Content area
Full Text
During the late nineteenth century, James Walker Hood was bishop of the North Carolina Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and grand master of the North Carolina Grand Lodge of Prince Hall Masons. In his forty-four years as bishop, half of that time as senior bishop of the denomination, Reverend Hood was instrumental in planting and nurturing his denomination's churches throughout the Carolinas and Virginia. Founder of North Carolina's denominational newspaper and college, author of five books including two histories of the AMEZ Church, appointed assistant superintendent of public instruction and magistrate in his adopted state, Hood's career represented the broad mainstream of black denominational leaders who came to the South from the North during and after the Civil War. Concurrently, Grand Master Hood superintended the southern jurisdiction of the Prince Hall Masonic Grand Lodge of New York and acted as a moving force behind the creation of the region's black Masonic lodges-often founding these secret male societies in the same places as his fledgling churches. At his death in 1918, the Masonic Quarterly Review hailed Hood as "one of the strong pillars of our foundation."1 If Bishop Hood's life was indeed, according to his recent biographer, "a prism through which to understand black denominational leadership in the South during the period 1860-1920,"2 then what does his leadership of both the Prince Hall Lodge and the AMEZ Church tell us about the nexus of fraternal lodges and AfricanAmerican Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century?
Scholars have noted but not substantially investigated the significance of fraternal orders for African American religious life. At the turn of the century, W. E. B. DuBois saw in these secret societies hope for the uplift of blacks through "mastery of the art of social organized life."3 In 1910, Howard Odum ranked black fraternal orders equal in membership to the black church and "sometimes" more important.4 In fact, according to Who's Who of the Colored Race for 1915, two-thirds of the most prominent African Americans held membership in both a national fraternal order and the black church. Forty-two percent of those holding joint memberships were Prince Hall Masons, one-third of whom were clergymen or church officers.5 Subsequent research has explored the economic, class, and political importance of...