FAQ: What is Prince Hall Masonry?
Larry the Mason from Holbrook
Version 1.0
August 2006
This Frequently Asked Question comes from the weekly USENET MASONRY FAQ, posted to alt.freemasonry every Friday at 08:00 Pacific. Please refer to the weekly FAQ for other resource and contact information.
09
What is Prince Hall Masonry?
NOTE: This section is excerpted from the Grand Lodge of New
Brunswick's annual communication. I wish there were some Prince Hall
Masons who could provide better information.
"There are some schools of thought that Prince Hall (his name not a
title) was born in Barbados to a free black woman and a Scottish
father. He emigrated to the Colony of Boston, Mass. and acquired real
estate, making him eligible to vote. It was also documented that he
was a devout Christian and a leather-worker by trade. On March 6,
1775, during the American War of Independence, Prince Hall along with
fourteen men of color were made Masons in Army Lodge #441 of the Irish
Constitution. When Army Lodge moved on, the aforesaid brethren were
issued a permit authorizing them to appear publicly as a Masonic body
for the purpose of celebrating the feast of St. John and to bury their
dead.
On March 2, 1784, these same brethren applied to the Grand Lodge of
England for a charter, which was subsequently issued to them on
September 29, 1784. They were warranted under the name of African
Lodge, No. 459 on the register of the Grand Lodge of England by
authority of then Grand Master, the Duke of Cumberland. Prince Hall
was the first Master. That charter, which is authenticated and in
safekeeping, is believed to be the only original charter issued from
the Grand Lodge of England still in the possession of any Lodge in the
United States.
African Lodge allowed itself to slip into arrears in the late 1790's
and was stricken from the rolls after the Union of 1813, although it
had attempted correspondence in 1802 and 1806. In 1827, after other
unreplied-to attempts at communication, it declared its independence
of any external authority and began to call itself African Grand Lodge
No. 1.
It is interesting to note that when the Massachusetts lodges which
were acting as a Provincial Grand Lodge declared themselves an
independent Grand Lodge, and even when the present Grand Lodge of
Massachusetts was formed by the amalgamation of two separate Grand
Lodges, African Lodge was not invited to take part, even though it
held a warrant every bit as valid as those others. This may be
explained in part by this 1795 quote from John Eliot, who later became
Grand Chaplain of the Gr. Lodge of Mass. He wrote, "White Masons, who
are not more skilled in geometry than their black brethren, will not
acknowledge them... the truth is they are ashamed of being on an
equality with blacks."
Today there are 45 Grand Lodges (the latest being the just formed
"Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the Caribbean") that trace
their origin back to African Lodge #459. There are more than 5000
Prince Hall Lodges and over 300,000 members. So far as it is known,
their ritual, their secrets, their procedures, their requirements,
their beliefs, their tenets or fundamental principles, are all either
identical with ours, or recognizably similar." (by.. W Bro. Roy
Cassidy)
To add to this:
The United Grand Lodge of England has now officially recognized Prince
Hall Lodges. Many US Grand Lodges have recognized PH GLs within their
jurisdictions, and it has been or is being discussed in other
jurisdictions. Since every Grand Lodge is autonomous and the supreme
authority in its jurisdiction, this issue must be approached on a
state-by-state basis.
Some have criticized Masonry as "segregated" due to the Prince Hall
Lodges, but this is a ridiculous claim, since there are many black
Masons in non-PH Lodges and white members in PH Lodges, and displays a
fundamental ignorance of Masonic history.