Charles Martin – A Sad Saga

Last night I received an e-mail from a Brother in Iraq. I met this Brother through the Internet on his Blog, Charles Martin’s Blog and Freemasonry in Iraq. Charles is over in Iraq, not as a soldier but as a patriot who is serving so that others may serve as soldiers. I am not positive exactly what he does there but it has something to do with communications. Before going to Iraq he was in Afghanistan

Anyway Charles is a Mason. In fact he is a Mason who belongs to two jurisdictions. One is Kentucky and the other is New York State. He wanted to attend Lodge in Iraq and found one. He wrote in his Blog:

“Been in Taji for about a week.

I found out today, that there is a working lodge on Taji. They have a MM degree scheduled for April 6. I am excited about attending a lodge in Iraq, for the first time.”

Later he wrote: “I was able to attend lodge on Apr 5. What a wonderful experience! I have now attended Masonic lodges in France, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iraq. The degree work was fine, different from what I had seen in the past, because the sponsoring grand lodge is different. They served Popeye’s fried chicken and biscuits.”

It was a Prince Hall Lodge. Now if he belonged to just the New York Lodge (or to an Iowa Lodge) there would be no problem. He could attend and sit in Lodge with the brothers. He evidently did not know that there would be a problem and he went to Lodge.

He then received an e-mail from someone in Kentucky asking about the event and asking him to confirm that he had indeed attended Lodge in Iraq and he being an honorable man replied that he had. You can read the letters on his blog. He is being brought up on charges in Kentucky and will be expelled from his Lodge there. The Lodge he first joined and where his father raised him. This is distressful to him as it would be to any of us.

Now he discovers that because of his primary membership in Kentucky he will also be expelled from New York, He wrote to me asking if he could join an Iowa Lodge. For the record I would be proud to take him into my Lodge. But I looked in Iowa’s code and it doesn’t look like that could happen. Something about not accepting someone who has been expelled without him first being restored in his other Lodge.

Charles also writes

I get a large number of very bigoted and obscene comments. I once received a comment that was an entire page of "n-------". I once set the blog to automatically publish all comments, but the vulgar and obscene remarks just got out of hand. I had to put a stop to it.

There is a lot more to his story but there are other stories to tell. A young DeMolay was going to join our Lodge here in Ames. His father who belongs to a Lodge in Georgia was told that he could not attend Lodge here in Iowa because of our Prince Hall Recognition.

Some stories are told of Iowa Masons not being allowed to visit in Lodges in the South because of this.

It doesn’t only happen in the south. I know personally of a Lodge in Iowa that had a black man who was a petitioner who was blackballed because he was black. In another Lodge a Brother was quite upset because of a member there who constantly uses racial epitaphs. It is upsetting to him and to the other Brothers but no one seems to know how to put a stop to it.

Years ago I discovered for myself that people are people. Skin color does not matter. Everyone basically has the same wants and needs. The need for acceptance and love is powerful and human. We join Freemasonry for that. Perhaps we were rejected by our fathers and we need to be with an older generation to help fill that need or perhaps our fathers were Masons and we want to feel closer to them by belonging to their fraternity.
There are lots of reasons.

All types of people join the Lodge. Some are good men and true, others are there for self-aggrandizement and the collection of honors and titles they can place upon their lapels. I am not going to question anyone’s motives and there is enough space in Freemasonry for all types. But there should be no space for the bigot. In a fraternity founded on Brotherly love there is just no place for that thought. ALL men are brothers under the Fatherhood of God who created us all.

Robert Davis said, “Freemasonry is the place where men come to learn how to be men.”

I was awake last night at 4:00 AM because of this situation. It really bothers me. The man who brought my petition into the Lodge told me that he had withdrawn from Freemasonry because of the situation regarding blacks. I chose not to withdraw but instead to work to change things. To that end when Brother Ed Powers invited me to meet a man studying at Iowa State University (a triple Doctorate) I was proud to do so and sign the first petition for a black man to join my Lodge. I also helped initiate the second one to join Arcadia.

A Past Grand Master, Tom Eggleston, asked me to help get Arcadia to be a sponsor for the legislation that allowed Iowa to recognize The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Iowa. I was proud to do so. Things are better in my state now. I just wish the states that cling to this outmoded and outdated way of thinking were ousted from fraternal recognition by my state and others. So far all of the stories are just that – anecdotal stories. Grand Lodge is not going to drop recognition on stories alone. It could be done but I doubt they will do it. I don’t think there is an easy solution to this I know that the way the Grand Lodge Code reads in Iowa if we were in the same situation as New York we would have to do the same thing they are doing. I don’t like it but there is little I can do about it except to show the hypocrisy of those who claim to be about “Brotherly Love” and continue to live lives of prejudice, intolerance and bigotry.

By the way comments on my Blog are moderated so if you want to comment please do so with courtesy and respect or don’t bother.