From: ptrei@bistromath.mitre.org (Peter Trei)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Could you comment on this please?
Date: 25 Jan 93 04:59:23 GMT
Organization: The MITRE Corporation

In article <Jan.21.03.35.37.1993.17083@athos.rutgers.edu> cnews@umr.edu (UMR Usenet News Post) writes:

>My father is a mason (Scotish Rite).  The masons to not allow blacks
>in their organization.  This is racist, not the virtues of friendship,
>morality, and brotherly love.  Why can't blacks become masons?  (And
>please don't give me the Jim Crowe reasoning of they can have a
>separate and equal organization.)

[     This post was clearly off src's charter, but I hope that the	]
[ moderator will let this response through as well, as I'd like to	]
[ correct it for the same audience that has read it. Unless it relates	]
[ to Christianity in some way, Masonic material should not be in this	]
[ group. -peter								]

    To start off, your initial statement: "The masons to [sic] not
allow blacks in their organization." is simply incorrect. My own lodge
has black members, and I know of many others.

    Nevertheless, it *is* true that in many places and times in this
country, many Masonic organizations have excluded blacks. In the past,
the pretext for this was that we require candidates to be freeborn,
and for many blacks well into this century that status was unclear.
(Note that I am calling this a pretext, not a justification - I don't
think it was correct either). Outside the US, I'm not aware that race
has ever been a problem.

     In some cases, a color bar was actually written into the rules of
the organization - more frequently, blacks simply never passed the
ballot for admission (Masonic voting procedures have generally allowed
a single 'nay' vote to veto an application).

    This type of discrimination was hardly unique to the Masons.
Similar color bars were exercised by many, if not the majority, of
American social organizations up until quite recently, from country
clubs to universities.

    Within Masonry, official color bars were generally dropped in the
1950's.  Nevertheless, very few blacks joined mainstream lodges until
recently. There were two reasons for this. 

    First, the discrimination which ensured that few or no blacks
would get past the ballot (this is still the case in much of the
South, but is no longer a major problem in northern jurisdictions).

    Second, the existence of "Prince Hall" lodges: Due to the
inability of blacks to get into mainstream lodges, an independent and
parallel system of black lodges gradually came into being (Prince Hall
was a black American Freemason during the Revolutionary War). While my
corrospondent (who seems to be concealing his identity) feels that
this is a 'Jim Crowe' situation, I ask him (her?) to remember that the
PH lodges were not a creation of mainstream Masonry to justify the
exclusion of blacks, but rather an African-American response to that
exclusion. Most people, when seeking to join an social organization
such as the Masons, are looking for a congenial and friendly
atmosphere, not a place where they might be given the cold shoulder.
Thus, few American blacks interested in Freemasonry felt a need to
apply to mainstream lodges.

    The PH lodges have been officially ignored and tacitly tolerated
by mainstream American Masonry for over 200 years. There have been
sporadic attempts in the past by various Grand Lodges to recognize
them over the years, but until recently these all failed, as other,
less tolerant GLs would cut off relations.

    In the past five years or so, there has been a growing number of
mainstream Grand Lodges recognizing their co-located PH Grand Lodges.
This is leading to quite a bit of turmoil in the Masonic world, as the
more conservative GLs (especially in the South), cut off relations
with GLs recognizing Prince Hall. I expect this movement to continue
to expand and grow.

    To summarize: 

        American Freemasonry and African-Americans have had a long and
not wholly honorable history. Today, Masonry nowhere officially
excludes blacks. There have been unofficial barriers to black members
in the US in the past, but these are now falling. While the situation
could undubtedly be better, blanket characterizations of Masonry as
racist are inaccurate.

						Peter Trei
						Presiding Master,
						Wilder Lodge,	
						Ancient Free & Accepted Masons,
						Leominster, MA.

						Editor, Masonic Digest.
						ptrei@mitre.org