ATTS While the church is considered the bedrock of the African American community, fraternal organizations played a large role in shaping its evolution in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
These organizations were voluntary, providing mutual aid to members. Part of their culture was to enact group rituals as well as engage in community service, support education, maintain halls or lodges that could be used by other groups, and on occasion, become involved in legislative or policy campaigns.
Many of these fraternal organizations paralleled white groups. The Prince Hall Masons were the African American arm of the Masons; The Grand United Order of Odd Fellows followed the example of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Other groups developed that had no Caucasian model.
The Grand United Order of Odd Fellows was formed by Peter Ogden, a Black sailor who had joined the Odd Fellows in England, in 1843.
The association blossomed in Texas beginning in the 1870s and Lodge 2431 was active in Fayette County.
By the time the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows held its extravaganza biennial national convention in Philadelphia in 1886, they were the largest African American fraternal organization in the country, consisting of nearly 53,000 members and 1000 lodges worldwide.
The group provided social insurance benefits and built social welfare institutions as well as halls that served as meeting places for many black groups. Impressive parades and ritual displays bounded.
The group was a mixture of leading men as well as humble citizens.
The March 1891 issue of the La Grange Journal documented the pageantry of the African American Odd Fellows Lodge 2431 as it installed newly elected officers.
The members marched through the city, proceeded by a man who beat a drum, and then returned to their hall. At 8 p.m., they marched to the AME church for the delivery of a sermon.
Afterward, new officers were installed, including, R.H. Mason, Wm. Burton, S.
Moore, W.S. Oakes, J. Pendergrass, J.S. Oakes, J.R. Brown, James Goodman, John Oakes, Albert Williams, A. Henderson, E. Taylor, and A. Harris.
However, by the late 1920s and 1930s, their membership had eroded. The organization did not fully recover from the Great Depression and World War II. Schulenburg Lodge No. 2425 of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, for example, dissolved in 1939, converting to a local lodge called the Schulenburg Maintenance Society. Nevertheless, some branches remain active today.
Other historic African American fraternal organizations in the area include the Southern Cross Lodge No. 77, Flatonia, Texas, Tubal Cain Lodge No. 346, Schulenberg/ Weimer, Texas, and the Stokes Lodge No. 112, La Grange, Texas, later known as King Lodge No. 112 in 1908.
Sources: Edmondson, P E. The La Grange Journal. (La Grange, Tex.), Vol. 12, No. 13, Ed. l Thursday, March 26, 1891. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ ark:/6753l/metapthll46452/ ml/3/: accessed May 30, 2019) Email from Gayle W. Hanson, Librarian/Archivist of the Wilbert M Curtis Texas Prince Hall Library Museum to Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives dated December 13, 2017.
Social Science History, Fall, 2004, Vol. 28, No. 3, Special Issue: African American Fraternal Associations and the History of Civil Society in the United States (Fall, 2004), pp. 367-437.
The Story of Texas. https:// www.thestoryoftexas.com/ discover/artifacts/grand-united- order-odd-fellows-chart accessed February 8, 2023.
Fayette County, Texas Land Records. Corporate Resolution, Volume 186, Page 479, dated October 16, 1939, and filed June 22, 1942.
Picture: Courtesy of the Library of Congress Grand United Order of Odd-Fellows Chart, New York: Published by Currier & Ives, c1881.
