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.
Links:
Memorial on Find A Grave
“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)
Signature of Thomas W. Stringer from an 1871 petition to Governor Alcorn
"Freemasonry in Mississippi" illustration
Daily Ohio Statesman, 16 Feb 1861
Vicksburg Herald, 28 May 1867
Vicksburg Daily Times, 5 Feb 1868
Weekly Democrat, 15 Jun 1868
Tri-Weekly Clarion, 12 Oct 1869
Weekly Mississippi Pilot, 8 Jan 1870
Weekly Mississippi Pilot, 30 Apr 1870
Weekly Mississippi Pilot, 21 May 1870
Vicksburg Herald, 30 Jun 1870
Vicksburg Daily Times, 8 Sep 1870
Clarion-Ledger, 10 Nov 1870
Petition to support Blanche K. Bruce as a trustee of Alcorn University, 13 May 1871
New Orleans Republican, 27 Oct 1872
Vicksburg Herald, 9 Oct 1873
Daily Mississippi Pilot, 29 Oct 1875
Inter Ocean, 9 Jun 1877
Memphis Daily Appeal, 25 Dec 1881
Grenada Sentinel, 6 Oct 1883
Galveston Daily News, 25 Mar 1885
Western Appeal, 20 Jun 1885
Weekly Commercial Herald, 25 Sep 1885
Vicksburg Herald, 2 Feb 1886
Daily Arkansas Gazette, 10 Jul 1888
Olean Democrat, 19 Sep 1889
Vicksburg Evening Post, 6 Nov 1889
Daily Commercial Herald, 19 Jul 1890
Vicksburg Evening Post, 22 Jan 1891
Commercial Herald, 30 Aug 1892
New York Tribune, 2 Oct 1892
Daily State Ledger, 28 Oct 1892
Vicksburg Evening Post, 25 Aug 1893
Commercial Herald, 26 Aug 1893
Vicksburg Evening Post, 28 Aug 1893
Vicksburg Herald, 1 Sep 1901
Sedalia Conservator, 15 Jul 1907
Vardaman's Weekly, 20 Jun 1908
Vicksburg Herald, 8 Dec 1909
New York Age, 23 Jun 1934
Stringer monument, 2021