P.H.A vs. P.H.O

First International is chartered we were chartered in Ausgust 1950 through the grand lodge of England. study the history of international before you make a false statement.reply to post by PrinceHall06

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I have to second this.

We had some brothers from our local Prince Hall lodge come for a visitation and it was impressive! We were all sitting around in our jeans and shorts and these guys showed up in tuxedos, white gloves and some of the most ornate and beautiful aprons I have ever seen.

I don't know if this makes sense to anyone but masons, but in our lodge we are pretty informal and we usually just stand or raise our hand if we want to speak.

When these brothers were asked a question or wished to speak they did so in the very strict and formal traditional way and it was very impressive. I might say that some of our guys were a little embarrassed that we acted so casually.

Prince Hall masonry seems to be much more low-key in the community. They have many wonderful programs and they do a lot of work with their neighbors, particularly helping underprivileged folks in the African-American community.

Edit:
I forgot to mention the point I was trying to make. I wanted to say that our Prince Hall brothers (in my opinion) seem to spend a lot more time doing good than they do talking about doing good. I think this is a lesson that all fraternal groups could learn.

[edit on 7/14/08 by emsed1]

This seems like a good place to bring up a question about something I noticed recently.

I live in Illinois and I believe this state AF&AM and Prince Hall have had full recognition for quite a while.

One of the things that gave me pause when I joined was some of the strange wording in some of the ceremonies. I think the way we word things is the root of most of the misunderstanding of modern masonry. Words that made sense in the Middle Ages make no sense now and sometimes even sound stupid.

In several of the ceremonies, including public ones, there used to be references to 'black' lodges, such as a mason should never participate or help create a black lodge.

The first time I heard this I was shocked and offended, but I noticed in the last couple of years 'black' has been replaced with 'irregular' or 'clandestine'.

I don't know historically if 'black lodge' was a racial term or if it really meant irregular and was just some of the archaic language that shows up now and again. Either way I am glad it's gone because even if it was just an archaic reference it serves no purpose in masonry and only confuses people.