How would you have responded? A question for the craft.
As I have mentioned before on this blog, I get a lot of traffic to this site from candidates interested in joining Freemasonry. Almost all of the time I have really good answers for their questions and I am happy to send them off on their quest. Occasionally I get follow up replies after they have joined and this kind of correspondence is always satisfying.
Today I received a very difficult question from a candidate that I did not know how to adequately respond to. It is especially poignant as it comes at a time when we just nominated the first African American as a presidential candidate.
I am going to include the original email I received, though I will not mention the candidates name. I will follow with my response. I am very curious to hear from my Internet brethren how you would have responded to this email. Please leave your responses in the comment section of this post.
From the candidate:
"Hi, My name is John Doe, I live in Somehwhere Town, NC. I have a question for you regarding the Masons in NC.
I noticed that the mainstream Grand Masonic Lodge in Durham, NC does not recognize Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of North Carolina and Jurisdictions, I was wondering what this means and if I should not join because of this?"
My tepid response:
Dear Mr. Doe,
You ask a difficult question. Fortunately, for myself, I live in a state that recognizes Prince Hall. What I would recommend you do is go ahead and contact a lodge in your area and speak to someone about your interest. In your discussion, I would raise the specific question about Prince Hall recognition.
Ultimately it will be a personal decision. As you probably know by now, Freemasonry is different in every single state and governed by its own grand lodge and rules. I don’t live in the South myself and, to be frank, I would struggle with the same questions you have on the topic.
Let me know how things turn out. It is still worth contacting a local lodge; they can explain things better than I can since I am not a Freemason in your state.
John
Comments
It is widely expected that in 4 weeks the (predominantly white) Grand Lodge of North Carolina will have recognized the (predominantly black) Prince Hall Grand Lodge of North Carolina.
It is true that the GLMO has recognized the PHGLMO since 2002. However, it took the GLMO 181 years to recognize just a single one out of the 47 PH GLs. Thus, during 97% of its existence, the GLMO refused to recognize a million perfectly "regular" black Prince Hall Masons. Now it recognizes barely 1.4% of them. The other 98.6% remain unrecognized. The GLMO web site lists "other US GLs", but only the PHGLMO appears on that page.
This is not to single out the GLMO. There are many US "mainstream" (i.e. predominantly white, aka "MS") GLs that recognize only very few PH Masons. As a matter of fact, 58% of all Prince Hall Masons remain entirely unrecognized by all US mainstream GLs.
Those 58% of PH Masons live in the following States: AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC SC TN WV.
And even the most "progressive" US MS GLs still refuse to recognize them.
The "reason" is that they are not recognized by the MS GL in the same territory (State).
Recently, a Canadian MS GL changed its Constitution to assert the right of mainstream GLs in a territory to "maintain exclusive jurisdiction", i.e. to prevent all "mainstream" GLs from recognizing the PH GL in "its" territory.
Those 11 Southern US MS GLs are not the only remaining ones. There still remains one mainstream GL in Canada which does not recognize the Prince Hall GL which is based in the same Province.
While it is true that 40 of the 51 US MS GLs recognize at least one PH GL, many recognize only one or a handful of very small Northern or Western PH GLs, and most of the 160,000 PH Masons remain unrecognized by most MS Masons. After 19 years since the first PH recognition in the US, the vast majority of the recognitions remain unachieved. In Canada, even though all MS GLs have some PH recognition, only the tiniest one has fraternal relations with all PH GLs, while the largest one does not recognize 99.8% of them. Less than 2% of the possible fraternal relations have been achieved. In Australia, this task is 100% complete.
In conclusion, it must be said that the GLNC is one of the most progressive, transparent, and participatory MS GLs. For more than a decade the leaders have courageously encouraged the members to face the issues of racism and Prince Hall recognition, to learn the facts, to think and talk about the matter, and to be true to the principles of Freemasonry.
The Prince Hall Grand Lodge of North Carolina knows this and appreciates it. Thus, in 2004, the PHGLNC voted unanimously to recognize the GLNC.