The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

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Chapter 3 - Overview of Rites
3.3.8 Problems of Universality
Unfortunately, integration with the American white Masons was not
forthcoming. The dream that "black" Masonry and "white"
Masonry would become simply "Freemasonry" had to be either
abandoned, or more commonly, indefinitely deferred. Instead, the
blacks concentrated upon obtaining "recognition" from whites rather
than integration. 299
It is bad enough that such a tolerant institution as the Royal Art should
distinguish between "Caucasian" and "Negro" Masonry. In dealing with the
antithesis of black and white Masonry, we come across a hierarchy between
"dark" and "colored" Masonry: "Intraracial 'blackballing' by light-skinned blacks
against darker ones was probably fairly widespread in the Order. Indeed, it
continued to some extent well into the twentieth century." 300 It can be supposed
that a relative democratization of black Freemasonry came up only after the turn
of the 20th century when darker blacks of the non-elite middle class entered the
Craft. The colored people joined Freemasonry for the same reasons as the
European Jews had done - by this measure they hoped to overcome racial
prejudice and separation.
The Order's claim to universal brotherhood combined with its social
prestige (aristocratic and/or bourgeois) proved attractive to the two
major proscribed "racial" groups (Jews and Blacks) in Euro-American
society as their members broke out of the social and cultural isolation of
their folk communities. [...]
The free blacks of eighteenth-century America, like the Jews of
Europe, were attracted to the Masonic fraternity, and for much the same
reasons. Prince Hall and his followers saw Freemasonry as a meeting
ground where notions of black and white did not exist. They also saw
themselves as a black elite entitled to fraternize with white aristocrats
and burghers on an equal level. 301
Two different streams are noticeable in black Freemasonry - on the one hand
the black Masons who try to imitate their white brethren in order to be respected,
and on the other hand those who have a more separatist position and prefer a
largely independent kind of Masonry. Thus, although "the real alternative for the
black Mason has not been go-it-alone Afro-American Nationalism, but quiet
acceptance of his 'place' in the American caste system," 302 black Masons have
created a front against white Masons by the foundation of the National Compact.
This organization resulted from internal dissent among black Masonic bodies
299
Muraskin, p. 196. Bold print added.
300
Ibid, p. 41.
301
Ibid, p. 23/24.
302
Muraskin, p. 215.