African American Masons and family tradition
William Clement describes his activities as a Mason from the early 1940s up until the time of the interview in 1989, at which point he had become Grand Master over the jurisdiction of North Carolina. William talks about involvement with the Masons as a family tradition and he explains the broader historical context of the fraternal order. Towards the end of his discussion of the Masons, William notes that he thinks it is important for the historical record to record the activities of the African American branch of the organization, which few people were aware of despite its rich history.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with William and Josephine Clement, June 19, 1986. Interview C-0031. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
-
Oh, I forgot about the Masons, gosh, I forgot that.
- WALTER WEARE:
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We have a family tradition there.
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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And that's the tradition, really, the connection. My father
was a master Mason in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a member of the
Nehemiah Lodge. I looked that lodge up the other day when I went down to
visit the grand lodge of South Carolina.
But my father-in-law, John Wesley Dobbs, was an outstanding Mason and a
Masonic scholar. And we (Josephine and I) got married. I
didn't go into our marriage because Josephine related that,
but we were married in 1941, December the 24th, and our office really
was in the Masonic temple, North Carolina Mutual regional office, and so
I was going to Georgia, we were making a tour through Georgia in 1941
celebrating our 30th anniversary and that's really when I met
Josephine. But Mr. Dobbs's office and we got to be good
friends and so forth. And finally, after we married, and having no sons,
he talked with me about Masonry. He told me that, "Bill, I know
you want to be a businessman and you are dedicated to North Carolina
Mutual, and I don't want to interfere with that, but a little
Masonry will not hurt you." And so I accepted that challenge
and became a master Mason, was raised by him in his lodge in Atlanta, H.
R. Butler. And then right after that I was able to
qualify and recommend for the thirty-second degree and I was elevated to
that level and that puts you eligible for becoming a Shriner. And so I
was made a Shriner. Then in '45 was elevated to the 33rd and
last degree and that's my ring. And Josephine gave me that
ring. I took the wedding band off and that has become my wedding band
and my Masonic ring, and it's all engraved and everything on
the inside.
So I transferred to Durham and became a member of Doric Lodge, number 28,
in 1946. And in 1948 I was elected senior warden and then in
'49 I was elected worshipful master of my lodge and served
for two years and that makes you eligible to become a member of the
grand lodge. And so I started attending the grand lodge of North
Carolina and in 1959 the grand master, who has the power to appoint some
of his officers, he appointed me as a special deputy grand master and I
served in that capacity for fifteen years until 1974. And then he
retired as grand master and Bishop Shaw, Herbert Bell Shaw, of the
A.M.E. Zion Church, became our grand master and he appointed me deputy.
And he died suddenly in 1980 in Indianapolis attending a church
convention, and I succeeded him to the office. Now I had to be elected.
He died in January; our grand lodge meets in October. And so in October
I was duly elected grand master of the jurisdiction of North Carolina,
which is one of the largest jurisdictions in the country. We have 20,000
financial Masons. We must have a hundred Masons, but we have 20,000
financial; we have 18,000 Eastern Stars. And so we have a big operation.
That's really one of my big operations now. We're
in the process of having our regional meetings. We donate to charity
more than $70,000 a year. We have a scholarship fund of
$25,000 that we give to North Carolinians who are finishing
high school going into college, any college of their choice, and
it's male or female. And what we did, we established an
endowment of $250,000 and the investment from that. So
it's perpetual; we don't have to allocate it every
year and vote it. We just allocate the funds from the endowment. And the
resources now of the grand lodge are in excess of two and a quarter
million dollars. I'm glad you mentioned it because
that's really been fantastic.
- WALTER WEARE:
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It's been an important part of your career.
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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Oh, yes. Particularly in the later years. I've always been
involved in Masonry but since I retired and had the time and so forth to
give to it, it has really been fascinating and we have a tremendous
program, and we are now concerned about helping people. We have an
orphanage that we give $20,000 every year. We've
given the NAACP $10,000 in the last fifteen years. And we
just made a special contribution to the NAACP in connection with their
moving their headquarters from New York to Baltimore. And we also give
funds to the United Negro College Fund and many other charities in the
state and also in the country. Fantastic program.
- WALTER WEARE:
-
In the future, there may be people listening to this who
aren't aware that in - well, it really
begins in the eighteenth century, what Prince Hall founded in 1787, I
think.
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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Well, Prince Hall himself was raised to master Mason in 1775. He was born
in Barbados and he came to Boston at the age of fifteen. In 1765 the
British regiment was stationed there in Boston protecting their harbor
and because of the tea and so forth and all. He was raised by the
British regiment in '75. That was one year before the signing
of the Declaration of Independence. But the regiment moved on, and these
newly-made Masons had no charter. You cannot operate as a Mason without
a charter. But he had the foresight to petition the grand lodge of
England, because the regiment was an English lodge chartered by the
grand lodge of England. And so they granted a charter in 1784. I had the
pleasure two years ago of going up to Boston to see the original
charter, African Lodge, 459. It's now in a vault; they only
bring it out on special occasions. They have it sealed and everything
and it's under security. But he had the foresight and so in
1790, the grand lodge of Massachusetts was established and he was
elected grand master. And one of the landmarks of a grand master is to
issue dispensations, and he issued a dispensation to establish a grand
lodge in Rhode Island, in New York, in Pennsylvania, and in New Jersey.
And so we trace our origin back to the grand lodge of New York.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
-
. . . King Solomon Lodge, number one, and it's still
operating. That same year we established another lodge in Wilmington,
Giblin Lodge, number two. And then the year later,
1867, we established two more lodges - one in
Fayetteville, which is known as Eureka, number three, and Widow Son,
number four, in Raleigh. And in 1870, the grand lodge of North Carolina
was organized and we are now planning, today we were talking about it,
we are planning our one hundred and sixteenth annual communication in
Greensboro, North Carolina, in October.
- WALTER WEARE:
-
That's a nice little sidelight because a lot of historians in
the future, scholars listening to this or reading the transcript, may
not be aware that, as I was going to say, back in the seventeen
hundreds, the eighteen hundreds, and on into the twentieth century, that
there was a black organization and a white organization; particularly a
lot of whites don't realize that there was a separate
organization.
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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They have not come together yet.
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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Black history is very important because of the legitimacy of Prince Hall.
That's why whenever you see a grand lodge that's
named - and Josephine's father was
responsible for this - in the forties, they went
around and got all of the jurisdictions to change the name of their
grand lodge to the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, to identify
it because we can trace our legitimacy to the charter that was issued by
the grand lodge of England. You did have three grand lodges in England
back in those times: there was the grand lodge of Scotland
[pause]
Well, anyhow, I better not get into that because I'm
not as sure.