FAM AFAM FAAYM
All these letters have been used to describe Prince Hall Grand Lodges at one point or the other in the history of Prince Hall Freemasonry. Yet, we still have a lot of ill-informed brothers using the “3-letter, 4-letter” system to determine the Masonic legitimacy of Grand Lodges. Is that correct? The broad answer is no, but there are exceptions which would be discussed later.
Firstly, let us discuss the “3-letter, 4-letter” drama in more detail. The comparison is between the F&AM Grand Lodges and the Grand Lodges tagged as AF&AM, but where do these letters come from?
The story starts about 1717 when the “Premier Grand Lodge of England” was formed (popularly known as the Moderns). The Most Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons was formed in England beginning the realm of speculative freemasonry as we know it today. This Grand Lodge is the same grand lodge that will about 60 years later grant Prince Hall and several other colored masons of Boston a charter to warrant a lodge (African Lodge #459), the lodge effectively beginning the class of Prince Hall Freemasonry that is popular not only within the continental United States but all over the world. I digress.
In 1751, due to a schism (probably caused as a result of cultural differences between English masons and those of Irish and Scottish descent), another Grand Lodge was formed as the Grand Lodge in London of Free and Accepted Masons According to the Old Institution popularly known as the “Antients”. That Grand Lodge went ahead chartering various lodges including some in the United States of America.
They both merged in 1813 to form the United Grand Lodge of England, however the damage of the rift was done. Between 1717 and 1813, many lodges were formed in the United States that were either from modern or antient descent. As a result of the revolutionary war , a lot of these lodges lost contact with their English mother grand lodges and forming their own grand lodges holding their affiliations according to their lineage. So, for example the Grand lodge of Pennsylvania was AF&AM while a Grand Lodge of NY was F&AM.
Now, here’s the twist: Prince Hall Grand Lodges, for some reason, have a different history with regards to the use of F&AM, AF&AM etc. I have seen more than one grand lodge use it interchangeably over their history. Some chose to use F&AM because the charter to form African Lodge came from the “Moderns” Grand Lodge of England while some other GL’s followed the way of AF&AM due to Prince Hall being raised by the Irish (Antients). Also, one less told story about Prince Hall freemasonry was the formation of the National Grand Lodge of North America (Compact Masons) in 1847 which used the FAAYM tag. However, this Grand Lodge was officially dissolved in 1877, and all the Prince Hall Grand Lodges around the country all agreed around 1944 to use the tag of F&AM. Therefore, one can conclude that currently ALL regular Prince Hall grand lodges use the tag of F&AM.
However, like I said, there are exceptions. These exceptions are the clandestines e.g IFAAM (internationals) MFAM (Modern free) and the JGJ Grand Lodges (that inappropriately tag themselves as AF&AM). Bro Antoine Lilly did an awesome presentation on clandestine freemasonry which can be viewed here.
At the end of the day, the legitimacy of a grand lodge should never be determined by the number of letters tagged at the suffix of the grand lodge, rather by their lineage to regular masonic lodges or grand lodges originating from the Grand Lodge of England. We need to completely abandon the “3-Letter, 4-Letter” point as it’s completely incorrect.
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