Prince Hall Freemasonry began with a single lodge in Boston, Massachusetts, chartered in 1784. Today the Prince Hall fraternity spans the globe, with Grand Lodges or lodges on every habitable continent except Australia. The warrant for African Lodge, No. 459, was granted by the Grand Lodge of England (the Moderns) to a group of African Americans, led by a man named Prince Hall.
    Much has been written about Prince Hall, but most of it is conjecture and imagination. It is not known for certain where or when he was born, who his parents were, whether he was born free or a slave, or when he first came to Boston. Surprisingly, several men in Boston in the late eighteenth century were named Prince Hall, so it is not known how many times he married, whether he had children, or if he fought in the War of Independence from 1775 to 1781. He had various occupations: labourer, leather-dresser, cook, and caterer; he was a voter and tax-payer; he was highly regarded by some influential Whites and was a leader in the Black community. From his known writings, including correspondence in the Library of the United Grand Lodge of England, it is apparent that he was self-taught, intelligent and well read. He was an active Freemason who served and led his lodge as Master until his death in 1807.

AFRICAN LODGE

African Lodge remained loyal to England when the other American lodges were declaring their independence, and the Grand Secretary relied on Prince Hall for reports on masonry in the Boston area. While there is evidence of occasional fraternal contact with Prince Hall and African Lodge, for the most part they were shunned by White masons. By the end of the eighteenth century African Lodge had lost touch with England, receiving no reply to correspondence.
    Spurned by other lodges in America, and seemingly abandoned by England, the Brethren of African Lodge declared their independence in 1827 and developed their own fraternity, spread over several states, which largely mirrored the practices of their White counterparts, except in one respect. In 1847 they formed a national Grand Lodge, to resolve differences between existing lodges and Grand Lodges.
    The experiment was not successful; some Grand Lodges did not join and many who joined, or were chartered by the national body, withdrew after a few years, with bitter acrimony. Two separate groups now exist, each claiming African Lodge as their ancestor. The forty-seven independent Grand Lodges of Prince Hall Affiliation (PHA) have a combined membership of around 185,000 and substantial mainstream recognition. The National Compact Grand Lodge has twenty-five subordinate Grand Lodges, known as Grand Lodges of Prince Hall Origin (PHO) and far fewer members, with no outside recognition.
    PHA lodges and Grand Lodges are established in most of the United States of America, including Alaska and Hawaii, and there are two Grand Lodges in Canada, one in Africa, and two spanning the West Indies, Central and South America.

SERVING IN THE MILITARY

Prince Hall Masons have served in the United States military since the War of Independence, and most notably in the all-Black cavalry regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers, where they had military lodges with ambulatory warrants similar to those of the British army and other units. These Black cavalry regiments were formed in 1866, fought hostile Indians and Mexicans, protected stage coaches and the US mail, and served as segregated units in every subsequent war until racial integration of the United States Army in 1952. Forty years later a bronze sculpture was dedicated to them at Fort Leavenworth by General Colin Powell.
    After World War Two, when US military units were permanently stationed abroad, PHA military lodges were established on those bases worldwide, with stationary warrants rather than ambulatory ones. There are many such Prince Hall military lodges in England, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, and in Japan and Korea, with a few elsewhere, including Iceland, the Azores, Turkey, the Persian Gulf, Thailand, Guam and the Philippines.
    The presence of Prince Hall military lodges in England may surprise many English masons. These lodges belong to jurisdictions in amity with the United Grand Lodge of England, and most meet on Royal Air Force stations. Two of them are chartered by the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Washington, administered by a District Deputy Grand Master based in Germany. One meets at RAF Feltwell, near Thetford, and the other in West Ruislip. Until recently, George R. Barnes Military Lodge, No. 171, under the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, met at RAF Feltwell, administered by a District Deputy Grand Master in Italy.
    This lodge has now been transferred to the Middle East; its precise location is not publicised, for security reasons.
    The Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Maryland has five military lodges in England under a District Deputy Grand Master living in London. Four of the Maryland lodges meet on RAF bases at Feltwell, Menwith Hill, Croughton and Alconbury. Brethren from these lodges visit local English lodges, and Brethren of both jurisdictions support each others’ fundraising activities. The onbase lodges have an average membership of 32. Military transfers cause a high turnover of members and occasionally this affects continuity of office, but that is largely obviated by selecting successors for Deacons, Wardens and Master from among those scheduled to remain for the ensuing year.
    The fifth Maryland lodge, Norman E. Carter Lodge, No. 136, meets off-base at the Derinton Community Centre, Derinton Road, Tooting (South London), on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. Many of the members of this lodge are civilians of British nationality, they or their parents originating from Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Sierra Leone, Trinidad and other countries.
    Some of them have visited London lodges at the invitation of friends or relatives, but the lodge has yet to receive English visitors.

OFFICES AND REGALIA

In many respects, Prince Hall Grand Lodges and lodges are very similar to their mainstream US counterparts. They use the same type of ritual, known as Webb-form, with a Grand Lecturer responsible for maintaining purity of ritual. The lodge set-up is the same, with two doors into the lodge, one being from the candidate’s preparation room, and the officers are the same, with the Junior Deacon replacing the Inner Guard, a Marshal instead of a Director of Ceremonies, and only two Stewards, Senior and Junior.
    Aprons are of the same style, with Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts and Master Masons usually wearing plain white, while officer’s aprons are usually bordered in blue and bear the jewel of office. Lodges generally meet twice monthly; many are organised in a District system administered by District Deputy Grand Masters; and the Masters and Wardens of all lodges are required to attend Grand Communications.
    Prince Hall Brethren are, however, far more conservative in their attitude to innovations.
    Among themselves, they are highly critical of the mainstream Grand Lodges which advertise for members, conduct one-day classes, or are perceived to be lowering standards in any way.
    The Prince Hall dress code is generally more formal. A typical example is in North Carolina where, at their respective Grand Communications, the mainstream Grand Master wears a lounge suit and the Prince Hall Grand Master is resplendent in tails.
    Both mainstream and PHA have the same dual structure of other Orders, York Rite and Scottish Rite, with the ‘Shriners’ as a ‘fun and fund-raising’ Order at the end of the ladder. They both have Orders for family members, and many PHA Masons are active in organisations such as the Order of the Eastern Star. Charity and community service are high on the agenda of PHA lodges and Grand Lodges.

MASONIC RESEARCH

The most notable Prince Hall research body is the Phylaxis Society, founded by Joseph A. Walkes Jr. in 1973, based originally on the Philalethes Society, but extended to cover a range of other functions. With a specialist research chapter, Lux e Tenebris, and the more general Phylaxis magazine, the Society has done more to encourage and train Prince Hall researchers than all the Grand Lodges combined. With the books he wrote and the Society he founded and led, Joseph Walkes, who lived from 1933 to 2006, provided much of the historical information otherwise unavailable to mainstream researchers. He has become the model and inspiration for a small group of younger Prince Hall researchers, at work in various jurisdictions writing the histories the fraternity lacks.
    The Phylaxis Society serves an additional purpose, to warn of bogus, mainly Black organisations which claim to be masonic, of which there are over 200 in the United States. Many of these have been founded by renegade Prince Hall masons and some, such as the John G. Jones group of Grand Lodges and Supreme Council, form networks across the country. Others, such as the International Free and Accepted Modern Masons and Eastern Stars, are entirely selfstarters.
    One, King Solomon Grand Lodge, has a lodge in London, and annually the United Grand Lodge of England warns Brethren of its existence.
    Based largely on reports from other American Grand Lodges, for more than two hundred years the Prince Hall fraternity was widely regarded as irregular, and contrary opinions were bitterly opposed, but in 1989 the Grand Lodges of Connecticut and Nebraska led a movement to recognise the Prince Hall Grand Lodges in their own States.

RECOGNITION

In December 1994, after a long and careful investigation, the United Grand Lodge of England determined that the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts was a legitimate descendant of African Lodge, that its formation from a single lodge was ‘eccentric’ but not irregular at that time, and that the present conduct of the Prince Hall fraternity was ‘of exemplary regularity’. With the consent of the mainstream Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, England extended recognition to its offspring, the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and indicated that applications by other Grand Lodges that could trace their ancestry to African Lodge would be favourably considered.
    Since then, a large majority of the fifty-one mainstream US Grand Lodges have recognised the PHA Grand Lodge in the same state, and England has followed suit. However, in eleven states the mainstream Grand Lodge has refused to recognise its PHA counterpart, thus denying them the opportunity to be recognised by other Grand Lodges which accept the same constraints as England.
    More than half of all Prince Hall Masons are in those eleven jurisdictions, mostly located south of the Mason-Dixon line.