Prince Hall Memorial

Prince Hall, an abolitionist, patriot, entrepreneur, and founder of the first African American Lodge of Freemasons, spoke for people denied voice, position, and power and for thousands of African American revolutionary patriots who helped lay the foundation of the nation. In petitions and addresses from 1777 to 1797, he condemned slavery as tyranny and oppression, recalled people dragged from their native country to endure cruelty, and argued that a life stripped of social privilege and the things needed to make life tolerable was worse than non-existence. He asserted that those willing to bear equal burdens had the right to the privileges of freemen and to the education of their children, urged patience under daily insults in the streets of Boston, and insisted that in the late war black and white soldiers had marched shoulder to shoulder. He called for love, fellowship, relief for those in distress, honor to lawful governors, meditation despite deprivation, and recognition that all men are free and are brethren.

Cambridge, Massachusetts · United States