From The History of Negro Baptists in Mississippi, 1898
Dr. Thomas W. Stringer (Warren County)
State Senate: 1870-1871
Born: 1815 Died: August 25, 1893 in Vicksburg, MS
Methodist Episcopal minister. Founded the first African American Masonic lodge in Mississippi. Warren County treasurer. Stringer died of malarial fever in 1893.
“By far the most influential Negro in the [1868 constitutional] convention, and the most powerful political leader of his race in the state until 1869, was T. W. Stringer of Vicksburg. A former resident of Ohio, he came to Mississippi as general superintendent of missions and presiding elder for the African Methodist Church, of which he had almost complete control for many years. The man had a genius for organization. After a distinguished career in religious and fraternal organizations in Ohio, he led in the development of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada before his move to Mississippi. Wherever he went in the state, churches, lodges, benevolent societies, and political machines sprang up and flourished.”
(Vernon Lane Wharton, The Negro in Mississippi, 1865-1890, 1965)
Freemasons in Mississippi, from New York Public LibrarySignature of Thomas W. Stringer from an 1871 petition supporting Blanche K. Bruce as a trustee of Alcorn University
Daily Ohio Statesman, February 16, 1861Vicksburg Herald, May 28, 1867Vicksburg Daily Times, February 5, 1868Weekly Democrat, June 15, 1868Tri-Weekly Clarion, October 12, 1869Weekly Mississippi Pilot, January 8, 1870Weekly Mississippi Pilot, April 30, 1870Weekly Mississippi Pilot, May 21, 1870Vicksburg Herald, June 30, 1870Vicksburg Daily Times, September 8, 1870Clarion-Ledger, November 10, 1870Petition supporting B. K. Bruce, May 13, 1871New Orleans Repub-lican, Oct 27, 1872Vicksburg Herald, October 9, 1873Daily Mississippi Pilot, October 29, 1875Inter Ocean, June 9, 1877Memphis Daily Appeal, December 25, 1881Grenada Sentinel, October 6, 1883Galveston Daily News, March 25, 1885Western Appeal, June 20, 1885Weekly Commercial Herald, Sep 25, 1885Vicksburg Herald, February 2, 1886Daily Arkansas Gazette, July 10, 1888Olean Democrat, September 19, 1889Vicksburg Evening Post, Nov 6, 1889Daily Commercial Herald, July 19, 1890Vicksburg Evening Post, January 22, 1891Commercial Herald, August 30, 1892New-York Tribune, October 2, 1892Daily State Ledger, October 28, 1892Vicksburg Evening Post, August 25, 1893Commercial Herald, August 26, 1893Vicksburg Evening Post, Aug 28, 1893Vicksburg Herald, September 1, 1901Sedalia Conservator, July 15, 1907Vardaman’s Weekly, June 20, 1908Vicksburg Herald, December 8, 1909New York Age, June 23, 1934Stringer monument, 2021Stringer quote in exhibit, Mar 3, 2023
