Liberty's African American community built strong institutions and leadership across the Reconstruction, Great Migration, and Civil Rights eras through fraternal organizations, athletics, scholarship, religion, and the arts. Prince Hall Masons Lodge No. 37 F. & A.M. began in 1877 when its charter was issued by the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri, Free and Accepted Masons, and its first hall on North Main Street near Garrison School also housed the Royal Arch Masons and St. Mathews No. 17 Knights Templar Commandry. In 1922 and 1923, Liberty's No. 17 Knights Templar Commandry won the state grand prize in a St. Louis drill contest, and members including Richard Waller recalled the pride of the achievement. Charles Griggsby emerged as a leading figure in Liberty's African American community, representing Liberty in 1897 at a St. Joseph convention to establish a home for indigent and elderly formerly enslaved people, serving in high offices in the Royal Arch Masons of Missouri, and receiving a large funeral in 1920 attended by Masons from across Missouri. Benevolent associations, including Black Freemasons, were second only to the church in building solidarity in the African American community between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II, and they were active in the underground railroad, school building, and laying cornerstones for most African American churches. In the 1930s, the Garrison Wonder Team, organized about 1932 and coached by Principal Clarence Gantt and Sam Walls, became Liberty football champions, scoring 169 points to 6 in eight games, while William Jewell provided uniforms, equipment, and Green Stadium, and local spectators sat together despite the era of Jim Crow. Hazel Murray Black, born in 1900, became Clay County's first African American historian, preserving the community's past through research, oral history, collected photographs and clippings, and published interviews and essays, while also serving her church, the historical society, and the Mt. Olive Chapter No. 8 Order of the Eastern Star of Liberty. Clarence Claybrooks Parker, born in 1894, studied classical piano after attending Garrison School, performed in Chicago, served in World War I with Company E, 805th Pioneer Infantry American Expeditionary Forces Regiment in France, and after returning home continued his musical career until tuberculosis ended his life in 1923.