PURE POLITICS

“THE NEGROES WHILE THEY ARE CALLED, IN NUMBERS, THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE STATE, ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR BEING IN THIS COUNTRY,....

Caucasian Grand Lodge of Mississippi was overreacting to events, two Black Prince Hall Freemasons were elected to high offices by the voters. Bro. (Rev.) Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first Black elected to the United States Senate, filling the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederacy and also a non-Mason, and Bro. James R. Lynch became the Secretary of State of Mississippi.

OR FOR OCCUPYING THE RESPONSIBLE PLACES TO WHICH THE RECENT POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION, IN OUR MIDST, HAS ASSIGNED THEM. THEY ARE IGNORANT, AND OUT OF THE SEVENTY THOUSAND WHO VOTED IN THE LAST ELECTION, NOT ONE HUNDRED THOUGHT OR REASONED FOR THEMSELVES, OR COULD THINK OR REASON UPON THE CONSEQUENCES, IMMEDIATE OR REMOTE, THAT MIGHT FOLLOW THE RESULT.”

As a last defiant and pathetic act to a situation they could not understand, control or immediately change, the Grand Lodge voted that the “testimony of a negro -formerly a slave could not be received in a Lodge trial: How ironic, since the only object of a Masonic trial is to seek the truth. And it is only in Masonic trial that no advantage is ever permitted to be taken of legal and verbal technicalities, as in a profane court, which often enable the guilty to escape. Yet if the truth be known by a Black, his testimony would not be permitted by this Grand Lodge. As the

Bro. Revels, a Past Grand Chaplain of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Ohio in 1856; a member of Lone Star Lodge #2, St. Louis, under the jurisdiction of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri; was born in Fayetteville, N.C., of free parents. He attended Quaker seminaries in Indiana and Ohio, and Knox College in Illinois. Ordained a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1845, he taught and preached in Leavenworth, Kansas and St. Louis, Missouri. It was in St. Louis on January 28th, 1858, that he would make his famous “An address delivered to the members of the Prince Hall Lodge No. 10 F.& A.M.” (the lodge was then on the register of Ohio, is now numbered one under Missouri), During the Civil War he helped organize Black regiments, and was made Chaplain for Black troops in Mississippi, In 1866 he settled in Natchez, Mississippi, and was elected Alderman in 1868. He became a State Senator in 1870, and in the same year he was elected to the United States Senate.

Bro. James R. Lynch, Worshipful Master of Lynch Lodge #28 F. & A.M., Jackson, Mississippi, was born in Baltimore on January 8th, 1839, and in his youth obtained a good education. In 1858 he joined the Presbyterian Church in New York, but soon thereafter was accepted by the African Methodist Episcopal Conference in Indiana. He transferred to Baltimore, and in 1863 went to South Carolina as a missionary to the freedman from the A.M.E. church. From 1866 to June 15, 1867, he was editor of The Christian Recorder in Philadelphia. Later he was with the Freedman’s Bureau in Mississippi and in 1871 he was elected Secretary of State. (A major speech of Bro. Lynch is recorded in The Christian Recorder for May 13, 1865.) While these events were taking place in in Mississippi, the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Missouri, which was formed after the Civil War (December 20, 1866) began to follow in the footsteps of its Mother Grand Lodge, Ohio, and began to expand its influence and Masonic jurisdiction outside of its State. Missouri would charter Lodges in Leavenworth and Lawrence, Kansas; Jackson, Vicksburg, Natchez and Greenville, Mississippi (the Lodge in Vicksburg was Stringer Lodge No. 22, and its Worshipful Master was Thomas W. Stringer. Bro. Stringer was the first Grand Master of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Ohio, serving from May 3, 1849 to June 1851. He was born in the year 1811 where is not sure. He was one of the early members of the True American Lodge, and after that Lodge received its warrant from the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Bro. Stringer was appointed District Deputy Grand Master of the territory west of Pittsburg and as such granted a dispensation to certain Brethren in New Orleans to open a Lodge. The Lodge, Stringer Lodge No. 3 is under the register of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Louisiana. Bro. Stringer would become also the first Grand Master of Prince Hall Masons in the State of Mississippi, serving in that position from 1875 until his death August 23, 1893. his Grand Lodge is named the Most Worshipful Stringer Grand Lodge F. & A.M. Prince Hall Affiliate); Memphis, Chattanooga, Knox-ville and Brownville, Tennessee; » Selma, Alabama;” Little Rock and Helena, Arkansas;’? Keokuk, Muscatine and Des Moines, Iowa;’” and St. Paul, Minnesota.” Missouri was also extending its Masonic intercourse and correspondence to foreign Grand Lodges such as the Grand Lodge of England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Prussia, The Three Globes at Berlin and the Grand Orient of France and Italy.’*In 1870 alone, more than two hundred letters were sent from Missouri to other Masonic bodies, Prince Hall and Caucasian, around the world.”s Dear Sir and Bro.

Some little time ago an American Citizen of African descent--Clark by name--came to this city and established a nigger lodge, under a dispensation of his own, as Gd. Master of Nig. Masons in Mo. The Lodge is called the H.R. Revels Lodge U.D., in honor of Senator Revels of this State, who claims to be a Kt. T., I am informed. This man claims that the G. Lodges of Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and several other States, have recognized the colored Masonsso called--in their jurisdictions, and as I am desired to believe, have extended to them the right hand of fellowship. This being the first intimation have received of action on the part of those bodies, and from the very questionable source from which the information comes, I am slightly inclined to believe that the man Clark has lied. I am very much afraid that the members of H.R. Revels Lodge U.D., will be too old to enjoy it when they are recognized as Masons by the G. Lodge of Mississippi, or any of its subordinates. Please give us any information as to the action of any G. Lodge on this subjeet of which you are in possession, in your department of Pomeroy’s Democrat, obliging thereby the legitimate Masons of this city. E.G. De L—Unknown to Grand Master Clark at the time, as the Masonic editor of Pomeroy’s Democrat attempted to conceal the identity of the writer, there was in fact a Worshipful Master of Harmony Lodge No. 1, located in Natchez on the register of the Caucasian Grand Lodge of Mississippi by the name of E. Geo. De Lap. In F.G. Tisdall, the Masonic Editor published his answer to De Lap’s letter of inquiry.

Answer

The man Clark is a bastard, spurious and illegitimate Mason, and has, as our correspondent was inclined to believe, lied. There does not exist, a Lodge composed of “American citizens of African descent,” in either the “United” or the “’untied” States, and the founder of this negro--so called Masonic colony, if he received any fees, Revel-ed at the expense of his fellow descendents of Ham. Neither the Grand Lodges named, nor any other Grand Lodge, has by act or deed recognized the clandestine association of negroes claiming to be Masonic organizations. The negro Clark knows that his statements are false, but no more false than his pretentions to be a Mason. He is a fraud, and a very black one at that. When will the negroes learn to tell the truth? What manner of men were those who called themselves Freemasons. How could men who had knelt at the sacred alters of Masonry, before the Volume of Sacred Laws, compose such letters? Letters so vile and disgraceful, that it defiles and shames the very nature of Freemasonry.

It has been proven time and again that Prince Hall Freemasonry’s burden has always been those who claim to be Freemasons. Those who dishonor the spotless white lambskin apron, the token of innocence and purity, the honored badge of a Mason, while like a sanctimonious parasite proclaim before the world, the tenets of Brotherly Love.

Mississippi in 1870 would also see a rise in terrorism and anarchy; as the so called Knights of the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klans, which was founded and organized by a former Lieutenant General of the Confederate Army and who would be honored by being initiated in a “regular” Masonic Lodge. “ The Klan would begin its crimes against nature, crimes that would disgrace even a nation of savages; crimes of genocide. What manner of men were these; hiding behind white sheets and hoods, attempting the extermination of an entire race; while the Grand Master of the Caucasian Grand Lodge of Mississippi would record in the proceedings of that Masonic body, “can we be surprised that members get drunk and shed blood?”

And what manner of man was Fitz Gerald Tisdall, 33°?

Submitted by RW Andre’ Clark

JAMES A HANDY LODGE OF RESEARCH

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