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Name:    Dickson, Moses
Profession:  Clergy
Category:  African-American Experience, Religion
Died/Ended:    1903
Description:    Rev. Moses Dickson was a prominent St. Louis minister and one of the organizers of the Missouri Equal Rights League in 1865. His involvement with the Equal Rights League represented the continuation of a struggle for black freedom that he had begun long before. After traveling throughout the South from 1840 to 1843 and observing the plight of slaves, Rev. Dickson recruited 12 men and formed a secret organization called the Knights of Liberty to enlist and arm southern slaves for a general rebellion in 1856. At one point, the Knights claimed to have forty-seven thousand members. As 1856 approached, however, the antislavery struggle increased in intensity, so Dickson counseled his followers to wait for what he felt certain would be a civil war. When the war came and black troops were authorized, Dickson and many of his followers took up arms for the Union cause. Later, a fraternal organization known as the International Order of Twelve, Knights of Tabor, was founded to continue the struggle for equality. This organization still exists today.



Events
Knights of Liberty founded

Reference
Missouris Black Heritage
 Selected Neighbors and Neighborhoods of North St. Louis
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