Modern Books and Manuscripts

Prince Hall (c.1735-1807), known as the father of Black Freemasonry in the United States, worked as a minister, abolitionist, civil rights activist, and proponent of education for black children.  Hall may have been born a slave in Barbados (however, several conflicting versions of Hall’s early life exist).  He came to Boston in 1765, and quickly became a leader within the African-American community of Boston.  In 1775, Hall and thirteen other black men were initiated into Military Lodge No. 441 in Boston, which was then affiliated with the British Army.  Following the Revolution, facing discrimination, (to be initiated into a Lodge, a Mason needs to gain a unanimous vote, but as votes are contributed anonymously, it would be impossible to identify any one dissenting individual), black Masons began urging Hall to form a separate organization.  Hall was elected the first Grand Master of the African Grand Lodge of North America, and the Lodge was later renamed in his honor.

The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University has recently given Houghton a Masonic membership certificate signed by Hall (above).  Dated June 23, 1799, the certificate initiates abolitionist Richard P.G. Wright, and is signed by George Medallion (SW), Jube Hill (JW) and William Smith (as secretary), and by Hall.  A detail of the document, showing Hall’s signature, is below.

This important document is the latest in a series of gifts from the Du Bois Institute to Houghton Library designed to strengthen Harvard’s increasingly significant research resources for African and African-American history and literature.  Past gifts to Houghton Library have included the papers of playwright Suzan-Lori Parks (*2005M-10); a beautifully illuminated 17th-century Ethiopian manuscript prayerbook; the unique first issue of Fortune’s Freeman; and numerous other rare books and recordings.  Joint purchases have included the papers of Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka; novelists Chinua Achebe and John Edgar Wideman (*1999M-1(b)); writer Albert Murray (*1998M-1), including his correspondence with Ralph Ellison; and several smaller collections (at Houghton), and the June Jordan papers and the Shirley Graham Du Bois papers (at Schlesinger Library) (Links are provided to the finding aids of processed collections).

*2008M-46.  Houghton Library, Harvard University.  Images may not be used or reproduced without permission.

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