talks about bringing Sammy Davis Jr. to Boston for a fundraiser, traveling to Jackson, Mississippi with Celtics legend Bill Russell during the Civil Rights Movement, and how he learned to fight for freedom through business, the arts, and simply bringing people together in any way he could.
Check out the full interview with him here.
