Steamfunkateers

by Balogun Ojetade

  Prince Hall Freemasonry

  Prince Hall Freemasonry is a branch of North American Freemasonry founded by Prince Hall on September 29, 1784 and composed predominantly of Black men from North America.

  Prior to the American Revolutionary War, Prince Hall and fourteen other free Black men petitioned for admittance to the white Boston St. John’s Lodge. They were declined. Freemasonry was attractive to some free Blacks like Prince Hall because it was founded upon ideals of liberty, equality and peace.

  Having been rejected by colonial American Freemasonry, Hall and 14 others sought and were initiated into Masonry through Lodge No. 441 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland on March 6, 1775. The military lodge was attached to the 38th Foot (renamed “The 1st Staffordshire Regiment”) in 1782. The Lodge was attached to the British forces stationed in Boston. Hall and other freedmen founded African Lodge No. 1 and he was elected Master.

  When men wished to become Masons in the newly formed United States, the existing members of the Lodge had to vote unanimously to accept the petitioner. If any one white member voted against a Black petitioner that person would be rejected. In a letter by General Albert Pike to his brother in 1875 he said, “I am not inclined to mettle in the matter. I took my obligations to white men, not to Negroes. When I have to accept Negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it.” Masonic and Grand Lodges generally excluded Black people. Since the votes were anonymous, it was impossible to identify the member who had voted against accepting a Black member. The reality was that the black men who had legitimately been made Masons in integrated jurisdictions could be rejected.

  The Black Masons therefore had limited power. When the military lodges left the area, they were given the authority to meet as a lodge, take part in the Masonic procession on St. John’s Day, and bury their dead with Masonic rites but could not confer Masonic degrees or perform any other essential functions of a fully operating Lodge.

  Unable to create a charter, they applied to the Grand Lodge of England. The Grand Master of the Mother Grand Lodge of England, H. R. H. The Duke of Cumberland, issued a charter for the African Lodge No. 1 later renamed African Lodge No. 459 September 29, 1784. The lodge was the country’s first African Masonic lodge.

  Due to the African Lodge’s popularity and Prince Hall’s leadership, the Grand Lodge of England made Hall a Provincial Grand Master on January 27, 1791. His responsibilities included reporting on the condition of lodges in the Boston area. Six years later, on March 22, 1797 Prince Hall organized a lodge in Philadelphia, called African Lodge #459, under Prince Hall’s Charter. They later received their own charter. On June 25, 1797 he organized African Lodge (later known as Hiram Lodge #3) at Providence, Rhode Island.

  Prince Hall, and those who joined him in the founding of Boston’s African Masonic Lodge, built a fundamentally new “African” movement on a preexisting institutional foundation. Within that movement they asserted emotional, mythical, and genealogical links to the continent of Africa and its peoples.

  In 1788 John Marrant became the chaplain of the African Masonic Lodge.

  The lodge met in the “Golden Fleece”, located near Boston Harbor, during the 1780s and 1790s. They later met at Kirby Street Temple in Boston.

  By 1797 there were at least thirty-four members in the Boston Black lodge, but still the lodge was overlooked by mainstream Boston Masons. Integration with the American white Masons was not imminent. Since they were unable to attain integration, Blacks concentrated on recognition from white Masons that Black Masonry, descending from Prince Hall of Massachusetts, was legitimate and not “clandestine.”

  That it had received its charter from the English Grand Lodge and was thus entitled to all Masonic rights such as inter-visitation between black and white lodges without prejudice. Many Grand Masters hoped that ultimately recognition would lead to integration but they knew it would be a long time before that happened.

  African Grand Lodge

  After the death of Prince Hall, on December 4, 1807, the brethren were eager to form a Grand Lodge. On June 24, 1808 they organized African Grand Lodge with the lodges from Philadelphia, Providence and Boston, which was later renamed the Prince Hall Grand Lodge, in his honor.

  The Lodge was struck from the rolls after the 1813 merger of the Antients and the Moderns (two rival Grand Lodges of England). African Lodge was, however, not formally erased.

  After being refused acknowledgment by the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, the African Lodge declared itself to be an independent Grand Lodge, the African Grand Lodge of Massachusetts.

  In 1827 the African Grand Lodge declared its independence from the United Grand Lodge of England, as the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts had done 45 years earlier. It also stated its independence from all of the white Grand Lodges in the United States.

  This led to a tradition of separate, predominantly African-American jurisdictions in North America, which are known collectively as Prince Hall Freemasonry. Widespread racism and segregation in North America made it impossible for African Americans to join many mainstream lodges, and many mainstream Grand Lodges in North America refused to recognize as legitimate the Prince Hall Lodges and Prince Hall Masons in their territory.

  In the Steamfunkateers universe, the founders of Prince Hall Freemasonry—are all initiates of the Kametic Mystery Schools.

  Each man traveled to Kamet (“Egypt”), where they studied at the temple-universities Waset and Ipet Isut. Here, the Greeks were inducted into a wide curriculum that encompassed both the esoteric as well as the practical.

  Prince Hall was the first to go to Kamet. He was introduced to the Kametic Mystery System—the knowledge that formed the basis of the Kamites’ understanding of the world, which had been developed over the previous 9,500 years. After he returned, Prince Hall made a name for himself among Black people by accurately predicting a solar eclipse and demonstrating how to measure the distance from the earth to the sun.

  The Kametic education was meant to last 40 years, although Prince Hall is the only one known to have made it through the entire process.

  The Kametic Mystery System encompassed math, writing, physical science, religion, indigenous African martial arts and the supernatural.

  In Steamfunkateers, Prince Hall Masons believe in a dichotomy between a higher and lower self. The higher self pursues knowledge, reason and discipline. The lower self—the more prominent of the two—is base, concerned with more crude aspects like sex, addiction and other self-serving pursuits. The Prince Hall Masons believe that reason must ultimately win over emotion for a life to be worthwhile—reason over all else. As such, most Prince Hall Masons have fused functioning mechanical limbs and/or organs with their flesh and it is rumored that Prince Hall’s brain has been replaced by a powerful analytical engine that holds all his memories, skills and abilities, giving him enhanced reflexes and faster processing of information, but at the cost of his emotions.

  A (Not So) Brief History and Timeline of the World of Steamfunkateers

  1837 The Institute for Colored Youth is founded in Southeastern Pennsylvania. It later becomes Cheyney University.

  1837The Philadelphia Vigilance Committee is organized to help fugitive slaves escape their pursuers.

  1838Pennsylvania disfranchises Black voters.

  1839On August 29, American vessels tow the Spanish ship the Amistad and its 53 slaves into New London, Connecticut. Their fate is decided by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. The Amistad on March 9, 1841 when the Court rules them free and they return to Africa.

  1840Census of 1840, U.S. Population: 17,069,453, Black Population: 2,873,648 (16.1 percent) including 386,293 free Blacks.

  1842Frederick Douglass leads a successful campaign against Rhode Island’s proposed Dorr Constitution which would continue the prohibition on Black voting rights.

  1842The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Prigg v. Pennsylvania that states did not have to offer aid in the hunting or recapture of fugitive slaves within their borders.
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  1843Rev. Henry Highland Garnet delivers his controversial “Address to the Slaves” at the National Negro Convention meeting in Buffalo, New York, which calls for a servile insurrection.

  1843Sojourner Truth and William Wells Brown begin their campaigns against slavery.

  1844On June 25, the Legislative Committee of the Provisional Government of Oregon enacts the first of a series of Black exclusion laws.

  1845Texas is annexed to the United States.

  1845Frederick Douglass publishes his autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

  1845Macon B. Allen of Worcester, Massachusetts is the first Black admitted to the bar in any state when he is allowed to practice law in Massachusetts.

  1845William Henry Lane (Master Juba) of New York City is the first acclaimed Black dance performer.

  1846-1848: War with Mexico.

  1847Frederick Douglass begins publication of The North Star in Rochester, New York.

  1847Missouri bans the education of free Blacks.

  1847Missouri abolitionists file a lawsuit on behalf of Dred Scott to gain his freedom. The case is eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court a decade later.

  1847David Jones Peck is the first Black graduate of a U.S. medical school. He graduates from Rush Medical College in Chicago.

  1848On February 2 in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico cedes California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah and gives up claim to Texas at conclusion of War in exchange for $20 million.

  1848On July 19-20, Frederick Douglass is among the handful of men who attend the first Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York.

  1849The California Gold Rush begins. Eventually four thousand Blacks will migrate to California during this period.

  1849Harriett Tubman escapes from slavery and begins her efforts to rescue enslaved people.

  1849On December 4, Benjamin Roberts files a school desegregation lawsuit on behalf of his daughter, Sarah, who is denied admission to a Boston school. The lawsuit is unsuccessful.

  1850Census of 1850, U.S. Population: 23,191,876, Black Population: 3,638,808 (15.7 percent) including 433,807 free Blacks.

  1850The Compromise of 1850 revisits the issue of slavery. California enters the Union as a free state, but the territories of New Mexico and Utah are allowed to decide whether they will enter the Union as slave or free states. The 1850 Compromise also allowed passage of a much stricter Fugitive Slave Law.

  1850On August 27, Lucy Stanton of Cleveland completes the course requirements for Oberlin Collegiate Institute (now Oberlin College) and becomes the first Black woman to graduate from an American college or university.

  1850The American League of Colored Workers, formed in New York City, is the first Black labor union in the United States.

  1851Sojourner Truth delivers her famous “Aren’t I a Woman” speech at the Women’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio on May 29.

  1852Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which becomes a bestselling book and a major influence on the Anti-Slavery Movement.

  1852Martin R. Delany publishes The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States.

  1852The Jackson Street Hospital in Augusta, Georgia is established as the second medical facility dedicated solely to the care of Black patients.

  1853Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (the Black Swan) debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and performs before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace a year later.

  1853William Wells Brown of Buffalo, New York, becomes the first Black novelist when he publishes Clotel, or the President’s Daughter. The novel is published in England, however and thus he is not considered the first published Black novelist in the United States.

  1854On May 24, Virginia fugitive slave Anthony Burns is captured in Boston and returned to slavery under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act. Fifty thousand Boston residents watch his transport through the streets of the city in shackles. A Boston church raises $1,500 to purchase his freedom and Burns returns to the city in 1855, a free man.

  1854On May 30, the Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed by Congress. The Act repeals the Missouri Compromise and permits the admission of Kansas and Nebraska Territories to the Union after their populations decide on slavery.

  1854The Republican Party is formed in Jackson, Michigan in the summer in opposition to the extension of slavery into the western territories.

  1854Bleeding Kansas is an outgrowth of the controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Between 1854 and 1858 armed groups of pro- and anti-slavery factions often funded and sponsored by organizations in the North and South, compete for control of Kansas Territory, initiating waves of violence that killed 55 people. Bleeding Kansas was seen as a preview of the U.S. Civil War.

  1854On October 13, Ashmun Institute, the first institution of higher learning for young Black men, is founded by John Miller Dickey and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson. In 1866 it is renamed Lincoln University (Pa.) after President Abraham Lincoln.

  1854James A. Healy is ordained in France as the first Black Jesuit priest. He becomes Bishop of Portland, Maine in 1875, a diocese that includes all of Maine and New Hampshire, and holds that post for 25 years.

  1855The Massachusetts Legislature outlaws racially segregated schools.

  1855William C. Nell of Boston publishes The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, considered the first history of Blacks.

  1855In November, John Mercer Langston is elected town clerk of Brownhelm Township, Ohio, becoming the first Black elected official in the state of Ohio.

  1855Frederick Douglass is nominated by the Liberty Party of New York for the office of secretary of state. He is the first Black candidate in any state to be nominated for a statewide office.

  1856Wilberforce University becomes the first school of higher learning owned and operated by Blacks. It is founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishop Daniel A. Payne becomes the institution’s first president.

  1857On March 6, the Dred Scott Decision is handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

  1858Arkansas enslaves free blacks who refuse to leave the state.

  1859On October 16, John Brown leads twenty men, including five Blacks (John Copeland, Shields Green, Lewis S. Leary, Dangerfield Newby, and Osborne Anderson), in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) to inspire a servile insurrection.

  1859Harriett Wilson of Milford, New Hampshire publishes Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, the first novel by an Black woman.

  1859 Building of the Suez Canal begins in Egypt under the direction of Ferdinand de Lesseps. Work is completed in 1869.

  1859 The first practical storage battery is created by Baas Bello, but the plans—and the credit—were stolen by R. L. G. Planté, a Brushed Air Pirate.

  1859 On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin is published (it is debunked a year later by Baas Bello during a public debate; but Baas’ words are later struck from all records).

  1860Census of 1860, U.S. Population: 31,443,321, Black Population: 4,441,830 (14.1 percent) including 488,070 free Blacks.

  1860On November 6, Abraham Lincoln is elected president.

  1860On December 20, South Carolina secedes from the Union.

  1861Congress passes the First Confiscation Act which prevents Confederate slave owners from re-enslaving runaways.

  1861 To ensure better access to the Sydney, Australia, markets, Thomas S. Mort finances and patents the first machine-chilled refrigerated storage facility. The process is a success, and seven years later he begins shipping frozen meat to London.

  1861On May 2, Black men in New Orleans organize the First Louisiana Native Guard of the Confederate Army. In doing so they create the first and only military unit of Black officers and enlisted men to pledge to fight for Southern independence. By February 1862, after New Orleans is occupied by Union forces, the Louisiana Native Guard becomes a mi
litary unit in the United States Army.

  1861By February, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas secede. They form the Confederate States of America on March 4. After the firing on Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina secede.

  1861-1865 The Civil War. Approximately 200,000 blacks (most are newly escaped/freed slaves) serve in Union armed forces and over 20,000 are killed in combat.

  1862The Port Royal (South Carolina) Reconstruction Experiment begins in March.

  1862On April 16, Congress abolishes slavery in the District of Columbia.

  1862 In Switzerland, Occultist and Rosicrucian Scion, Jean Henri Dunant proposes the foundation of an international “voluntary relief organization” – The Red Cross. Over the next several decades the organization grows to eventually bring to life Dunant’s true vision: the capture, dissection and study of the Brushed in order to chemically duplicate their special abilities. Dunant’s young protégé, Dr. Henry Jekyll, takes Dunant’s vision further and actually creates a drug that transforms him into the powerful—and bloodthirsty—sociopath, Edward Hyde.

  1862 Otto von Bismarck becomes the Prime Minister of Prussia under appointment by the recently crowned King Wilhelm.

  1862 To reduce the size of armies and thereby reduce the number of deaths by disease and in combat, Dr. Richard J. Gatling invented the 10-barreled automatic gun which bears his name.

  1862In May the coastal pilot Robert Smalls escapes Charleston, South Carolina with The Planter, a Confederate vessel and sixteen enslaved people.

  1862Congress permits the enlistment of Black soldiers in the U.S. Army on July 17.

  1862With the southern states absent from Congress, the body recognizes Haiti and Liberia, marking the first time diplomatic relations are established with predominately Black nations.

  1862On September 22, President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation and announces that it will go into effect on July 1, 1863 if the states then in rebellion have not by that point returned to the Union.