Black Freemasonry and middle-class realities
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Abstract
This book documents some of the realities of success as being racially delimited. For more than two hundred years this segment of the black middle class has at the same time dealt with the system of exclusion and yet achieved some of the system's proffered rewards. It is the story of the Prince Hall Masons, an organization within the black community established over two hundred years ago. By examining this black organization, from the colonial period to the present, one can more fully understand the struggles of the black, middle-class men. Black Freemasonry, as a separate structure, emerged in response to the discriminatory practices and policies of mainstream American Freemasonry, an institution dedicated to the universal brotherhood of mankind.
Table of Contents
The emergence of Prince Hall Freemasonry -- The free black context -- Nineteenth-century realities for free blacks -- The growth of Prince Hall Freemasonry -- The masonic realities -- The discrepancy in universalism: minorities -- Black association: pragmatic adaptation? -- The commitment of black masons -- The middle-class phenomenon -- Implications of phillarization