John C. Bowers

John C. Bowers, Jr. (February 9, 1811 – October 5, 1873) was an African American entrepreneur, organist and vestryman at St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, and a founding member of the first Grand United Order of Odd Fellows for African Americans in Pennsylvania. He was active in the anti-slavery movement in Philadelphia, and involved in the founding of several organizations including the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. His father, John C. Bowers Sr. (1773–1844), was a secondhand clothing dealer, a vestryman and school trustee at St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, and one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.

Bowers was organist at the St. Thomas African Episcopal Church The younger Bowers was also a member of St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, where he became the organist. Two of his siblings pursued singing careers. Bowers trained his brother, Thomas Bowers, in the piano and organ; Their sister Sarah Sedgwick Bowers studied as a concert soprano and toured professionally in 1856. Martin Delany describes him as the owner of a "fashionable merchant tailor shop" together with his brother, Thomas, catering to upper class gentlemen and businessmen in Philadelphia, while Henry M. Minton characterizes him as "the most prominent" of 15 tailors in the city.

Community activism Bowers was a member of several literary societies. In spite of its name, the Library Company was a male institution. Bowers was involved in starting the Gilbert Lyceum, instituted on January 31, 1841, which enabled women and men to work together in literary and scientific pursuits. where he gave a speech on temperance. Bowers was also a member of the Association for Moral and Mental Improvement. During that time, Bowers continued to lobby for African American suffrage.

Bowers was concerned with institutions for mutual relief, and helped to compile and publish a list of aid societies for African Americans in 1831. Bowers was a founding member of Unity Lodge No. 711, the first lodge of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows to be established in Pennsylvania for African Americans, on June 5, 1845. The Odd Fellows provided mutual aid, similar to insurance, with practical benefits for events such as illness, death, disability, and widowhood. Bowers was involved in this "friendly society" for African Americans throughout the rest of his life. He served repeatedly as a Director, for three terms as Deputy Grand Master (1855, 1857, 1858), and for one term as Grand Master (1870). She taught Sunday school in the church.