November 14, 1856

John Bush, founder of the Mosaic Templars of America, was born in Moscow, Tennessee, to a slave mother whose owner brought the family to Arkansas in an effort to escape Union troops. Forced to attend school, Bush eventually graduated with honors from Capital City School in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and went on to hold important positions in the Republican Party and to become one of the wealthiest black men in Arkansas. The Mosaic Templars, an African-American fraternal organization of international scope that operated between the 1880s and 1930s, was one of the largest and most successful black-owned businesses in the nation and world.