Viola Hart-Felton Chapter No. 584

Prince Hall Freemasonry was born from a refusal to be shut out. In 1775, Prince Hall and fourteen other free-born African Americans were initiated into an Irish military lodge in Boston. When that lodge moved on, they were allowed to meet, march in procession and bury their dead with Masonic rites, but not to make new Masons. They kept pressing, and in 1784 the Grand Lodge of England granted them a charter as African Lodge #459.

That charter mattered because most American lodges would not admit Black men. Widespread racism, and rules such as the “born free” requirement, were used to keep African Americans out. Prince Hall and his brothers answered by building their own house: a tradition of predominantly African American Grand Lodges that grew across North America and became known as Prince Hall Freemasonry.

Black women claimed their place in the Order nearly a century later. On August 10, 1874, Brother Thornton Andrew Jackson received the degrees of the Order of the Eastern Star, along with authority to form chapters among Black women. Under the sanction of Grand Master William H. Myers of the Union Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, he organized Queen Esther Chapter No. 1 on December 1, 1874, in the Washington, D.C. home of Mrs. Georgiana Thomas. Sister Martha Welch served as its first Worthy Matron and Brother Jackson as its first Worthy Patron.

From that one chapter, Prince Hall has grown to thousands of chapters from California to Kuwait, all carrying the banner of Eastern Stardom and the belief in PHAmily.

The Order of the Eastern Star is a Masonic-related fraternity of women and men dedicated to charity, truth and loving kindness. It teaches lessons of fidelity, constancy, loyalty, faith and love, and each chapter chooses the causes it serves in its own community.