All Men Free and Brethren: Essays on the History of African American Freemasonry Edited by Peter P. Hinks and Stephen Kantrowitz (review)

Recent scholarship on African American history has moved from a focus on geographic communities and the struggle for abolition, to newer studies like All Men Free and Brethren, which describe tensions within the various African Americans communities and emphasize the importance of black institutions in the struggle for racial equality. One important theme of this essay collection is the Masons’ demand for racial equality and their desire for recognition of universal brotherhood by white Masons.

The co-editors and contributors to this collection have all previously worked on African Masonry, but this book benefits from the focused nature of the essays. When other scholars discuss Masonry they usually gloss over it in the rush to recount the creation of separate churches by free African Americans. While those churches have long been understood as important and worthy institutions, only recently has Masonry been studied as one of the few national non-denominational groups and an important source of insight into class tensions within the African American communities. Most, if not all, of the essays grapple with this question by acknowledging that Masons saw themselves as elite but believed that they also spoke for their community.

Where many of the essays fall short is in placing the African Masons within that larger community. They have an almost exclusively biographical approach by focusing on leading Masons and their texts. This biographical approach is not necessarily a failing. Many scholars, noting the paucity of records for the vast majority of African Americans, have turned to a personal focus in order to illuminate larger movements and themes. Still, in a movement long labeled as exclusive and elitist, not even addressing the focus on individual leaders is problematic. One of the essays to successfully confront that task is Julie Winch’s examination of the leading Philadelphia Masons, the other members of that lodge, and their place in the surrounding community.

It is also to their credit that the essays examine African Masonry from a variety of angles and timelines. Beginning with the founding by Prince Hall in Boston in 1775, an event recounted several times in the book, Masonry is examined in North and South up to the 1920s. There are also examinations of its influence on rhetoric, religion, and gender. The book successfully serves two masters by showcasing new directions in the scholarship while also including a detailed chronology, definition of Masonic terms, and extensive endnotes. The appendices reprint important primary documents and list the available archives for Masonic sources. Despite this extensive supplemental material, a few illustrations or images would not have gone amiss.

Essay collections are inherently difficult. This one manages to provide both a useful primer on African Masonry while also showcasing excellent recent scholarship. No one can argue any longer that Masonry was unimportant to the movements for abolition and equality or complain that sources on African Masonry are hard to find. That the book also highlights new scholarly directions in religion, gender, and racial identity only adds to its merits.