Article: 147 of alt.freemasonry
Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!dryfoo
From: dryfoo@athena.mit.edu (Gary L. Dryfoos)
Newsgroups: alt.freemasonry
Subject: Re: Prince Hall Affiliated Masonry
Date: 1 Aug 1994 18:43:48 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Distribution: world
Message-ID: <31jfp4$hnr@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
References: <318iu6$3ka@access3.digex.net>
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In article <318iu6$3ka@access3.digex.net>, yield@access3.digex.net (raymond j. brennan) writes:
|> 
|> as a white PHA Mason, i would like to know why some of the brothers from 
|> other three or four letter Lodges, consider PHA irregular and clandestine?
|> anyone wishing to participate in this discussion can either email me 
|> directly (preferably) or online here.

The topic of Prince Hall Masonry's relationship to F&AM or AF&AM Masonry
is a pretty complex one.  For some really detailed info, I recommend
that you browse through the archived Masonic Digests that were mentioned
a few posts ago.

This is as short and unbiased a summary as I can provide:

For reasons of both race and Masonic regularity, Prince Hall Masonry has
not been recognized by the other American grand lodges and most of the
grand lodges that they recognize around the world.

Prince Hall was a freed slave in Colonial/Revolutionary/early-US Boston.
He and several of his friends were (according to PH tradition and some
records) raised by an Irish travelling military lodge at a fort in
Boston Harbor.  These travelling lodges were mostly quite regular, and
no taint of irregularity can be deduced from being made a Mason in one.
But other records cast some doubt on the propriety of those particular
Masons to have met as a lodge and raised candidates -- which is problem
#1.

There were a few different competing grand lodges (a grand lodge is a
superior body which charters and governs lodges) in North America, and
Prince Hall and his brothers applied to one of them for a charter as a
lodge.  They received only a charter to meet, and to participate in
Masonic processions.  Whether this limited license was given because of
their race, or because of the questions alluded to above (the regularity
of the body that raised them) is another debated point in PH history.

PH and Co. were dissatisfied with that status, and applied to the Mother
Grand Lodge of England.  Apparently that GL was satisfied with the
regularity of their petition (of course, this point is also debated) and
they received a full and proper charter.  The granting of this charter
is not subject to doubt.  English records show it, and the charter
itself is still in PH archives.

Lots of things happened to muddy the waters.  Either PH's lodge stopped
sending in records and dues to the Grand Lodge, or the GL started
ignoring them.  Once relations between PH and the GL started to
deteriorate, PH reorganized themselves as African Grand Lodge, and
started chartering other lodges in MA, RI, PA, etc.  (After PH's death,
they renamed their Grand Lodge after him.)

If they did this without the permission of the GL that chartered them,
this would be an irregular act, and wouldn't be recognized by other
lodge.  Of course, if they did it because they were being ignored by the
GL, then one can understand their action.

Nowadays, Grand Lodges in this country work under a system of "exclusive
jurisdiction" -- no GL can/will charter lodge's in the territory of
another.  (One GL per state).  Since PH does not fit into this system,
that's another bone of contention.  Of course, other countries don't
have this system, as many PHs point out.

Another problem: the Mother GL of England dropped PH from their rolls
during their Grand Unification in the 1800s.

Finally, just as PH schismed off of "regular" Freemasonry, so have *a
lot* of Masonic and quasi-Masonic bodies schismed off of PH in the last
2 centuries.  Today, as GL's all over North America (and occasionally
Europe) begin to recognize PH bodies, they are confronted with the
problem of which of them are "regular" PH and which ones aren't -- as
some of them don't recognize each other.

Those are all the "legit" questions about the relations between
"regular" and PH Masonry (at least all that I can think of at the
moment).  Most of those can probably be regularized or harmonized given
some time and good will.  For instance, there is no doubt that the
regular PH bodies use substantially the same ritual and observe the same
landmarks as the regular GLs do.

Of course, besides all that there are the problems of the endemic racism
throughout the country, on both sides of the divide.  That is what has
been making all the other questions so hard to get hold of and solve.

[There's an excellent article on PH Masonry, which was helpful in
refreshing my memory on the subject, in the current issue of the
American Masonic Review, published by St. Alban's Research Society, P.O.
Box 10361, College Station, TX 77842-0361 -- subscriptions $15/year, no
Masonic affiliation required to join.  An excellent book on the subject
is _A Documentary Account of Prince Hall and other Black Fraternal
Orders_; Coil, Henry W, ed.; Missouri Lodge of Research; 1982]

-- dr foo