<Bt-5>A lesson they will likely never forget
The Bermuda Installed Masters (BIM) along with ranking dignitaries visiting with their brethren from other local lodges were at their formal best for the auspicious meeting at Freemasons Hall. It was presided over by the Master of the Lodge, Wor. Bro. Lincoln Outerbridge; and was followed by a $100 dollar-a-plate dinner.
‘Restoration of Amity’, if this writer is permitted to digress, is the politically correct terminology the two speakers used to explain how complicated negotiations culminated with official goodwill between brethren declared on December 14, 1994. It climaxed a 200-year-standoff, when main stream white Masonic lodges headquartered in England, Scotland, and Ireland and in US Jurisdictions with racism being a pronounced factor did not recognise the powerful black Prince Hall Freemasonry that traces its origins to a time predating the American Declaration of Independence in 1775.
Lodges bearing the Prince Hall designation experienced phenomenal growth during that period, embracing some of the most influential black men of their times ranging from the founder of the AME Church, Richard Allen; Absalom Jones and US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. At the time of Recognition there were some 300,000 Prince Hall Masons in 5,000 Lodges and 47 Grand Lodges. They all traced their lineage to a Charter issued to Prince Hall and African Lodge No. 459.
VW Wor. Bro. John Hill, a Past Master of the Loyal Lodge who holds Grand Lodge Rank, in introducing M.W. Locker and R.W. Higham said it was not possible to overstate the importance of their accomplishments, and the skill and courage with which they used their high offices to influence events. They had “conciliated true friendship among persons that must otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance”.
“It is my firm belief that the majority of English Constitution masons, particularly those who are resident in England, do not fully comprehend the great thing that has been done in their name. Perhaps the same is true also of many Prince Hall masons. But in Bermuda, we understand it very well,” said Bro. Hill.
He added, what they accomplished together, a decade or so ago, will cascade down the years, with undoubted happy and beneficial effects for all regular brethren from generation to generation, even for as long as Freemasonry continues.”
Bro Higham, who at the time was the Grand Secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England, summed up their efforts in a few words. He said: “The story as it was seen through our eyes at Freemasons’ Hall in London is how a problem at first seemed insoluble. A solution, applying old rules was proposed, and found not to work. A braver solution was proposed and we broke through in today’s far happier position.”
Bro. Locker said Masonic scholars have written many and varied stories about the legacy and life of “our founder and first Grand Master Prince Hall, as well as the history of the MW Prince Hall Grand Lodge Jurisdiction of Massachusetts”. He quoted from the Prince Hall Information guide book explaining the complicated recognition process involving himself among others, and MW Bro. Higham and others.
Prince Hall took the name of his ‘owner’ William Hall, gained his freedom after 21 years of service. He became a successful businessman and a property owner which earned him the right to vote in Boston. He furthered his education by diligent reading and self education, and believed it was the duty of every citizen to exercise the right to franchise.
“His aim in trying to join the Masonic order was to bring his people together in a community of interest, a band of concern and sympathy for each other,” Bro. Locker added. After repeated attempts to join a Lodge of Caucasian Masons in Boston, Prince Hall and fourteen other men of Color applied for membership in a Caucasian Army Lodge No. 441 of Irish registry, attached to the 38th British Foot Infantry. They were accepted, and March 6, 1775 marked the first time that black men were made Masons in America and they were accepted.
About a year later, since “the conflict between England and America had commenced”, as Bro. Locker diplomatically put it in reference to the American Revolutionary War, the British Foot Infantry left Boston along with its Lodge. But before the Lodge left, it’s Wor. Master gave Prince Hall and his associates a Permit to meet as a Lodge and bury their dead in manner and form.
Bro. Locker thanked the Bermuda Installed Masters Lodge for the opportunity given himself and Bro. Higham to make their presentations. “It is my hope that you will have a better understanding and cleared vision of the stages of the recognition process.
“It is an honour and privilege to be of service to masonry in general and the Prince Hall GLM in particular. Service is a God-given function of life, and through service mankind does reap the blessings of creation. Each of us is a descendant of some past traveller who has cleared the way and opened doors of opportunity, so we can have a place in this world.
“Prince Hall will always be revered, honoured and respected for the many tokens of good will and affection he has given Masonry and Mankind. Making a difference is what makes us different,” said Bro. Locker.
Earlier in his presentation Bro. Locker acknowledged the fact that Bermuda had played an historic part in cementing the recognition shortly after it occurred ten years ago. That was when (quoting from an earlier report in this Island Notebook column by this writer), “the first actual brother-to-brother, man-to-man, eyeball-to-eyeball contact occurred when well-known Bermudian Charles W. Kempe, Jr., became the first-ever English Grand Lodge Officer to visit a Prince Hall Lodge.”
“In his capacity as the Grand Inspector of the Bermuda Group of Lodges under the United Grand Lodge of England, Bro. Kempe and a delegation of Bermudian Masons paid a visit in February 1996 to John J. Smith Lodge No. 14 in Boston. In return Prince Hall Masons on April 2, 1996 paid a fraternal visit to Bermuda.”
