Prince Hall Masons Worldwide Celebrate Its 250th Birthday!
2025 is The Year of the “Square”
… “Now therefore be it proclaimed we the members of the Atlanta City Council do hereby recognize the Prince Hall Free Masonry and celebrate its 250 years endearing legacy and continued contributions to our society. On this day (May 19, 1925) we proclaim it as Prince Hall Freemasonry Day in our fair city in witness thereof I have set my hand and caused the seal of Atlanta to be affixed” ….
There is very little doubt that similar words and proclamation signings like that from Atlanta Councilmember Michael J. Bond, himself a devoted lodge member (St. James #4 – Atlanta) occurred among the 300,000 Masonic brethren nationally making up 5,000 lodges and 47 grand lodges.
Observing 250 years of Prince Hall Masonry also provided opportunities here in Georgia, the nation and many parts of the world to focus attention and praise on its founder Prince Hall.
Impressed with info he obtained about freemasonry, in 1775 the 37-year-old former slave-turned free man accompanied by 14 other “brothers” petitioned for admission to Masonic membership thru the all-white St. John’s Lodge of Boston, Massachusetts (the oldest lodge of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, founded in 1733).
They were rejected.
Hall and his Black associates refused to give up. They applied for and were accepted into masonry through a grand lodge in Ireland on March 6,1775 which was ironically attached to British forces stationed in Boston. Hall and the emboldened brethren then founded African Lodge #1 with Hall named its first Grand Master. That creation is credited with creating those first steps which led to the formal launching of Prince Hall masonry as it’s known today.
Prince Hall passed away in December of 1807, at age 72, but it did afford him an opportunity to watch his fledgling movement implement the Masonic virtues promoting liberty, equality and peaceful ideals. Had he lived longer, Hall would have been further delighted to see Prince Hall Masonry spread quickly and especially behind cities behind the so-called “cotton curtain” of the deep south like Savannah and Augusta, Georgia.
“Masonry starts in the heart, not the head,” said Primus James, 19th Worshipful Grand Master of Georgia Prince Hall Masons and its 27,551 members (as of 2023).
“Grand” James should know. The native of Kingstree, South Carolina joined the Masonry after moving to Atlanta in the early 1980s and attached himself to the city’s W.C. Thomas Lodge.
By 2022, “Brother” James had become Grand Master.
“We like to take what we call a good man and make him a better man,” he said in addressing the hundreds who attended Atlanta’s proclamation ceremony May 19th at Atlanta City Hall. “We can take that man and bring him along to give him the knowledge and understanding of what it is to be out in this world. I think that makes him a good Mason and a good man.”
“This moment means a lot to me, the people of our city and generations of men whose lives have been shaped by this fraternity,” notes Mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta’s 61st mayor and Mason. “This order was founded at a time in this nation when most African-Americans were enslaved, denied basic freedoms and had few opportunities for advancement. As a freemason, I can attest to how these principals have shaped my life.”
