Black Freemasonry: From Prince Hall to the Giants of Jazz
By Cécile Révauger
Cécile Révauger traces the history of black Freemasonry from the late 1700s through the 1960s. Black lodges were instrumental in helping American blacks transcend the horrors of slavery and prejudice, achieve higher social status, and create their own spiritually-based social structure, which in some cities arose prior to the establishment of black churches.
Pages : 320
Book Size : 6.00 x 9.00
ISBN-13 : 9781620554876
Imprint : Inner Traditions
Release Date : January 02, 2016
Format : Hardcover Book & Kindle
Illustrations : 29 b&w photographs
The history of black Freemasonry from Boston and Philadelphia in the late 1700s through the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement
• Examines the letters of Prince Hall, legendary founder of the first black lodge
• Reveals how many of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century were also Masons, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Nat King Cole
• Explores the origins of the Civil Rights Movement within black Freemasonry and the roles played by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois
When the first Masonic lodges opened in Paris in the early 18th century their membership included traders, merchants, musketeers, clergymen, and women--both white and black. This was not the case in the United States where black Freemasons were not eligible for membership in existing lodges. For this reason the first official charter for an exclusively black lodge--the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts--was granted by the Grand Lodge of England rather than any American chapter.
Through privileged access to archives kept by Grand Lodges, Masonic libraries, and museums in both the United States and Europe, respected Freemasonry historian Cécile Révauger traces the history of black Freemasonry from Boston and Philadelphia in the late 1700s through the Abolition Movement and the Civil War to the genesis of the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1900s up through the 1960s. She opens with a look at Prince Hall, legendary founder and the chosen namesake when black American lodges changed from “African Lodges” to “Prince Hall Lodges” in the early 1800s. She reveals how the Masonic principles of mutual aid and charity were more heavily emphasized in the black lodges and especially during the reconstruction period following the Civil War. She explores the origins of the Civil Rights Movement within black Freemasonry and the roles played by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, founder of the NAACP, among others.
Looking at the deep connections between jazz and Freemasonry, the author reveals how many of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century were also Masons, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Eubie Blake, Cab Calloway, and Paul Robeson. Unveiling the deeply social role at the heart of black Freemasonry, Révauger shows how the black lodges were instrumental in helping American blacks transcend the horrors of slavery and prejudice, achieve higher social status, and create their own solid spiritually based social structure, which in some cities arose prior to the establishment of black churches. http://www.innertraditions.com/black-freemasonry.html
Once upon a time, back in the 1920s, there was a boy in Birmingham, Alabama who was an honor student at the local high school. He was an avid reader, and something of a loner. He was possessed of a vivd imagination and he fed that by learning all he could. It is said that he reading everything in the library at the local Prince Hall Lodge, including their collection of books on esoteric concepts and Freemasonry.
That boy was named Herman Poole Blount. He would eventually change his name to Sony'r Ra, and a variant of that name, Ra Le Sony'r appears on the city records as the owner of his home of many decades at 5626 Morton Street, in Philadelphia's historic Germantown neighborhood. That neighborhood was famous as the home of an early pietist sect of Germans, led by Johannes Kelpius, whom AMORC tries to claim were Rosicrucians. Kelpius suffered, perhaps more after his death than during his life, from being misunderstood and underestimated. Perhaps it is a neighborhood curse, because that can certainly be said of Herman Poole Blount, as well. Although he became famous world-wide under the name of Sun-Ra, while leading his jazz group The Arkestra, he remains today, 21 years after his departure from this plane of existence, far too underappreciated, whether for his remarkable contribution to avant-guarde Jazz, or to 20th Century Esoteric thought.
The Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians has this to say of Sun-Ra:
"The greatest of all jazz eccentrics, Sun Ra inspires both fascination and controversy. The bandleader's singular, cosmic vision led him to transcend hardship, derision, and obscurity. An unparalleled performer, he led an expansive yet coherent band of as many as thirty players over four decades, and his vast recorded legacy refutes those who deny his talent. Primarily known as the creator of the "Arkestra," his polymorphic big band, Ra could also be comfortably described as a composer, performer, poet, philosopher, and visionary.
Born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Alabama on May 22, 1914, he legally changed his name to Sony'r Ra in October of 1952. After this date, when questioned about his early life, he insisted he was a visitor from the planet Saturn, and only gave vague indications of his past experiences.
Little Herman began playing piano early in life, and could sight-read and compose by age 11. Birmingham hosted many of the era's most famous performers, and the boy experienced the live sounds of, among others, the bands of Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller. The young prodigy was said to be able to produce full transcriptions, from memory, of big band performances he had witnessed and was working as a semi-professional pianist by his mid-teens.(web http://www.jazz.com/encyclopedia/ra-sun-herman. 7/4/2014)
Thom Holms notes in his book, American Popular Music: JAZZ, that "Sun Ra was a great bandleader, able to manage a wide range of sounds and players into an absorbing and unique jazz experience. He should be discussed in the same light as equally provocative and accomplished avant-garde jazz legends John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, and Ornette Coleman, but he is more often neglected than taken seriously. There are more than 100 recordings of Sun Ra’s music…most produced on his tiny Saturn label, and most not available on compact disc." (2006: 190)
Sun Ra leaned to read music without any training. He did however, acquire more formal music training. In high school, he was a member of several bands and also led his own bands. Some of these bands went on tours, and performed in areas such as Chicago, the East Coast, and the South. He attended Alabama A & M, a black college, where he majored in music education and teacher's training. In the late 1930s he spent time in Indiana and Washington D. C. At the end of the 1930s, he moved to Chicago, where he began his professional career and which was his base of operations for a long period of time. While his music was phenomenal, and he attracted some excellent musicians who were also fascinating individuals and excellent conversationalists, it is his perhaps eccentric esoteric thought that interests us today.
In The Cosmic-myth Equations of Sun Ra: An Examination of the Unity of Music and Philosophy of an American Creative Improvising Musician (UCLA 1991), David A. Martinelli states that Sun Ra has his own term for what could be called his ethos, world-view, ideology, or philosophy. This term is "equations". Sun Ra has made it clear that he is not dealing with philosophy. He has said "People ask me about my philosophy all the time, but it's not a philosophy, it's an equation". When asked "Has this sort of philosophy been with you ever since the beginning, ever since the (Fletcher) Henderson band?", Sun Ra responded "Philosophy is conjecture. I'm dealing with equations. That's different from philosophy. Philosophy is something like religion, it's a theory. It could be true or not true. But I'm not dealing with theories, I'm dealing with equations".
Martinelli also indicates that further sources that shed light on Sun Ra's beliefs include Christianity, and Freemasonry and Freemasonry, Ancient Egypt, and Carl Jung's "Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky."
Sun-Ra's " idea of equations is perhaps best described in his poem "A Blueprint/Declaration":
One part of an equation
Is a blueprint/declaration of the other part
Similar
Yet differentially not. . .
It is nothing
If it is all
Still there are different alls
The end is all
But all is everything
Yet if everything is all/the end
It denies the other side of the end
For some ends
Have many points leading to their respective selves
And there are/is each/their many points
Leading out from their
Respective selves
(Sun Ra 1985).
Sun Ra viewed himself as existing apart from humanity. Sun Ra felt that he was limited byhumanity Earth, that he was not free. He said, "I see myself as P-H-R-E but not F-R-E-E. That's the name of the sun in ancient Egypt. I'm not really a person at all" and "Some people are controlled by forces on other planets. I am, so I'm not really free"
Sun Ra's philosophical ideas or equations are difficult for some to take seriously. Those who separate the equations from the music are missing a great deal. Sun Ra's ideas on duality, the pyramids, the Sphinx, the sun, Ufos, the planet Saturn, and the number nine, symbolize the potential unity of humanity, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
While some may not wish to see a connection between Sun-Ra and Freemasonry, however tenuously you may view it, much of his initial inspirations he owed to that Prince Hall Lodge library back in Birmingham. Whatever you may think of his philosophy, and his music, he had a powerful message, and one which is some fundamental ways, reflects some of the more profound messages found in Freemasonry. If this has sparked your curiosity about the man, his philosophy, or his music, watch the video below. You will at least find it interesting.
The romantic and metaphysical images of Egypt have for a long time been invoked by Freemasonry and by Western Culture in general. Every century since at least the 1600s has seen at least one wave of interest in Egypt with often significant impact upon architecture, visual arts, literature, and music. Quite often, this has also had an impact on the spiritual arts, and even on social discourse. One example of the latter is a fascinating book written by Scott Trafton, entitled Egypt Land: Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania. It is noted that "drawing on literary and cultural studies, art and architectural history, political history, religious history, and the histories of archaeology and ethnology, Trafton illuminates anxieties related to race in different manifestations of nineteenth-century American Egyptomania, including the development of American Egyptology, the rise of racialized science, the narrative and literary tradition of the imperialist adventure tale, the cultural politics of the architectural Egyptian Revival, and the dynamics of African American Ethiopianism. He demonstrates how debates over what the United States was and what it could become returned again and again to ancient Egypt. From visions of Cleopatra to the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, from the works of Pauline Hopkins to the construction of the Washington Monument, from the measuring of slaves’ skulls to the singing of slave spirituals—claims about and representations of ancient Egypt served as linchpins for discussions about nineteenth-century American racial and national identity." A quite different perspective is offered by Keith Moore, in Freemasonry, Greek Philosophy, The Prince Hall Fraternity and the Egyptian (African) World Connection. While some views expressed in this title may be controversial, it also attempts to address the issues of the universe of African-American Masonic organizations from the early 18th century to the 20th century ranging from the origins of Prince Hall Freemasonry to Black Nationalism and esoteric religious sects like the Moorish Science Temple of America, the UNIA and several other offshoots. This subject deserves a lot more attention, and from a variety of academic perspectives. Of course, it is reasonable to ask how Freeasmonry, The Memphis Misraim Rite, and Prince Hall Freemasonry reflected this discourse. Now, there's a research topic for someone. In other areas, the interest in Egyptian metaphysics remains alive and well, as demonstrated by modern energetic healing systems based upon ancient Egyptian religion, such asSekhem Heka. Sekhem Heka, a Reiki/Skhm energy system created by Storm Constantine, was inspired by an Order founded in Ireland by Lady Olivia Robertson and her brother Lawrence Durdin-Robertson. The FOI was founded at Huntingdon Castle (Clonegal) in 1976. I first became aware of them while living in Ireland and visited them at Clonegal Castle numerous times between 1982 and 1985. The FOI is estimated to have over 24,000 members worldwide.
The French author, Freemason, and very amiable scholar, Gérard Galtier, has written a number of works on related topics. I think probably his best on this topic isLa Maçonnerie Égyptienne: Rose Crois et Néo-Chevalerie. In this book, Galtier covers the history of Memphis-Mizraim, the FUDOSI, Rosicrucian and Martinist movements, making this is a key book on the topic. Historically seriously which is rare in this area. Along with Roger Dachez and Serge Caillet, Gérard Galtier is one of the key authors of the three Rites of Memphis and Mizraim. This last item points to the fact that while North American Freemasons largely surround themselves with dusty tomes dating back to before the age of automobiles and airplanes, those in the French and Spanish speaking world are blessed with an embarrassment of riches.
Today I was alerted to the continuing struggles of Bro. Harry Weaver, the Worshipful Master of Redeemer Lodge #53, MWPHGL of Michigan. You may recall the news a while back of the Worshipful Master of a Detroit Masonic Lodge who was shot outside his Lodge, the victim of an attempted robbery. He survived his ordeal and now is in need of some serious fraternal assistance. If anyone deserves help, it is this dedicated brother.
The following is an appeal sent out by PM Aubrey Brown Sr, MWPHGL of IL:
I have been close to this brother essentially since he became a Mason. I've watched him mature from a neophyte to an outstanding Masonic leader. I publicly plead that as we go into the festive holiday season, we recall our dogma and obligations as one of our own is fighting a battle that will last the rest of his life. Remember his only action was being a devoted Worshipful Master leaving his lodge meeting. This could easily have happened to any of us. Please donate to the extent of your cabletow and help get this info as far and wide as possible. Consider this a cyber "GHS". He is Bro. Harry Weaver, the Worshipful Master of Redeemer Lodge #53, MWPHGL of Michigan. He and one of his lodge members, Bro. Ed Reed, were shot during an attempted robbery in front of the Masonic temple after a lodge meeting. He is now paralyzed from the waist down. He needs a wheelchair accessible van, renovations in his home to make it wheelchair accessible, and most importantly he has a wife who is expecting their second child.
Donations can be sent to:
The Bank of Birmingham,
Attention: Harry Weaver Independence Fund,
33583 Woodward Ave., Birmingham, MI 48009
or:
c/o ADL office
25800 Northwestern Highway,
Suite 980,
Southfield, MI 48075.
Weaver has taught countless students a lesson of non-violence as education director for the Anti-Defamation League running a project called "No Place for Hate".
Despite a spinal cord injury and challenging odds, he plans to walk again. His wife, Dawn, is pregnant with their second child and the family needs help. They'll need a wheelchair accessible van and renovations at home. Several funds have been set up to help this man, who has made our community and the world a better place.
Many thanks to my friend Bro. Tom Thornton Cincinatti 3, Madison 93,Lore 1786, NJ.
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