International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor

The International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor is a black fraternal organization best known as the sponsor of the Taborian Hospital. It was founded in 1872 in Independence, Missouri by Moses Dickson, an ex-slave. The order's statement of principles pledged to advance "Christianity, education, morality and temperance and the art of governing, self reliance and true manhood and womanhood." Like many other fraternal societies at the time, black or white, it offered sickness and burial insurance and a means for members to socialize.

After years of decline, membership surged after 1938, when Perry M. Smith, the Chief Grand Mentor, persuaded the Mississippi Jurisdiction of the order to build a hospital in the all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. To pay for it, each member paid an annual assessment into a hospital fund. In addition, Smith visited sharecroppers and tenants on plantations throughout Mississippi to raise funds.

The order's Taborian Hospital opened in 1942 to great fanfare. 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.

The first chief surgeon of the hospital was Dr. T.R.M. Howard, who later became an important civil rights leader in Mississippi and mentor to Medgar Evers.

In 1944, annual membership dues of $8.40 entitled an adult member to thirty-one days of hospital care, including major and minor surgery. As a result, the Mississippi membership of the Knights and Daughters grew rapidly to nearly fifty thousand in 1945. Most of the members lived in the Delta area of the state. Between 1942 and 1964, the hospital cared for over 135,000 patients, many of them sharecroppers. As late as 1964, total dues of $30 per year entitled members to major and minor surgery.

Like most black hospitals, it was a low-tech enterprise which would probably run afoul of current certification standards. Given the great poverty of the members, however, it represented a major achievement. The recollections of patients indicate that the staff often showed a missionary zeal which made up for many technical shortcomings.

After years of financial pressure, the hospital lost its fraternal status in 1967 when the federal government took it over and put it under the authority of the Office of Economic Opportunity. The hospital, renamed as the Mound Bayou Community Hospital, finally closed in 1983.

During the 1990s, the Knights and Daughters of Tabor began a continuing campaign to renovate the original hospital building which has been empty for many years.

References

David T. Beito, "From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967" (2000 book).