#Moses Dickson and The Knights of Liberty

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Knights of Liberty - Wikipedia

Pictured here is Moses Dickson, from the frontispiece illustration of the 1879 book A Manual of the Knights of Tabor and Daughters of the Tabernacle. In 1872, the Rev. Moses Dickson founded the International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor, an African-American fraternal order focused on benevolence and financial programs. Dickson was born a free man in Cincinnati in 1824, was a Union soldier during the Civil War, and afterwards became a prominent clergyman in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Dickson showed an interest in progressive fraternal organizations early on – in 1846 Dickson, with others, founded a society known as the Knights of Liberty, whose objective was to overthrow slavery; the group did not get beyond the organizing stages. Dickson was also involved in Freemasonry – he was the second Grand Master of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri.

Dickson’s International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor – or Order of Twelve, as it’s more commonly know – accepted men and women on equal terms. Men and women met together in higher level groups and in the governance of the organization, although at the local level they met separately – the men in “temples” and the women in “tabernacles” (akin to “lodges” in Freemasonry). The Order of Twelve was most prominent in the South and the lower Midwest. The major benefits to members – similar to many fraternal orders of the time – was a burial policy and weekly cash payments for the sick.

What many people today remember about the Order of Twelve is an institution founded in Mound Bayou, Misssissippi in 1942 – the Taborian Hospital. Michael Premo, a Story Corps facilitator, posted his appreciation for the impact that the Taborian Hospital had on the lives of African-Americans living in the Mississippi Delta from the 1940s-1960s. The Taborian Hospital was on the Mississippi Heritage Trust’s 10 Most Endangered List of 2000, and an update to that list indicates that the hospital still stands vacant and seeks funding for renovation. Here are some photos of the Taborian Hospital today.

Want to learn more about the Order of Twelve? Here are a few primary and secondary sources that we have here in our collection (with primary sources listed first):

Dickson, Moses. A Manual of the Knights of Tabor and Daughters of the Tabernacle, including the Ceremonies of the Order, Constitutions, Installations, Dedications, and Funerals, with Forms, and the Taborian Drill and Tactics. St. Louis, Mo. : G. I. Jones [printer], 1879. Call number: RARE HS 2259 .T3 D5 1879

—-. Ritual of Taborian Knighthood, including : the Uniform Rank. St. Louis, Mo. : A. R. Fleming & Co., printers, 1889. Call number: RARE HS 2230 .T3 D5 1889

Beito, David. From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social services, 1890-1967. Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Call number: 44 .B423 2000

Skocpol, Theda, Ariane Liazos, Marshall Ganz. What a Mighty Power We Can Be : African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2006. Call number: 90 .S616 2006 (1)

(1)  From The National Heritage Museum -   http://nationalheritagemuseum.typepad.com/library_and_archives/2008/05/moses-dickson-a.html

SOME ADDITIONAL INTERESTING INFORMATION ABOUT MOSES DICKSON

Moses Dickson, prior to the Civil War was a traveling barber.  Later he became an AME minister and was known as Father Dickson.

He was one of the Founders of the Lincoln Institute, now Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Misouri.

In 1879 along with others such as James Milton Turner, John Wheeler and John Turner he helped create the Committee of Twenty Five, organized to set up temporary housing for the more than 10,000 travelers who passed through St. Louis each year.

He was President of the Refugee Relief Board in St. Louis which helped to shelter and feed 16,000 former slaves who relocated to Kansas.

Moses Dickson was the first Grand Lecturer of the Most Worhipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri upon its foundation in 1865.  He was the second Grand Master of this Grand Lodge and the Grand Secretary in 1869.

In 1876 Companion Moses dickson was elected Deputy Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of Holy Royal Arch Masons of Missouri and Jurisdiction.

Moses Dickson wrote the Ritual of Heroines of Jericho penning the “Master Mason’s Daughter,” the “True Kinsman,” and “Heroines of Jericho” degrees. It was sold and distributed by the Moses Dickson Regalia and Supply Co., Kansas City, Missouri and entered into the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. in the year 1895.

The Knights of Liberty was organized by 12 Black Men in secret in August, 1846 in St. Louis, Missouri.  They were also known as the Knights of Tabor or the International Order of Twelve. Tabor is a Biblical mountain in Israel where the Israelites won a big victory over the Canaanites.

Moses Dickson was a leader of the Underground Railroad.  He and 47,000 other Knights enlisted in the Union Army as soon as Linclon authorized Black men to sign up.

Disbanded by the Civil War many of the Knights of Liberty reformed after the War was over into a benevolent fraternal society named the International Order of the Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor. Moses Dickson authored “International Order of Twelve 333 of Knights and Daughters of Tabor,” a book outlining the Constitution, Rules and Regulations of the Temples of the Uniform Rank of Tabor and Taborian Division.

Moses Dickson died on November 28, 1901. A truly remarkable man!

Originally published at the National Heritage Museum’s blog. The National Heritage Museum is an American history museum founded and supported by 32° Scottish Rite Freemasons in the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the United States of America.

#Moses Dickson and The Knights of Liberty #Moses Dickson #Knights of Liberty #Black Revolutionaries #International Order of Twelve #Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor #International Order of Twelve 333 #Committee of Twenty Five #St Louis #missouri #freedom #Freedmen #Refugee Relief Board in St. Louis #Ritual of Heroines of Jericho #oes

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Minister Moses Dickson (April 5, 1824 - November 28, 1901) was born free in Cincinnati. Orphaned by the age of 13, he became a barber to support himself, finding work on steamboats moving through the South and Midwest.

He helped organize two secret abolitionist organizations with like-minded Black men he met while working on the rivers. The Knights of Liberty, founded in St. Louis in 1846, sought to organize enslaved people throughout the South, train them in military tactics, and by 1857, lead them in a massive uprising that never came to fruition. The Order of Twelve, another abolitionist organization, founded in Galena, Illinois, in 1848, included future politicians Alfred H. Richardson and Richard Harvey Cain.

He married Mary Elizabeth Butcher (1848-1891). He continued to work on steamships like the Oronoco and the Nominee and the couple moved from Galena to Saint Paul.

He was likely the first Black business owner in St. Paul, operating Nonpareil Restaurant and Dickson’s Eating Saloon, followed by barbershops in the Fuller House and Winslow House hotels. He was the first teacher of African American students.

He wrote a letter to the Minnesota Weekly Times condemning the SCOTUS’s 1857 Dred Scott Decision. Mary gave birth to their only child. He signed a required free negro bond with former St. Louis mayor John How acting as his guarantor.

After the Civil War, he co-founded Lincoln University with a group of USCT Veterans. He became an ordained minister in the AME Church and opened schools and churches in St. Louis.

He was a delegate at every Republican State Convention in Missouri between (1864-78) and he cofounded the Missouri Equal Rights League. He was an elector-at-large for President Ulysses S. Grant. He was named consul at the Port of Victoria in the Seychelles. He held a leadership role with the Refugee Relief Board that aided the Exodusters.

He was active with the Prince Hall Masons, helping found lodges throughout the Midwest. He married Ina, but the two divorced a few years later. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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On the site where Moses Dickson and others established the  Knights of Liberty and the Daughters of Tabor.

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#mosesdickson #knightsofliberty #soldier #minister #liberator #barber #lincolnuniversity #amechurch #undergroundrailroad Moses Dickson was born free in Cincinnati April 5, 1824. As a teen he traveled through the South as a barber and saw the conditions of his people and it lit a fire within. He became a man of several hats. In 1846 he and twelve other men in St. Louis formed a secret organization called the Knights of Liberty. Their core mission was to end slavery by insurrection. They had a plan that ten years from the time that they first formed, they would strike and start their war. By 1856 they had over 47,000 men throughout the southern states that were ready to go to war. They took an oath of secrecy, "I can die, but I can not reveal the name of any member until the slaves are free." In August 1856 they created a smaller organization called the Order of Twelve in Galena, Illinois. They would train secretly at night preparing for warfare. In 1857 they were ready to march. They were going to hit Atlanta and they expected to have nearly 200,000 men. Their plan came to a halt because relations between the North and the South were becoming strained. So they decided to wait. Dickson also had a talk with John Brown before his raid on Harper's Ferry October 16, 1859. He told Brown it was too early. Brown's raid threw the Knights plans off also. Dickson went on to join the AME church in 1866 and became an ordained minister. The AME church was notorious for its early militancy and willingness to use the gun when needed. In 1866 he had a hand in Lincoln Institute getting started, which now goes by Lincoln University in Missouri. In 1871 Moses became the Grand Master of the Prince Hall Masons in Missouri. In 1872 he also organized the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor, who were all about self sufficiency. The illustration of Moses Dickson is from the 1879 book A Manual of the Knights of Tabor and Daughters of the Tabernacle. https://www.instagram.com/p/BylAKsPhbLu/?igshid=1q1ismhvk9p93

#mosesdickson #knightsofliberty #soldier #minister #liberator #barber #lincolnuniversity #amechurch #undergroundrailroad

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The Secret Group That Planned an Insurrection Against Slavery

The African Mysteries - The Knights of Liberty were nothing to be fucked with..

Moses Dickson, a traveling barber in the years before the Civil War, had a secret– he was one of twelve members of a covert society that planned to recruit men who were “courageous, patient, temperate, and possessed of sound common sense.” Their goal? Launch a coordinated insurrection against slaveholders and claim land for black people in the South. And they almost did.

#the African Mysteries #Black Revolutionary Groups #Black Revolution #Freedom for Black Folks #African Mysteries Army