International Order of Twelve

International Order of Twelve of Knights Temple Jewel, 1872-1920. Scotford Co., Kansas City, Missouri. Museum Purchase, 2017.005.

The Museum & Library recently acquired a jewel associated with the International Order of Twelve fraternal group. The Rev. Moses Dickson (1824-1901) founded the order, also known as the International Order of Twelve of Knights and Daughters of Tabor, as an African American fraternal group in Independence, Missouri, in 1872. Histories of the order connect it with the Order of Twelve, a group formed in 1846 as an anti-slavery group in the American South. Founded as a benevolence and financial aid group, the International Order of Twelve provided death and sickness benefits to members. The organization accepted men and women, who met collectively to govern the order together.  Locally, men and women held separate meetings—the men in “temples” and the women in "tabernacles." The name Tabor refers to Mount Tabor in Israel—a significant site in the Biblical Book of Judges. The group's ritual drew significantly from the Book of Judges.

The jewel features the numbers 777 and 333 stamped onto a metal twelve-pointed star. These numbers formed part of the chief emblem of the fraternal order and  were derived from significant days and numbers in the Bible. An 1879 Order of Twelve manual features an illustration of temple jewels with officer titles. The manual also includes illustrations of ritual objects, temple furniture, and guidelines for ceremonies and drills. 

The Mississippi jurisdiction of the Order funded and operated the Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, from 1942 to the mid-1960s. The hospital was one of two in the state owned and operated by African Americans in the mid-1900s. The Taborian hospital provided access to medical treatment for African Americans in the town of Mound Bayou and surrounding areas. The Taborian merged with the Sarah Brown Hospital in 1966 to become the Mound Bayou Community Hospital. It closed in 1983.

Illustrations from A manual of the Knights of Tabor and Daughters of the Tabernacle, 1879. RARE HS 2259 .T3 D5 1879

Today the Knights and Daughters of Tabor operates as a 501c3 non-profit focused on revitalization and renovation projects in the Mound Bayou, Mississippi, community.

This temple jewel is featured in a display of Recent Acquisitions, on view at the Museum & Library through July, 2018.

Do you have information about the Order of Twelve? Do you have any relatives who were once members or are you a current member? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Moses Dickson and the Order of Twelve

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