Mound Bayou is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,533 at the 2010 census, down from 2,102 in 2000. It was founded as an independent black community in 1887 by former slaves led by Isaiah Montgomery. Mound Bayou Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Knights of Pythias is a fraternal organization and secret society founded in Washington, D.C., on February 19, 1864. The Knights of Pythias is the first fraternal organization to receive a charter under an act of the United States Congress.
Odd Fellows is an international fraternity consisting of lodges first documented in 1730 in London. The first known lodge was called Loyal Aristarcus Lodge No. 9, suggesting there were earlier ones in the 18th century. Notwithstanding, convivial meetings were held "in much revelry and, often as not, the calling of the Watch to restore order." Names of several British pubs today suggest past Odd Fellows affiliations. In the mid-18th century, following the Jacobite risings, the fraternity split into the rivaling Order of Patriotic Oddfellows in southern England, favouring William III of England, and the Ancient Order of Oddfellows in northern England and Scotland, favouring the House of Stuart.
A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, friendly society, or mutual aid organization is a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief from sundry difficulties. Such organizations may be formally organized with charters and established customs or may arise ad hoc to meet the unique needs of a particular time and place.
There are many organisations and orders which form part of the widespread fraternity of Freemasonry, each having its own structure and terminology. Collectively these may be referred to as Masonic bodies, Masonic orders, Concordant bodies or appendant bodies of Freemasonry.
A fraternal order is a voluntary membership group organised as an order, with an initiation ritual and traits alluding to religious, chivalric or pseudo-chivalric orders, guilds, or secret societies. Fraternal orders typically have secular purposes, serving as social clubs, cultural organizations and providing a form of social welfare through reciprocal aid or charitable work. Many friendly societies, benefit societies and mutual organisations take the form of a fraternal order.
The skull and crossbones was a common fraternal motif as a symbol of mortality and warning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The symbol was adopted, for various reasons, by many sporting teams, clubs, and societies in both America and Europe.
Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi opened in 1942 to great fanfare by the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor. Everyone on the staff, including doctors and nurses, were black. The facilities included two major operating rooms, an x-ray machine, incubators, electrocardiograph, blood bank, and laboratory. Operating costs came almost entirely from membership dues and other voluntary contributions.
Carol Weld was an American journalist. She worked for various New York newspapers and as a foreign correspondent for news agencies in Paris. She was a founding member of the Overseas Press Club and collaborated with Frank Buck on Animals Are Like That.
The Order of the Sons of Hermann is a mutual aid society for German immigrants that was formed in New York City on July 20, 1840, and remains active in the states of California, Ohio, and Texas today. Now open to members of any heritage, the order provides low-cost insurance and mutual aid and has historically promoted the preservation of the German language and traditions.
Matthew Walker Sr. was an American physician and surgeon. He was one of the first African Americans to become a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He was one of the most prominent Black doctors in the 20th century in the United States.
Moses Dickson (1824–1901) was an abolitionist, soldier, minister, and founder of the Knights of Liberty, an anti-slavery organization that planned a slave uprising in the United States and helped African-American enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad. He also founded the black self-help organization The International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor and was a co-founder of Lincoln University in Missouri. Moses Dickson was also active in Prince Hall Freemasonry.
Minnie Lucinda Fisher (1896-1990) was a civic worker and community activist. She was a native-born citizen of the town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all-Black town founded by Isaiah Montgomery in 1887.
The Ancient and Illustrious Order Knights Of Malta (KOM) was a Protestant fraternal society active in Eastern United States and Canada. It descended from Scottish Orangeism.
The Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, also known as the Colored Knights of Pythias or the Knights of Pythias, is a fraternal organization in the United States. The Knights of Pythias, founded in 1864, did not allow African Americans so this group formed on its own. The organization was established in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1880 by Thomas W. Stringer and others.
