There's a detail on the front of this building that most people walk right past. It's in the marble cornerstone, laid in 1916, and it reads "777" and "333" with an all-seeing eye set between them. Most folks assume it's decoration. It isn't.
The Knights and Daughters of Tabor had their own math, and they took it seriously. Those numbers were called the perfect numbers, and every member knew what they meant.
333 spoke to their faith in a triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Three digits, three persons.
777 stood for the triple perfection of the Order of Twelve, built as it was on seven principles: justice, equity, benevolence, prudence, loyalty, unity, and impartiality.
12 wasn't just the number of founders. It expressed the Order's motto, In Solo Deo Salus, which translates to "In God alone is safety."
When the cornerstone was consecrated in 1916, the Chief Grand Orator marked those figures onto the stone in green chalk, along with the Order's secret signs. The Chief Grand Mentor struck the marble four times with a mallet. The Grand Treasurer poured water on all four sides. The Grand Scribe scattered grain over it so that, in his words, "seeds of eternal happiness be planted here and grow up to the glory of God."
All of that ceremony happened on the corner of 9th and State, on a building paid for entirely by Black Arkansans who had almost nothing and gave anyway. Over 20,000 of them contributed. Their names and their temples and tabernacles are still carved into a marble panel in the south entrance vestibule.
The numbers are still up there, too. You just have to know where to look.
And the all-seeing eye shows up all over the building once you start noticing it. One of my favorite pieces in the museum collection is a membership card belonging to E. M. Murray, a Grand Presiding Prince in the Arkansas jurisdiction, with the eye and the Latin motto printed right on it.
Come see it in person this Friday
November 13th is Second Friday Art Night downtown, and we're part of it. Local artist Jeff Wenger will have his original abstract expressionist paintings up in the Dreamland Lounge on the first floor.
At 6 PM I'll lead a guided tour of Taborian Hall and the Dreamland Ballroom. We start with the Tabors and how they built this place brick by brick, walk through the WWII USO years, get into the Chitlin' Circuit era when this was the only safe stop in the state, and finish on the third floor standing on the actual Dreamland stage. The tour runs from 6 to 7 PM. You'll pass that cornerstone on your way in.
Art downstairs, a hundred years of history upstairs, same night, same building. Hope to see you Friday.