Saturday, January 3, 2009: 9:50 AM
Gramercy Suite B (Hilton New York)
A young Kwame Nkrumah left Ghana in 1935 and arrived at Lincoln University in Lincoln, PA. The future President of Ghana came to America with the intent of learning what was necessary someday to return home to lead Africa toward independence from European colonialism and eventual unification. In the United States, in pursuit of tools for achieving these goals, he joined the Prince Hall Masons. They were/are an all-black order of Freemasons. They are named after Prince Hall. He was a black free man who was initiated into an integrated British Masonic Lodge in Boston on April 9, 1765. After the American Revolution, no white American lodge would permit black membership or recognize black masons as “brothers”. The black Masons applied for and received their own charter from the Premier Grand Lodge of England in 1784. They later took on Prince Hall’s name in his honor.
From the Revolutionary War to the Present, the membership list of the Prince Hall Masons reads like a who’s who of African American abolitionism, civil rights activism, and high achievement. Among them: Richard Allen (Founder/first Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church), Martin Delaney, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Duke Ellington, Jessie Jackson, Ossie Davis, Benjamin E. Mays, and Andrew Young.
Kwame Nkrumah in particular utilized the Masonic oaths, codes, and rituals as the basis of his conspiratorial movement against the British. Prior authors have accentuated his Marxist leanings, his so-called superstitions, and his personal psychological eccentricities to explain his behavior. When looked at through the prism of black Freemasonry, however, it becomes apparent that it had more to do with his actions than other presumed causes. The US State Department and CIA reports on Nkrumah missed this important dimension of his activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
From the Revolutionary War to the Present, the membership list of the Prince Hall Masons reads like a who’s who of African American abolitionism, civil rights activism, and high achievement. Among them: Richard Allen (Founder/first Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church), Martin Delaney, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Duke Ellington, Jessie Jackson, Ossie Davis, Benjamin E. Mays, and Andrew Young.
Kwame Nkrumah in particular utilized the Masonic oaths, codes, and rituals as the basis of his conspiratorial movement against the British. Prior authors have accentuated his Marxist leanings, his so-called superstitions, and his personal psychological eccentricities to explain his behavior. When looked at through the prism of black Freemasonry, however, it becomes apparent that it had more to do with his actions than other presumed causes. The US State Department and CIA reports on Nkrumah missed this important dimension of his activism in the 1950s and 1960s.