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

Chapter 3 - Overview of Rites 97
Black Masons form a special in-group in North American society that is
situated under the white middle-class bourgeoisie and above the black third
class. This group, in order to maintain its inner cohesion and class-pride, needs
to distinguish itself both from the whites, the "big brother," and from the black
masses, with whom it will have nothing to do. The black middle class, and
especially the Masonic one, adheres to a moral and behavioral code that is
demanded of this class. The models for bourgeois respectability for Afro-
American blacks are the white men. Consequently, they try to imitate the whites
in certain ways, and the black mob necessarily has to be excluded from such
refined circles. This, of course, leads to the better-off and the worse-off blacks in
the United States becoming alienated. Prince Hall Masonry is not the only social
institution fostering such an estrangement between the second and the third black
class, but one of the most effective ones. As Muraskin puts it,
[t]o give reality to the perceived and real differences between the selfproclaimed
middle class and the black majority, institutions providing
social distance had to be created. Such institutions brought together men
considered eligible for middle-class status, and excluded all others.
They gave the members support in maintaining the moral and
behavioral characteristics that were considered class defining. By
enabling members of the new class to meet and interact, they helped
form a socially cohesive and self-conscious group. Prince Hall
Freemasonry has been one of the most important of those institutions. 268
Thus, black Freemasonry with its rigid and exclusionary admission system
managed to separate the in-group members from what they considered the black
mob: "To allow nonbourgeois men to enter would destroy the Order's ability to
serve as a badly needed model for the race, weaken the resolve of the
membership to maintain their life style, and destroy the Order's potency as a
class-defining institution." 269 To cultivate a secret language and ritual allows a
downtrodden race to distinguish itself from the primitiveness of the even lower
masses. Even the often heard accusation of a worldwide aristocratic Masonic
conspiracy probably did less damage to the self-conception of black Masons than
of white ones, because being an imagined threat could make black Masons feel
proud: "For a despised minority, accusations of hidden power do not hurt the
ego." 270
So far we have dealt with Afro-American Masonry as prevalent in the U.S.
We would also like to mention the meaning of Masonry to a minority group in
Sierra Leone, where the Craft has also expanded. Here, the Creoles, living in the
capital city of Freetown, gain the pleasure of identification with a Western
cultural institution and acceptance as social equals by whites through
Freemasonry. The Creoles constitute a black professional and business elite,
268 Muraskin, p. 25/26.
269 Ibid, p. 26.
270 Ibid, p. 36.