History of Masonry

02/04/2023

01/11/2023

Interior of the Booker T. Washington library when it was located at 1713 Third Avenue North, 1919. The library would move into the Colored Masonic Temple in 1923

01/11/2023

The Masonic Temple officially opened on April 1, 1924. At the time, it was described as “the largest and best-equipped office building built and paid for by Negroes in the entire world.”

In addition to housing the state headquarters for the Prince Hall Masons and the Order of the Eastern Star, the building also leased office space to notable African American professionals, businesses, and organizations, as well as a drug store and soda fountain on the ground floor. The second-floor auditorium had a capacity of 2,000 and hosted numerous meetings, ceremonies, weddings, banquets, and graduations. The auditorium also provided a venue for concerts and big band orchestras, including those of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Both men were Prince Hall Masons, as were Alabama as were other music greats such as Nat King Cole, Lionel Hampton, and Birmingham native Erskine Hawkins

01/11/2023

In the Perry Massacre of 1922, thousands of whites formed a lynch mob that tortured and burnt a black man named Charles Wright, collecting souvenirs of his burnt co**se, murdered two more black men, then burnt the town of Perry’s black community—the black church, school, homes and Masonic lodge.

In the Rosewood Massacre of 1923, when the black Gulf Coast town rallied together after a Rosewood resident was lynched, hundreds of whites ransacked and burnt the whole town—its mills, its stores, its three churches, its school, its wooden houses and its Masonic hall.

“White supremacists understood the role of the Masonic lodge. Every black community had a Masonic center,” Gerry says, his Massachusetts accent echoing on the Florida waters underneath Broad Street, “and this,” he adds and points up above us, “was Jacksonville’s.”

These tunnels constitute the empty space in the community foundation, the hollow carved out of bedrock to offer solace should worse come to worst, the communal unconscious on which stands the city

01/11/2023

In the Perry Massacre of 1922, thousands of whites formed a lynch mob that tortured and burnt a black man named Charles Wright, collecting souvenirs of his burnt co**se, murdered two more black men, then burnt the town of Perry’s black community—the black church, school, homes and Masonic lodge.

In the Rosewood Massacre of 1923, when the black Gulf Coast town rallied together after a Rosewood resident was lynched, hundreds of whites ransacked and burnt the whole town—its mills, its stores, its three churches, its school, its wooden houses and its Masonic hall.

“White supremacists understood the role of the Masonic lodge. Every black community had a Masonic center,” Gerry says, his Massachusetts accent echoing on the Florida waters underneath Broad Street, “and this,” he adds and points up above us, “was Jacksonville’s.”

These tunnels constitute the empty space in the community foundation, the hollow carved out of bedrock to offer solace should worse come to worst, the communal unconscious on which stands the city.

01/05/2023

Langston was president of the Colored Benevolent Society, first Worshipful Master of St. Mark's Lodge No. 7.

He also served as Grand Master of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Kansas, and a founder of the Inter-state Library Association. He also was active in an African Methodist Episcopal Church.

He chaired a committee that proposed the Manual Labor School at the 1853 Rochester convention. The proposal outlined a mixture of scholarly, mechanical, and agricultural studies that would enhance African Americans’ capacity in politics and in business. The committee felt that a combination of intellectual prowess and healthy bodies would promote jobs and economic security in Black communities, thereby gaining respect, recognition, and full citizenship in the United States.
Langston was one of the first African Americans to attend Oberlin College where he became a political activist and educator. Langston was appointed as the western representative of the Sons of Temperance in 1848, where he promoted education and political rights.He went on to become president of the Ohio State Colored Convention in 1849. He also sat on the committee of correspondence that advocated for a national Black convention to be held in Buffalo, New York, in 1852. In 1853 he became involved in the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society.

01/05/2023

M.W. Grand Master Bishop Abraham Grant

Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons
He was one of the most influential African Americans of his generation. He was a burning fire that reduced to a yet a mere amber over time. He had escaped slavery twice and from his humble beginnings would go on to council presidents and kings. At 6’2″ 240 lbs. The only thing more imposing then his physical presence was his indomitable will. He preached the gospel on four continents and yet never met a man below him and conversely never met a man above him.

12/23/2022

Stepping into 2023 braver than you were in 2022