Category Archives: Masonic History

The Phylaxis: Collection Two

If you have only one book in your library about Prince Hall Freemasonry, this is the book you should have.

The magazines in this collection mark the start of a long-term project of the Phylaxis Society to undo the damage done by William H. Grimshaw in his book published in 1903, The Official History of Freemasonry Among the Colored People of North America. For half a century, Grimshaw’s book was the only one that spoke of the early life of Prince Hall, and there appears to be a good reason for it: Grimshaw’s biography of Prince Hall was largely made up, his personal invention, a product of his imagination, and a century later, historians are still looking for sources to confirm what Grimshaw said about the life of Prince Hall and cannot find them. Decades after Grimshaw’s book, the so-call story of Prince Hall has been repeated, book after book, author after author, until it has become so firmly ingrained into Prince Hall masonic lore, that more than a century later, it still persuades.

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