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June, 1976 - New National BLACK MONITOR
In Part 1, we came to the point
where the key to Prince Hall’s quest
for the gaining, or recovery, of all that
was due for blacks was seen in Hall's
emphasis upon blacks organizing for
common purposes.
Organizing Through
Religion
Prince Hall first followed religion
-the major historical path for com
munity among most ethnic and
national groups. He became an or
dained minister and preached
organization as something precious to
be both believed and lived. We note
here simply that, in the Old
Testament, religion is politics and
politics is religion, it remains so today
in the developed or inherited Hebrew
tradition. It theoretically should
remain so for blacks, to the extent that
the “tried and true” group ex
periences of others may be seen as ap
plicable for the attainment of black
liberation.
Organizing Through First
Black Masonic Group
This able apostle of “the securing
of all that is due” for blacks is best
known, in his organizing endeavors,
for his founding the first organization
of, by and for blacks in America out
side the Christian Church. He formed
the first black Masonic group and is
the official founder of one of
America’s greatest fraternal group,
the Prince Hall Masonic Order. The
founding of this substantial order and
its continuing influence upon black
unity and advancement comprise a
separate story. But that this was a
major turning point in the history of
black Americans is a fact of which all
black Americans should be pridefully
aware.
“Modern” Civil Rights
Tactics Used By
Prince Hall
We spoke of organization as the
sixth method or tactic for the securing
of black freedom from oppression and
Prince Hall: Early Apostle
Os Black Equity
Part II of a Two-Part Article)
restitution of wrongs employed by
Prince Hall.
He also (7) advocated and resorted
to subtle threat and direct pressure,
as when the British Army’s Lord Dun
mors began accepting enslaved blacks
into his army and providing them with
immediate emancipation. News of
this was taken promptly to General
George Washington who rescinded,
unhesitatingly, old orders barring
blacks from military service.
(8) Pamphleteering proved to be an
effective weapon used by Prince hall,
as the streets and desks of men and
women of influence were filled with
literature touching the Puritan con
science wherever it could ... and often
with great success. The sense of white
guilt (combined with fear) is said to
be a residual trait which is often
overlooked or scorned by blacks
seeking freedom today. But Prince
Hall, in his revolutionary zeal, was a
devotee of “all means necessary”
philosophy.
While not directly involved, he en
couraged and defended (9) the refusal
by blacks to be taxed without being
represented or without being free, he
led in the gathering (10) of a petition
for equal education for blacks in
Boston and sent out a call (11) for non
cooperation with enslavement and
which is said to have been directly
responsible for an outlawing of slave
trade in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.
Blacks, so Prince Hall maintained,
should be freed for their military ser
vice for liberty for whites; and his (12)
demands in this regard bore fruit with
the adoption of this procedure by the
American military authorities. Hall
(13) supported physical and armed
resistance, believing that force for
right was morally right in the fighting
of force for evil.
Especially instructive for black
Americans today was Hall’s (14) use
of financial independence as a weapon
for black freedom. Hall was a small
businessman, manufacturing and
selling soap. He encouraged the
development entrepreneur tradition
among blacks. But this was propor
tionately more widespread among
blacks in the Revolutionary Era that
it is among blacks today.
Finally, as with practically every
major leader in ouiqu estfor our proper
place and due rewards within
American life he (15) preached and
practiced to the fullest extent he could
human oneness and concord.
Prince Hall’s Legacy
To Black America
As we look back, during this Bi-
Centennial year of white American
emancipation from European op
pression, one cannot escape being im
pressed at the breath and depth insight
of this great man. Prince Hall’s
remarkably brilliant mind, his im
mense sensitivities and earnest hopes
for his people - and for the good of
his entire adopted nation - led to his
utilization of the most wodely diverse
array of weaponry perhaps yet assem
bled for what he believed to be simple
justice and elementary right.
Educational Future of Black
Americans cont. from page 11
2. Frank Bowles and Frank A. DeCasta, get;
ween Two Worlds. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1971. p. 21.
3. Bowles and DeCasta, op.cit., p. 32.
4. Charles S. Johnson. The Negro College
Graduate Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1938. p. 105.
5. Miles Fisher IV. “National Association For
Equal Opportunity In Higher Education:
Crusaders For The Black College." Civil Rights
Digest 3: 12-17; Spring 1970.
6. Reginald Stuart. “The Dilemma Os A Dual
System.” New South 26: 41; Winter 1971.
7. The Carnegie Commission On Higher
Education. From Isolation To Mainstream. New
York: McGraw-Hid, February 1971.
Start LnxfenAv and American Goals continued from page S.
Core’s first significant move toward
national prominance came with its
sponsorship of its first Freedom Ride,
then called the Journey of Recon
ciliation, in 1947. The tour extended
through five states of the upper South
testing and implementin gthe then
recent Irene Morgan Decision
outlawing segregation in public in
terstate travel. CORE’S membership
at that time was largely white; and its
program of nonviolent direct action
became a model for increased and ef
fective efforts at the I lowering of
barriers to blacks in all forms of em
ployment. CORE’S greatest con
tribution in a growing atmosphere of
interraciality undoubtedly was its
promotion of a growing sense of ad
venture, coupled with apparent suc
cess with regard to efforts in the field
of civil rights.
Growing “Integration”
Enthusiasm
This spirit of adventure caught hold
in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus
boycotts, in the southern student
lunch-counter desegregation efforts,
and in the massive drive in the 1960 s
for the creation and implementation of
opportunities for blacks in northern
and southern voter registration,
housing, employment and educational
desegregation.
The outcome of the 1954 Supreme
Court Brown vs. Board of Education
school desegregation case added to the
idealism and enthusiasm of the
integration-minded endeavors of the
times. Indeed the decision gave legal
sanction to the growing conviction that
integration must be a national ideal.
In lin ewith this same spirit, churches
and civic groups worked i conscious
and unconscious ways to check and
thwart the development of black
solidarity. White church
denominations made bold their plans
to build no more churches in black
areas, as only interraciality was seen
to be consistent with the churches’
missionary enterprise. Blacks in large
numbers left black churches, as the
prestige of specifically black in
stitution sdrastically declined. Black
business endeavors tended to be
discouraged, as only integrated in
stitutions were to be encouraged in the
days ahead. Debate came to center
around the future role of black
colleges, since it seemed abudently
clear that the long-expected day of
equity and opportunity for the black
American had come at last.
The 19605: Racial v
“Progress” And
Growing Unrest
Meanwhile, there were growing
signs that all was not well, that things
Continued on page 14