Ancient Order of Pilgrims
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
After the Civil War, African Americans faced difficulties finding insurance or securing loans. In the 1870s, Jamaican immigrant Henry Cohen Hardy came to Houston, where he was an educator. Hardy established the Ancient Order of Pilgrims in 1882 to help solve economic problems faced by Houston's African American population. The fraternal organization provided burial insurance and real estate loans. It soon branched out with chapters called sanctuaries. Members came from all economic levels. Each year delegates met at conclaves to review finances and hold elections. By 1926, with about 60 sanctuaries, the order chose to build a headquarters and office building in Houston. Officers hired noted architect Alfred C. Finn. Located at Bagby Street and West Dallas Avenue, the four-story, brick Pilgrim Temple Building was triangular in shape and featured elaborate finishes and a rooftop garden. In addition to the order's headquarters, it housed the Houston Negro Chamber of Commerce, O.K. Manning and Roscoe Cavitt, executive secretaries; Madame N.A. Franklin Beauty School, Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Jemison, proprietors; the Houston Defender newspaper, C.F. Richardson, publisher; Askew Drug Store; and offices of physicians, attorneys and various businesses. Booker T. Washington High School, as well as sororities, fraternities and other social clubs used the ballroom and auditorium for functions. The temple was a focal point for Houston's black community for more than 40 years. The Ancient Order folded in 1931 but was revived as the Progressive Order of Pilgrims in 1932 by G.A. Kennedy. In the early 1960s, the group sold the building, later razed. Business owners who once occupied it now work to preserve its memory as a historic site. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After the Civil War, African Americans in Houston were routinely denied insurance and loans, so in 1882 Jamaican immigrant and educator Henry Cohen Hardy founded the Ancient Order of Pilgrims to provide burial insurance and real estate credit to the city's Black population. The fraternal order spread through local chapters called sanctuaries, and by 1926 built the four-story Pilgrim Temple, a triangular brick landmark that also housed the Negro Chamber of Commerce, the Houston Defender newspaper, beauty and drug businesses, and a ballroom used by Black clubs and schools. For four decades the temple was a hub of Black Houston's civic and economic life before the order faded and the building was razed.
Why it matters
The order shows how African Americans built their own institutions of credit, insurance, and community when the segregated economy shut them out, laying foundations for Black economic life in the urban South.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Henry Cohen Hardy
- · Alfred C. Finn
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rutherford B. H. Yates, Sr., House
Houston, TX
Built in 1912 in Houston's Fourth Ward — the district known as Freedmen's Town, a hub of Black spiritual, cultural, and commercial life since the Civil War — this house belonged to Rutherford B. H. Yates, son of the pioneering Rev. Jack Yates. A trained printer and teacher, Yates co-founded the Yates Printing Company in 1922 and taught at the Houston Academy his father had established. With few hotels open to African Americans, the Yates family regularly hosted visiting dignitaries and convention delegates in this home.
The Reverend Ned P. Pullum
Houston, TX
Born in Alabama around 1861, the Rev. Ned P. Pullum became a leading Baptist minister in Houston's Freedmen's Town, the Fourth Ward community founded by the formerly enslaved after emancipation. He pastored Bethel Baptist after the death of the Rev. John "Jack" Yates, then founded Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in 1903, leading it for 24 years. A civic force and entrepreneur, he helped establish the segregation-era Carnegie Colored Library, supported a Black-run hospital, and built businesses including a brickworks, a shoe-repair shop, and two drugstores.
Houston Negro Chamber of Commerce
Houston, TX
In September 1935, in the teeth of both the Depression and Jim Crow, Houston's Black community leaders founded the Houston Negro Chamber of Commerce to build economic power where segregation had walled it out. With J.E. Robinson Sr. as its first president, the chamber promoted Black-owned businesses, pushed residents to pay poll taxes so they could vote, and championed fair housing and employment. During World War II its office even doubled as a rations headquarters. In 1964, under Mack H. Hannah Jr., it became the Houston Citizens Chamber of Commerce, which endures today.
Peacock Records
Houston, TX
In 1949, a decade before Motown, Houston nightclub owner Don D. Robey founded Peacock Records out of frustration with how major labels marketed Black musicians under the dismissive "race music" banner. From his converted Bronze Peacock club he built a recording empire, adding Duke and Back Beat records and signing artists such as Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, "Big Mama" Thornton and Johnny Ace before the labels were sold to ABC Dunhill in 1973.