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3 “Badge of a man” Gender and Fraternity in North Carolina’s Black Secret Society At the appointed hour, Robert McRary ordered his grand marshal to assume command of the street parade. The dignified procession wearing Masonic regalia wound its way through Raleigh’s principal streets, ending the public ritual at St.Paul’s A.M.E.church.There,grand orator J.E.Dellinger shared with his audience an issue that was typically discussed only in private—what the nature and characteristics of a good Mason were. Proclaiming that “the craft” had a “definite place in human history” and had influenced“the current of history for good in a very decided manner,” he lauded the Prince Hall Masons because their order was based on the “science of human brotherhood, and the philosophy of human kindness.”1 “The craft,” a colloquialism for freemasonry, is a ritualistic order that emphasizes the noble principles of charity,brotherhood,and love for all members . Working to“make the burdens of men and women lighter,” Masonic men strengthened the black race by erecting and bolstering community institutions and by aiding the indigent. Masonry’s mandate also extended to the household. Dellinger stressed the duty of masons to safeguard and nurture the home and its inhabitants, maintaining that“ours is an institution for the making and the keeping of the home, and home life. . . . The home, we take it, is first of all for the children and for the benefit of the children. And that man is less than a man, out of which you can not make a decent mason, who does not feel and take a kindly interest in children.” He added,“everything that can be done must be done to give the child life of to-day every opportunity to be able to make the most of that manhood life, and womanhood life that must come to them to-morrow.”2 Other characteristics Dellinger cited as uniting “all good men in the bonds of fraternal unity” included tolerance and patience. A good Mason avoided confrontations and quarrelsome behavior.“He would avoid strife, Gender and Fraternity in North Carolina’s Black Secret Society 105 as if it were an infection,” Dellinger stated, adding, “the good mason is ready to ‘give in’ rather than continue a useless wrangle.” Good Masons also refrained from political partisanship.The“good man and mason is not moved by any consideration of partisan politics,or any question of sectarianism or schisms of doctrine or dogmas of faith,” according to Dellinger. Finally, good Masons knew how“to labor and to wait.” Dellinger asserted that despite pervasive racial discrimination that was“obnoxious to any mason ’s sense of fairness and justice,” a man with a grievance and a“grouchy scold” did more harm than good. Duty to oneself, one’s family, one’s fellow man, and one’s country were paramount obligations. As he explained, To be called into court,and tried and punished,without judicial representation therein is trying and exasperating in the extreme. To be required to support a government by taxation wherein any representation is denied us,would tend toward desperation,but the good mason is admonished by patience, that political conditions some times move backward, and that social revolutions move most slowly, and that the best way to better living conditions is to live best under the conditions that obtain.3 Within the private spaces of North Carolina’s black secret societies, black men engaged in the task of constructing manhood.Not unlike white male fraternities, black Masonic groups emphasized benevolence, mutual aid, and adherence to a strict moral code.4 Within the contexts of disfranchisement and Jim Crow,however,the participation of southern black men in freemasonry took on added and significant meaning. Fraternal societies such as North Carolina’s Prince Hall Masons were safe sites where men temporarily eluded the indignities of racism by participating in communal activities and self-affirming rituals that satisfied racial goals. Prince Hall Masons also worked to craft a respectable, virile, and chivalric male image. The minutes of lodge meetings reveal the importance of gender and how conceptions of gender were reshaped over time to craft uplifting images of black manhood and black womanhood.Fraternal work thus reinforced the capacity of black men to mold new racial and gender identities that were not distorted by the indignities of Jim Crow. Historically, the black fraternal order has rivaled the black church as a benefit society and a social, recreational, and economic institution. Luminaries...

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