Arguments against recognizing PHA Masonry-FREEBORN

1. Freeborn
This argument says that since Black men are descended from slaves, they cannot fulfill the requirement that a petitioner be 'freeborn.'

Please press "Post Reply" to respond to this argument.


S&F

It doesn't matter that they possibly descend from slaves, it ask if they are freeborn which they are. They have and deserve the same rights that everyone has.

Indentured servants / apprentice tradesmen back in the day were not "freemen" and a great many of us are descended from this class.

Therefore, IMO, the descended from slaves arguement is not valid, however convenient it may be to some.

masonic exclusive territorial jurisdiction....... I believe this is more of an issue than any thing else.....

...Would you be interested in opening this as a separate thread?
I was going to wait a week or so before opening this one!

S&F

Not yet....let's not get to many irons in the fire....we can come back to this

we are all descended from slaves. every tribe in the ancient world practiced some form of slavery.

but some of us "look the part" more than others.

NOT ALL BLACK AMERICAN MEN ARE DESCENDED FROM SLAVES. say it with me now.

so judging a man as such simply due to the color of his skin is simply inaccurate. No black man born in America today has EVER been a slave... and there's probably like ONE STILL ALIVE whose parents were slaves. The rule excludes those not freeborn because the master of a slave could come and take him away at any time... (EDIT: the rule is probably operative in nature... a slave couldn't travel) This has not been an issue for ANY black man in America for quite some time... Every black man that you have EVER met was freeborn.

ok, now.... just a reminder, but before there were African slaves in the Americas, there were slaves of pretty much every ethnicity. many families would sell their child as a slave to take care of a debt.

so if you're not going to admit a black man because of the *possibility* that he is descended from slaves, you can't admit any Irish looking guys either... There were plenty of Irish slaves in the days before the African slave trade.

but it all boils down to this:
Masons believe that it is the character and not the clothes that make the man. We are only clothed in these bodies for a short time.

This is what I was trying to say.

Bro. Bob Franks, As a newcomer, I want to make sure I understand the protocol used in your forums.

Are you simply listing various objections that some people use to explain why PHA should not be recognized? Or does this position regarding the slave-ancestry of some blacks reflect your view of the situation?

George Brooks
Star Lodge, #78
Largo, Florida

I'm proud that the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts chartered African Lodge 459 which eventually led to the formation of PHA Lodges. Anyone foolish enough to believe that any black man in this country is not "Freeborn" has a lot to learn.

Why I am posting these 'anti' arguments.

I am totally, absolutely, completely _for_ Recognizing Prince Hall Affiliate Masonry as regular in every jurisdiction.
When I visited another (non-Recognizing) jurisdiction last week, I heard the old tired "not Freeborn" argument voiced by a young Mason who didn't know how to argue against it to the established Mason who told it to him.
I want to get all these hypocrisy arguments out into the open and show how to dispose of them.

I will be posting more of the arguments as time goes along.

If you disagree with Recognition of PHA Masons, please post your reason and we can discuss it's validity. I cannot say I have ever been taught anything in the Lodge that justifies this separation.

S&F

Argument against the not "Freeborn" myth, Part I

(I wanted to wait until a few other Brothers had a chance to voice their opinions before I put in mine.)

If Black men are excluded from Masonry because they are descended from slaves, would you (our Brother against PHA recognition) welcome Barack Hussein Obama to petition your Lodge? His father was not African-American, but born African, in the country of Kenya, so his ancestors were not brought here in the slave trade and held as chattel slaves. (His mother was of European ancestry.)
Would you welcome him, were he to be a Freemason?

S&F

Argument against the not "Freeborn" myth, Part II

If we cannot accept anyone who is descended from slaves, then you would disavow MWB Berl Kahn, from my Lodge, who was Grand Master of Masons in North Carolina in 1973, and was Jewish.

Passover seder: "...and we eat the bitter herbs to remind us of the bitterness, when we were slaves in Egypt..."


S&F

Argument against the not "Freeborn" myth, Part III

Are you from European ancestry?
Are you descended from Royalty or Nobility; were your people Kings, Dukes, Earls, or Lords?
If not, during the middle ages in Europe, they were serfs, owned with the land and most certainly NOT freeborn. They had no more control over their work and movements than prison inmates.
Is your ancestry Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, or other eastern European group? Slavic comes from the same word base as slave, they were called that by the Romans and others because so often they were enslaved by conquerors.

If you were not descended from Nobility or Royalty, will you demit from Masonry as not freeborn?

S&F

The origin of this nonsense is a widely reprinted glossary of Masonic terms that wound up in Monitor books all over the country, which defined "freeborn" as being derived from an old Roman concept meaning 'not descended from slaves.' The Roman term did NOT mean not 'descended' from slaves. It meant "free born," as in "not born a slave." The term was contrasted to a "freedman," meaning a former slave who was manumitted.

The use in Masonic publications was bogus when it first appeared as a not so subtle excuse for barring blacks from membership, and it has been peddled as factual ever since.

I do not know if it still appears in any Masonic monitor in the US today, but I can say it was in the Indiana Monitor until the mid-1970s—in spite of a rule passed in the 1870s that specifically stated that it was not unlawful for a black man to be made a Mason in Indiana.

Thank you Bro. Hodapp ......sometimes the original meaning of a word gets lost over years and people take it to mean something different....

Curious....For those jurisdictions that do not recognize PHA, would they use the same justification for denying the petition of an African American man to a "regular" or "recognized" lodge?