Moses Dickson (1824–1901) was an abolitionist, soldier, minister, and founder of the Knights of Liberty, an anti-slavery organization that planned a slave uprising in the United States and helped African-American enslaved people to freedom through the Underground Railroad.

He also founded the black self-help organization The International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor and was a co-founder of Lincoln University in Missouri.

[3] On August 12, 1846, Dickson and eleven other young men met in the second story of an old brick house on Green St. and Seventh St. (whose name was later changed to Lucas Avenue) in St. Louis, Missouri, to create a plan to end slavery in the United States.

Dickson declared "it was determined to organize the slaves throughout the south, drill them, and in ten years from that time strike for freedom" during an interview with the Denver Post, reprinted in the Minneapolis Journal, on July 4, 1901.

[5] A day was set for the national insurrection but before the time came it had become apparent to the leaders that the relationship between the North and South was becoming so strained that it was decided to postpone the uprising.

Dickson decided "a higher power" was at work, and told the Knights of Liberty to "wait, have patience, hold together, not break ranks, trust in the Lord.

A smaller secret organization, the Order of Twelve, was created in Galena, Illinois, which used St. Louis as its headquarters and aided hundreds of slaves to freedom.

[9] Dickson also tells of watching a mother and daughter being sold on the auction block in New Orleans and then arranging for their escape by having them "stolen," dressing them as boys, and getting them hired onto a steamer upriver and finally to freedom in Canada.

After his escape to the north, the man called himself Henry "Box" Brown, attended Harvard University, and published a memoir, A Life in Slavery and Freedom.

Dickson served as President of the Refugee Relief Board which provided aid and support to the approximately 16,000 African Americans from the South who ended up in St. Louis on their way to Kansas and other states as part of the Exoduster movement.

[19][20] The new organization promoted African American advancement through "Christian demeanor," the acquisition of property and wealth, morality, temperance, education, and "man's responsibility to the Supreme Being.

[24] Mary Elizabeth worked in the Underground Railroad, traveled with her husband on abolitionist speaking tours across the country, was co-founder of The Order of Twelve, and a "faithful and zealous worker"[25] in the AME Church.