154 Culture, Identity, and Community: From Slavery to the PresentBlack fraternal societies diff ered from white ones in
some respects. Th e importance of religion and of women
in the African American community help explain why,
in contrast with white organizations, black fraternal societies
often bore biblical names and frequently accepted men
and women as members in the same lodges. Th e Galilean
Fishermen (founded 1856) is an example of the former, the
American Woodmen (founded 1901) of the latter.
Th e poverty of blacks encouraged their fraternal soci-
eties to emphasize mutual insurance, at fi rst burial policies
and later life insurance to support survivors. For instance,
a few years before World War I, 37 fraternal societies
in Virginia carried insurance policies with a face value of
$4,500,000.
As an exception to the general rule of racial separation,
a few partially integrated fraternal temperance societies
existed in the 19th century. Typically they combined seg-
regated local lodges with multiracial state grand lodges or
national organizations. Th e novelist William Wells Brown
waged an unsuccessful fi ght for racial equality fi rst in the
Sons of Temperance and later in the Good Templar frater-
nal order. Th e Independent Order of Good Samaritans and
Daughters of Samaria began in 1847 as a largely white or-
ganization that admitted a few blacks. Aft er emancipation,
blacks became more numerous than whites, and the whites
departed, making the Good Samaritans a black fraternal
society.
Th e largest black fraternal societies bore names similar
to that of white organizations: the Masons, the Odd Fel-
lows, the Knights of Pythias, and the Elks. Of these parallel
orders, the Prince Hall Masons were by far the oldest. In
1775, a Masonic lodge attached to a British regiment sta-
tioned at Boston initiated a group of African Americans
whose West Indian leader was named Prince Hall. In 1784,
the Grand Lodge of England issued the black Masons in
Massachusetts an offi cial charter, and they organized their
fi rst lodge in 1787. At fi rst, the Prince Hall Masons could
recruit only among the small number of free blacks in the
Northern states. Aft er the Civil War, they spread to the
Southern states where most African Americans lived. By
that time, no overall Prince Hall organization existed, so
each state grand lodge was independent. Not the largest of
the black fraternal societies, the Prince Hall Masons were
nevertheless the most prestigious, with many middle-class
members, including the fi rst African American elected to
the U.S. Senate and the fi rst to serve on the U.S. Supremeof them affi liated with more than a single fraternal order.
Deprived of opportunities for civic participation and oft en
coping with degrading poverty, black men and women
learned racial pride in their lodges, and their families could
look there for material assistance at times of crisis. Despite
their rhetoric about brotherhood, fraternal societies, both
black and white, were notorious for quarrels, schisms, and
“big men” who ruled autocratically.
Racial discrimination imposed by whites forced Af-
rican Americans to organize their own segregated lodges.
Aft er the Civil War, innumerable black fraternal societies
sprang up, many of them brief-lived local organizations.
Fraternal societies enjoyed broad popularity in both South-
ern and Northern states. When they migrated to the North,
Southern blacks sometimes brought their distinctive lodges
with them. A great variety of lodges existed: rural lodges,
urban lodges, for men only, for women only, for men and
women meeting together, and for children. Although the
African American elite preferred their own exclusive clubs,
the lodges were cross-class organizations in which laborers,
domestics, skilled workers, shopkeepers, and professionals
called each other brother or sister. For instance, preachers
and business entrepreneurs from Birmingham provided
the leadership for lodges of Alabama coal miners.
Black lodges typically were smaller than their white
counterparts. Th is made them fi nancially less stable, but
it also provided greater opportunity for election to offi ce.
Where else could African Americans aspire to election to
numerous offi ces dignifi ed by impressive titles? Deprived
of political rights, blacks acquired leadership skills; they
learned how to preside at meetings, keep minutes and fi nan-
cial accounts, and manage the activities of their societies.
Fraternal societies oft en published their own newspapers
and owned meeting halls. A few also operated retail stores,
hotels or boarding houses, and farms and also established
hospitals and old age homes.
Lodges’ elaborate secret rituals contrasted with the
simplicity of Baptist and Methodist liturgies. Ritual domi-
nated lodge meetings, particularly for initiation ceremo-
nies. Oft en they told the story of a moral pilgrimage. Th e
fraternal societies that borrowed least from white organiza-
tions emphasized personal equality and collective service.
Colorful fraternal society parades, with marchers wearing
regalia or other ceremonial dress and waving lodge ban-
ners, and fraternal society funeral processions were a con-
spicuous part of black community life.