M.W. Stringer Grand Lodge

Thomas W. Stringer was raised in a Black settlement in Ontario and ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, founding more than thirty-five churches in Ohio and Canada before he moved to Vicksburg after the Civil War. There he organized for the Union League, took part in the 1868 constitutional convention, and sat in the state Senate from 1870 to 1871. Masonry was one of several creations. In 1880 he and colleagues formed the Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, after the original order barred Black members. He is buried in Vicksburg.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Farish Street Historic District — 1.0 mi
  Jackson's Black business and cultural center, where Medgar Evers kept the NAACP office and furniture-store owners recorded the blues, now a quiet National Register district.
• Old Capitol Museum — 1.4 mi
  Mississippi's Greek Revival statehouse of 1839, where the legislature voted to secede, Hiram Revels was elected to the U.S. Senate and the 1890 constitution was written, now a free state museum.
• Mississippi Civil Rights Museum — 1.5 mi
  A state museum in downtown Jackson, opened in 2017 beside the Museum of Mississippi History, that tells the movement from 1945 to 1970 through the people who made it.
• Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument — 3.0 mi
  A modest ranch house in Jackson's Elraine neighborhood where Medgar Evers was shot in the driveway in 1963, now a unit of the National Park Service.

More markers nearby

• Noel House — steps away
• Subway Lounge — 0.5 mi
• Bobby Rush — 0.7 mi
• Scott Radio Service — 0.7 mi