Thomas W. Stringer

Thomas W. Stringer (1815–1893) was an American Christian minister in the A.M.E. Church, state senator in Mississippi, Prince Hall Mason, and the founder of the Knights of Pythias of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. He helped organize churches, schools, and fraternal organizations. He was elected to the Mississippi Senate in 1869

Stringer was born in Maryland, He later moved to Ohio, where he was ordained a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

He moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, after the American Civil War. Stringer was Union League organizer and credited as the founder of the Mississippi Republican party.

He is buried at the Vicksburg City Cemetery. Later when he moved to Ohio, he helped organize the first Grand Lodge of Ohio and became its first Grand Master in 1849. It is unclear how these men got access to the rituals of the white organization with competing origin stories. One claim is that more light skinned African American men joined and then brought the rituals into their organization or that a white member of the Knights of Pythias gave the Black organization the rituals. The first lodge in Vicksburg was named Lightfoot Lodge, No. 1. The organization provide benefits to their members such as insurance, sick, and death benefits. In 1883, the Independent Order of Calanthe was created as the women's auxiliary order. The membership was originally opened to family members of the Knights but was later widened to any woman sponsored by a Knight.