OUT OF THE SHADOWS: THE EMERGENCE OF PRINCE HALL FREEMASONARY IN AMERICA, By Alton G ROUNDTREE
Paster Master of Redemption Lodge #24, the largest Lodge in WASHINGTON D.C. Prince Hall Jurisdiction and Paul M. Bessel, Past Senior Warden of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia in Washington D.C. Essentially states, Two competing sets of organization within Prince Hall Freemasonry: a minority of Lodges which are subject to Prince Hall National Grand Lodge, who are referred to as (PHO) Prince Hall Origin, and the majority of Lodges who are subject to 42 Independent state Grand Lodges who are known as (PHA) Prince Hall Affiliation.
Through the influences through Foreign Correspondence by
men such as William T. Boyd and others, many other Lodges under the Jurisdiction of the National Grand lodge withdrew or engaged in mergers as Grand Lodges independent Grand Lodges.
These Grand Lodges are now styled as (PHA) Prince Hall Affiliates. There are also adoptive, appendant and affiliated bodies including all houses in the Scottish Rite, the York Rite the Order of
the Eastern Star and the Shriners. Based on the proceedings of Prince Hall Independent Grand Lodges tracing their lineage to African Lodge #459 and thus was their Offspring, then PHO today cannot be declared irregular or clandestine.
The Charge against PHO of reforming itself illegally can be reversed against this PHA Lodges that withdrew from the Compact. For if they withdrew and reconstituted themselves the they are
"clandestine." Even so, today Prince Hall Grand lodges exist in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and Liberia, governing Prince Hall Lodges throughout the world. Previously a grand lodge had to trace its lineage to the Grand lodges of England, Scotland,
or Ireland. Now England had added African Lodge #459
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