The Alabama Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia

A Brief History

Marilyn T. Peebles

• Publisher: University Press of America
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780761858157
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The Knights of Pythias fraternal organization was founded in 1865 by an Act of Congress. When African American men were denied membership, they created their own organization in Vicksburg, MS, in 1880. Its founder, Thomas Stringer, believed that fraternal organizations could provide the black community with business networks, economic safety nets, and political experience at a time when Jim Crow laws were being constructed all around them. In Birmingham, Alabama, these Pythians became the cornerstone of an African American business community that included the first black-owned and operated bank in the state. They provided burial, life, and disability insurance for members and became a source of civic pride and racial solidarity. When their right to exist was challenged, they took the case to the Supreme Court in 1912 and won. This strategy would be used decades later in Brown v. Board of Education.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Founding of the Knights of Pythias
• Chapter 2: Founding of the Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia
• Chapter 3: Founding of the Alabama Grand Lodge
• Chapter 4: Alabama Pythians at the Turn of the Century
• Chapter 5: Pythians’ Supreme Court Fight
• Chapter 6: Expansion of the National Organization
• Chapter 7: The Era of Oscar Adams, Sr.
• Chapter 8: The Pythians since World War II
• Appendix: The Pythian Bathhouse
• Bibliography