FOURTEEN

The Perspective of Prince Hall Freemasons

The Separatist Temptation

Only a few Southern states still refuse to consider the Prince Hall Grand Lodges as entirely autonomous Masonic obediences. A long road has been traveled since the battle waged by Prince Hall and his friends to wrest their charter from the Grand Lodge of England.

The Prince Hall Grand Lodges today are recognized institutions, both by the black community and by American society as a whole, even if things have not developed as far as they might have wished. In 1973 black Freemasonry even endowed itself with its own research body, the Phylaxis Society.^*70 The Prince Hall Grand Lodges are certainly satisfied to be considered legitimate by a large number of white Masons. Nonetheless, their main concern clearly appears to be recognized first and foremost by the black community, then by the whole of American society.

The Status of the Prince Hall Grand Lodges in American Society

Prince Hall Masons are constantly striving to show proof of their patriotism. They constantly refer to Anderson’s Constitutions and to article 2, concerning “civil power.” One will recall Prince Hall’s desire to rejoin the Continental Army, his repeated requests to “brother” Washington for the latter to accept blacks fighting by his side in the War for Independence. In both Boston and Philadelphia, Prince Hall Masons gave assistance to their ill fellow citizens.

In 1786, Prince Hall, using Anderson’s Constitutions for his model, reminded his brothers that Masons were loyal and in all circumstances respectful of governmental authority. To illustrate his contentions, he actively supported the Massachusetts authorities in their battle against Daniel Shay’s supporters.¹ That same year this individual had organized a riot in protest of the situation of small farmers drowning in debt and targeted by rich merchants threatening to seize their lands. Anxious to demonstrate his attachment to the authorities and to distinguish himself from what today would be labeled “white trash,” Prince Hall flew to the assistance of the authorities and wrote this letter, which one may find a touch servile.

Boston, November 26, 1786
To His Excellency James Bowdoin,

 

We, by the providence of God, are members of a fraternity that not only enjoins upon us to be peaceable subjects to the civil powers where we reside, but it also forbids our having concern in any plots or conspiracies against the state where we dwell; and it is the unhappy lot of this state at the present day, and as the meanest of its members must feel the want of a lawful and good government, and as we have been protected for many years under this once happy Constitution, so we hope, by the blessing of God, we may long enjoy that blessing; therefore we, though unworthy members of this Commonwealth, are willing to help and support, as far as our weak and feeble abilities may become necessary in this time of trouble and confusion, as you in your wisdom shall direct us. That we may, under just and lawful authority, live peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty, is the hearty wish of your humble servants the members of the African Lodge; and in their name I subscribe myself your most humble servant.

Prince Hall ²

Being looked on favorably by the authorities was most likely a necessity for Massachusetts’s blacks. Prince Hall did his best.

The “Troops”

Ordinarily numbers speak when one is assessing the weight of an institution in American society. For black Masonry it happens to be relatively difficult to obtain precise data, especially for the beginning period. Estimations are often vague. In 1866, John Jones reckoned the number of black Masons in the United States to be seven thousand.³ Thirty-two years later Grand Master William A. Sutherland of New York, famous for his hostility toward recognition of black Freemasonry by the white grand lodges, estimated that the Prince Hall Lodges, which he did not believe had regular charters, had about thirty thousand Masons.⁴ The years following the abolition of slavery were quite favorable for the expansion of black Freemasonry.

We do not have figures between those given by Sutherland and those given by Harry Davis in 1946. According to Davis the Prince Hall Grand Lodges had 500,000 members at this time, divvied up among 5,500 lodges, “one eighth of American Freemasonry.”⁵ The figures became more precise in the 1950s. In 1955, Harry A. Williamson found 311,048 members in 4,729 lodges.⁶ The reduction in numbers could be partially explained by the losses suffered in World War II. In 1965, George W. Crawford announced 4,301 lodges with 229,481 Masons,⁷ which would confirm a drop over the long term, unrelated to the consequences of the war. The NAACP, who can be assumed to be well informed about the black community, provided precise statistics for 1983: 4,675 lodges with 288,303 members.⁸

The white Grand Lodge of Maine mentioned 300,000 members on May 8, 1996.⁹ This figure matches the one provided by the Phylaxis Society.¹⁰ In 2001, 300,000 Masons were spread through 4,500 lodges and 44 grand lodges.^*71 This includes the grand lodges outside the United States, such as those of the Caribbean. If we compare these figures to the ones issued by the Maine Grand Lodge in 1996, which applied only to the United States, we will see a slight drop.

Black Freemasons are most numerous in Alabama, with 30,822 members in 593 lodges; this represents 15 percent of the global membership of the Prince Hall Grand Lodges in 1997. Three grand lodges contain between 15,000 and 20,000 members: North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi. Three others have around 10,000: Virginia, Texas, and Georgia. The weakest lodges are those of, in descending order, Minnesota, Arizona, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Alaska, Nevada, and Oregon, with fewer than 500 members. Paul Bessel counts 203,307 Prince Hall Masons in thirty-eight states.^†72 11 It is significant that Alabama represents the bastion of black Freemasonry. This state with a deeply troubled racial history is also where the civil rights movement was born.

The drop of the number of members is not confined to the black grand lodges. It reflects the malaise that affects the whole of American Freemasonry. It would even seem that black Masons have been less affected by this recruiting crisis than their white counterparts. In fact, white Freemasonry would have lost, since 1964, more than half of its membership, from 4 million to 1.5 million today.^‡73 12

American Freemasons as a whole are suffering from the aging of their institution. The dated nature of their notion of the relations between men and women has probably affected the Freemasons. Their wives are probably no longer content to stay in the kitchen cooking their meals, and this is but one reason . . .

Black Masons in Their Community

Prince Hall Masons pay close attention to how the white community sees their brand image. They do this by imitating white Freemasonry, which is not the least of the paradoxes. They have an obvious desire to give the impression of being an elitist society. This means they do their utmost to display the importance of their social role in the black community, but they also proudly sport the external signs of their symbolic distinctions. For example, a 33rd-degree Mason of the Scottish Rite has no qualms about wearing a fluorescent purple jacket in public, one that has been embroidered with golden numbers and letters that clearly indicate to all who see him what grade he has attained.^*74

The notion of secrecy is fundamentally different in the United States from how it is conceived in France. This has a bearing on the rituals but not on individuals. The Masonic rank is so closely associated with the notion of social success that Masons gladly display it. The harder it is to rise through the ranks of a society, the more pride is involved in showing one’s ascent in another context. It is therefore perfectly normal that black Freemasons would sport their Masonic insignia more than whites. Proud of their success as Masons, they enjoy showing it off to their community. The feelings of envy this can inspire do not displease them.

Paradoxically, they do not seem to have learned their lesson regarding the sectarianism that white Masons displayed toward them. In turn they have not failed to cast anathemas on the black Masons they consider as irregulars or clandestine because they did not seek a place beneath the banner of the Prince Hall Grand Lodges. They imitate white Masons and reject from the onset all those not holding a charter delivered by a Prince Hall Grand Lodge, as if savoring an almost too easy revenge. They rely on a failed argument, that of territorial exclusivity, in which each state should only have one single black grand lodge. Crawford wrote a small book in 1965 carrying the very significant title: The Prince Hall Counselor, A Manual of Guidance Designed to Aid Those Combatting Clandestine Freemasonry. In it he declares that all the black lodges in the United States that are not under the authority of the Prince Hall Grand Lodges, with the exception of the Alpha Lodge, which is under the authority of the white grand lodge of that state, are “spurious, irregular, and illegitimate.”^*75 13

The Prince Hall Lodges felt a constant need to assert their legitimacy, both in the overall Masonic community and in civil society. The Masons had a heartfelt need to show their respectability and good morality. They wished to behave in an exemplary manner in their communities, as shown by the speech of the Missouri grand master in 1877. Like Prince Hall in his first speeches to the African Lodge Masons, he opened by recommending sobriety to his brothers, without going so far as advocating the transformation of Freemasonry into a “temperance society of complete abstinence.”¹⁴ His motivation was likely to avoid being associated with the first movements in favor of prohibition. He next prescribed a code of good morality for his listeners.

I desire once more, before the expiration of my official relation, to call your attention to the fact that the true Mason is required to be a gentleman at all times and at all places. Therefore the common use of coarse, profane, and vulgar language is utterly inconsistent and unmasonic. . . . Remembering that of all things human we hold sacred is character and reputation. . . . We as a masonic body ought to represent the intelligence, the influence, the manhood, and the gentility of the community in which we live.¹⁵

The grand master draws one practical conclusion from his remarks: as every Mason is a respectable individual, he must be able to pay his lodge dues. He cannot be indigent.

There is no need to show additional proof of the overwhelming importance attached by black Masons to education. In addition to Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, many lesser-known educators contributed to helping the youth of their communities.¹⁶ I cited in chapters 5 and 7 the freely given effort by numerous lodges to award scholarships to the most deserving students. Furthermore, organizations under the direct control of the Prince Hall Grand Lodges and endowed with their own ritual were created for the purpose of training future Masons, to provide an education conforming to the order’s principles for the children of Masons, or just simply to better supervise black youth. It was in this spirit that the Order of Saint Joseph was created on December 11, 1923. The preamble to the ritual, which opens with a prayer, defines the goals of this organization.

To the Glory of God, Amen.

After a thorough consultation with our most worshipful Grand Master, C. C. Kittrell, and believing the brethren would consent this plan was laid before our Grand Lodge as above noted. The purpose being to form, expand, and perpetuate an auxiliary of male juveniles ages fifteen (15) to twenty-one (21) in order to inculcate within the hearts and minds a reverence toward God. A purpose and proper regard for development; intellectually, morally, and industrially. A duty to self and humanity. The time now being ripe to gather in the youths, throw around them a shield of care, that by having them feel and know that the future holds bright prospects for them, the willing and earnest.¹⁷

An article in the Pittsburgh Courier in 1945 mentions the establishment of “two summer camps for black children.”¹⁸ The Masons wanted to render service to the whole black populace and not only their children. They also maintained close relations with the famous U.S. organization for youth, the Young Man’s Christian Association (YMCA).^*76 19 Organizations close to Prince Hall, such as the Eastern Star and the Heroines of Jericho, met on the premises of the Chicago YMCA, as shown in the bulletin of the Former Elders of Illinois in 1945.²⁰ The Christian aspect of the YMCA, as well as the role of social integration played by this association, met with the approval of black Freemasons, who were equally anxious to impart moral values to the young.

The Prince Hall Grand Lodges made considerable efforts to encourage the social success of their members, including the facilitation of their professional advancement or helping them build companies, thanks to the creation of savings and loan institutions (see chapter 7). Even though the development of the Prince Hall Lodges was not as striking as in years past, they still represented a magnet for the black middle class. Rightly or wrongly, they were perceived as the symbol of a rise in social status. On the other hand, some members of the black community regarded them as too close to white authority, too prone to making compromises, even collaborating with the oppressors. This would certainly explain the reservations felt by the Prince Hall Grand Lodges about becoming too close-knit with the white grand lodges, although they still set great store on how these white lodges viewed them.

Relations with the Other American Grand Lodges Today

The relations between the white and black grand lodges remain ruled by ambiguity. Prince Hall Masons are unable to abandon the mimetic attitude they have adopted toward the white grand lodges, and they persist in viewing the white lodges as models when it comes to jurisprudence and symbolism. At the same time, they have asserted their own unique qualities and their desire to do without white recognition if the only way they can get it is through begging. They even seem to have hardened their position. This has given rise to a relatively recent separatist reaction: the Prince Hall Grand Lodges have determined to retain their full autonomy and have squarely refused to merge with the other American grand lodges. They are now striving to distinguish themselves from white Freemasonry, probably to allay the suspicions of those who persist in considering them to be Uncle Toms. They have become sufficiently self-assured to do without the “recognition” of the whites. Some of the white grand lodges have gotten the message and given blanket recognition to all Prince Hall Grand Lodges, without waiting for the black Freemasons to ask (see chapter 12).

We should certainly not pass over in silence the signs of openings that have been seen here and there over the course of the centuries. In 1905 a white visitor was received by the Celestial Lodge, an event that was sufficiently exceptional to warrant explicit mention in the annals.²¹ During his visit to the New York L’Atlantide Lodge of the Grand Orient of France, Williamson stated he was ready to initiate whites in his own lodge. To be sure, but Williamson was not just any worshipful master. In addition to his responsibilities in the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of New York, he was the primary architect of the reconciliation with the French obedience (see chapter 12). More recently, in 1999, Joseph Cox offered the example of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas, which now initiates white Masons—but only those who have married black women!²²

These few exceptions only prove the rule. Overall, Prince Hall Masons prefer to remain among their own company. Not only have they shown evidence at times of the same intolerance that white Masons have shown them by refusing to initiate whites, but they have even rejected Masons who became too close to the white obediences. The most flagrant case of this sectarianism would be that of the black Mason expelled from his original lodge, a Prince Hall Lodge, for joining the Alpha Lodge. The Alpha Lodge, a dependency of the New Jersey Grand Lodge, was at that time the only white lodge that was open to blacks. However, its membership was almost entirely black.²³

This position of withdrawal has two likely explanations. First and foremost, the Prince Hall Masons are weary of going cap in hand to beg recognition from their white brothers. Next, they are sick of being constantly accused by some members of the black community of trying to assimilate and mold themselves after whites.

In the 1920s they sought to parry this attack by turning toward the Republic of Liberia, founded in 1821 by freed black slaves. In 1919, Nathaniel H. B. Cassell, grand secretary of the Grand Lodge of Liberia, wrote of courtesy visits made to several American Prince Hall Grand Lodges, those of New York, Washington, D.C., and Maryland. On September 22, 1919, the minister and future president of Liberia, C. D. B. King, was officially received by the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of New York. Arthur Schomburg, who gave his name to the famous Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City,^*77 presided as grand secretary over the banquet that the New York Masons organized in King’s honor.

The event was reported in detail in an article in the Masonic Quarterly Review. The report’s author was unstinting in his praise for the Liberian president. He reviewed his speech and appreciated the hand he held out to black Americans, who King said would always be welcome in Liberia, which hoped to play a pioneering role in spreading the benefits of civilization across the African continent.

The Africans are the founders of the present Occidental civilization, and, perhaps, were the originators of the civilization idea. . . . President King made it clear that Liberia held out a welcome hand to Americans of African descent. . . . In Liberia lies the hope and future of Africans; it is the key to the domination of African affairs by Africans for Africans.²⁴

This openly expressed desire for African supremacy and the implicit feeling of superiority over other ethnic groups is likely not foreign to the serious crisis that has been roiling the Liberian republic for the past several years. In the 1920s there appears to have been a perfect complicity between black American Freemasonry and the Republic of Liberia, probably because they both viewed themselves as the elites of their respective communities.

Nonetheless, black Masons were living on American soil and could not ignore their white counterparts. Their relations had long been stagnant, essentially because of the racism displayed by the white grand lodges toward the Prince Hall Lodges. However, the Prince Hall Lodges never regarded recognition as some kind of ideal. In 1914 Crawford put his brothers on guard against an attitude he deemed paternalistic and said he wished to write “a book, which, while stating strongly the case for Prince Hall Masonry, shall be free from any assumption, conscious or unconscious, of the inevitableness of white patronage.”²⁵ Requesting “recognition” presumed, in his opinion, acceptance of the superiority of white Freemasonry in hopes it would condescend to bestowing its label on a black organization. Crawford used a grandiloquent yet familiar style to express the depths of his thought.

The only recognition that Negro Masons could ever accept without self-stultification would be recognition coupled with union with them under the white baldachin of universal Masonry, from which the white brethren have drawn themselves apart. As to recognition on any other basis—a fig!²⁶

In 1946, Harry Davis, a 33rd-degree Mason of the Scottish Rite, expressed his fear of seeing Prince Hall Masonry absorbed by the white American grand lodges and said that so long as relations between blacks and whites remained so tense in the United States, it would be better to remain separate and autonomous, while preserving their distinct identities and histories. He advocated for an entente cordiale between white and black Masons, a kind of establishing of diplomatic relations between equals.

Amalgamation or absorption is inexpedient at this time; such an event will have to wait the slow attrition of time for the solution of the entire question of race relations in America. Moreover, the Prince Hall Mason is not especially eager for a solution that would destroy his historic institution.²⁷

Loretta Williams states that black institutions operate according to the “pillarization” principle and applies this theory to Prince Hall Freemasonry. According to her, to be effective, black institutions must exist next to white ones but without ever merging, thus forming the pillars of society next to the white pillars.²⁸ It seems that Prince Hall Masons have increasingly adopted this operational model.

Institutional autonomy and greater maneuvering room is the official reason Prince Hall Masons put forth against a merger of black and white obediences. A New York Mason said, in very colorful terms, “There is a risk of the big fish swallowing the little one.”^*78 However, the basic reason, which does not contradict the preceding one, is perhaps of a social nature. The remarks made by Williamson in the 1950s remain quite meaningful in my opinion.

The Prince Hall Mason has never sought, nor does he seek “social intimacy” with any individual or group who may not desire such contact.²⁹

Long before the civil rights movement, Williamson feared that equality would be a vain term inside and outside the lodge. He therefore preferred that blacks gain self-confidence inside their own organization among themselves, at least initially. In 1999, Cox expressed very similar feelings, although in a less stark fashion: “The successful would say yes, those who are struggling would say no.”³⁰

Only the blacks who have succeeded in American society would draw any real benefit from integration, according to Cox. As a general rule, black Freemasons have enjoyed more success than the majority of the other members of their community. All the same, they still have reservations and prefer to keep their distance from men whom they see as socially distant, even if they are Masons like themselves.