July 18, 2012

John Edward Bush rose from poverty to national prominence when he co-founded the Mosaic Templars of America (MTA), an African-American fraternal organization of international scope, spanning twenty-six states and six foreign countries from the 1880s until the 1930s. Headquartered in Little Rock (Pulaski County), MTA became one of the largest and most successful black-owned business enterprises in the nation and the world. Bush was widely acknowledged as one of the wealthiest black men in Arkansas and a progenitor of the economic development and progress of black American entrepreneurs.