Grand Court Order of Calanthe of Texas

The Calantheans' money is the long thread behind this building. In 1916 the Grand Court lent the Colored Knights of Pythias $30,000 to finish their temple in Dallas, then resented being kept from a larger role in it. Under Fannie McPherson from 1925 the court moved into state and federal bonds, so most of its assets came through the 1929 crash, and it lent members small sums to save their homes. By 1955 it held over $1 million. State regulators took the insurer into receivership in 2018, and a court ordered it liquidated in October 2020.

What the plaque says

Grand Court Order of Calanthe of Texas AFRICAN AMERICAN FRATERNAL BENEFIT SOCIETIES EXPERIENCED A "GOLDEN AGE" FROM THE 1870s TO THE 1930s AS THEY WERE ONE OF THE FEW VENUES WHERE MEMBERS COULD EXERCISE INFLUENCE WITHIN THEIR COMMUNITIES AND ATTAIN NEEDS, SUCH AS SICK BENEFITS AND LIFE INSURANCE, WHICH WERE OTHERWISE NOT BEING MET. AS AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN ALSO STRUGGLED FOR AUTONOMY, FEMALE AUXILIARIES AROSE. ON MAY 14, 1883 IN MISSISSIPPI, THOMAS STRINGER, SUPREME CHANCELLOR OF THE COLORED KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS, APPROVED THE PLAN OF MATTIE A. WILLIAMS AND VIRGINIA C. GREEN FOR AN "INDEPENDENT ORDER OF CALANTHE." NAMED FOR THE WIFE OF PYTHIAS AND FOUNDED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF "FIDELITY, HARMONY, AND LOVE," IT AIMED TO UNITE FEMALE RELATIVES OF THE KNIGHTS, EDUCATE ITS MEMBERS, AND ESTABLISH A FUND FOR ITS SICK. BY 1888, THERE WERE 33 COURTS IN THE U.S. BY 1898 SUSIE H. NORRIS OF DALLAS HAD ORGANIZED THE "GRAND COURT INDEPENDENT ORDER OF CALANTHE OF TEXAS" IN HOUSTON. IN 1909 THE NAME WAS AMENDED TO "GRAND COURT ORDER OF CALANTHE OF TEXAS." A SOURCE OF BENEFITS, TRAINING, AND EMPLOYMENT, THE ORDER ALSO WORKED WITH THE LOCAL N.A.A.C.P. CHAPTER TO GAIN VOTING AND CIVIL RIGHTS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS. AMERICA D. KEY, GRAND WORTHY COUNSELLOR FROM 1902 TO 1925, MODERNIZED THE POPULAR INSURANCE FEATURE. THE GRAND COURT CONSTRUCTED ITS STATE HEADQUARTERS AT 2411 DOWLING STREET IN 1948, WHEN FEW MODERN BUILDINGS WERE BUILT AND OPERATED BY AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN. HERE THEY PROVIDED MEETING SPACE FOR LOCAL CIVIC ACTIVITIES, MANAGED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, AND MADE MORTGAGE LOANS TO LOCAL RESIDENTS. THE GRAND COURT, THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN ORDER TO JOIN THE TEXAS FRATERNAL CONGRESS, REMAINS ONE OF THE LARGEST AND MOST SUCCESSFUL FEMALE-LED GROUPS IN THE FRATERNAL INSURANCE INDUSTRY. (2011)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Emancipation Park — 0.3 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 1.0 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.
• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 1.6 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 2.0 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Benjamin Jesse Covington and the Covington House — steps away
• St. John Missionary Baptist Church — 0.2 mi
• Fourth Missionary Baptist Church — 0.2 mi
• The Legacy of Emancipation Park — 0.3 mi