Two weeks ago, Prince Hall masons all over the world celebrated the 229th anniversary of the issuance of the charter of African Lodge #459. All throughout September, Prince Hall masons may have had processions and parades, decked out in their usual masonic regalia. They must have marched up into their churches (I can't understand why we have to celebrate such a day in churches instead of lodge halls, but I digress) and listened to their Grand Officers and Church clergymen talk loud and throw out so many masonic references and anecdotes that one may just need to replay the speech from the last year and not need to attend the one this year.
With the Prince Hall story, there are lot of misinformation and falsities that has been spread from the time of Joshua Woodlin to William Grimshaw to every other ignorant brother who has failed to pick up a copy of either of two books by Charles Wesley or Joseph Walkes or articles like this on the Phylaxis website. There's the fable most older members misinform newer members relating events that happened in 1773-4 to something that happened in 1784. Once again, I digressed. It is always annoying every year the same misinformation gets spread especially into the minds of novice and younger members who are too lazy to do their own due diligence and research.
Anyway, where was I?
So on September 29, 1784, Prince Hall received a charter from the Premier Grand Lodge of England (Moderns) to practice Freemasonry in its full form. But how did this come about?
We recall that on March 6, 1775, Prince Hall and fourteen other men of color were raised in an Irish Constitution Lodge on Castle Island. Now these men were given a dispensation to just do really two things: bury their dead, and march on St. John's day. THAT WAS IT!
Anyone who knows freemasonry should know that this is not all we do as masons. I'm quite sure Prince Hall was aware of the fact seeing as neighboring lodges were conferring degrees and travelling to other lodges and what not.
So what did Prince Hall and those masons of African Lodge do? They were not going to be complacent by being called masons alone, they were going to search and sojourn and work for the right to become masons in full: taking advantage of all the full benefits of being a mason and not just showing off in their masonic regalia in public without doing any work.
That initiative to be more than a mason by name led to Prince Hall writing letters to a Worshipful Master in England by the name of William Moody. By his help and liaison with Wm Moody and persistence in his follow-up with him before and after the issuance of the charter (there was an unknown delay in Prince Hall receiving the charter for 3 years, but that's another story) Prince Hall and those brothers of now African Lodge #459 were better enabled armed with their tools and a proper dispensation to work and over 200 years later, Prince Hall masons are still at work courtesy of the initiative and drive of Prince Hall and those masons of #459.
So, what can we learn from the Prince Hall story?
Prince Hall and those men of #459 were men with initiative. They knew that freemasonry was a wide world outside of the confines of what their grand lodge had squeezed them into and dictated they do. They were more than that and they knew it. They fought their way into getting a charter and defending that charter for the purpose of exploring the wide world of freemasonry. A wide world that would eventually spread literally all over the globe with Prince Hall Lodges from Hawaii round to Japan.
We have grown too complacent in being masons by name alone. We'd rather just march in public and wear regalia and look pretty but not do what it takes to expand our knowledge. We should garner some initiative and travel as far and as wide as we can gaining knowledge. We should fight to remove restrictions set forth by our lodges and grand lodges that impede our expansion. We should foster and go forth and teach our members the real story of Prince Hall Freemasonry. We should give them the motivation to go out there and find out new knowledge and research on their own. We should be working men building up each other and making our community better by our existence. We should have some initiative to prosper and expand outside the little constrictive world we call Prince Hall Freemasonry. Freemasonry in itself is a universal fraternity, we should explore our masonic universe.
That is what I think Prince Hall's story teaches us.
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