Chapter Five

To begin, I have to thank Past Master Randall Pollard of Union Lodge #4, for his information, correcting my third installment. Andrew Bush was not an attorney and Edwin B. Jordain was not a mason. Elders are a true blessing, with wisdom that flows like the wind. Both the wind and wisdom are often taken for granted, but can be a welcomed breeze of relief. The ability to listen and process is the basis of any oral traditionalists work; seconded only by the art of conversation. For some reason, when many people think of native folks listening to their elders, they get this romantic image of a person sitting at a fire in the woods, listening to the wisdom of a stoic faced, monotone voiced saige with Corinthian Leatehr skin. In reality, it’s really just a part of everyday conversation, and the leather skin only applies to those who smoked for years.

This past week was the Mashpee powwow, despite a little controversy, it was a wonderful time. This was my first powwow in a couple of years as I was in graduate school up in Vermont for the last three powwows. It was also my first powwow in regalia in about 3 years. I only got to wear it the last day of powwow as my cousin who was making it fell behind on a bunch of projects. What I’ve always loved about powwow is the fact that it’s a homecoming for Mashpee Wampanoags scattered all across the world, and a chance to connect with all of these folks… and listen to their tales. Sometimes these tales can seem kind of random and even pointless at the time, but will suddenly have a great deal of meaning and can even provide you with greater insight of a situation you’re facing.

Back to that day in April 2001, at the lodge, awaiting the arrival of the Investigation Committee chair and members, Brother Jibreel arrived. Another connection that Brother Jibreel and I have is that we are both members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Along with a winding history of the lodge, and the various personalities associated with it, Jibreel took me on a tour of the building, that culminated with the soon-to-be completed ritual room. Here, I had the pleasure of meeting Warley Williams, a talented, master carpenter and member of the lodge who was finishing the construction on the lodge meeting room upstairs. Our conversation, all be it brief, was a very honest and insightful discussions about the principles and inner-dynamics of brotherhood in general, and the lodge in particular. One by one I began to meet brothers of the lodge, who seemed to be just passing by in the evening, each sharing some information that would eventually make a great deal of sense. Not just as a future brother of the lodge, but as a New Bedford resident; which at the time, I had no idea that I would soon become…

I have a bad habit of starting stories from the middle, as for the last several installments of this tale; I have vacillated between the present and 2001. My story as a Wampanoag traveling from Mashpee to New Bedford actually goes back to 1995, a chance meeting of a youth program director, who brought me here to do some improv theater workshops… ah, that’s the next installment.

Chapter Three

At our last parting, it was June 29, 2002 and I was sitting in my van in the parking lot of The Prince Hall Masonic Temple on Cottage Street, home to Union Lodge #4, JW Hood Chapter 12 of the Order of the Eastern Star, and at the time, annex classroom space for the West End Day Nursery. Union Lodge #4 (formerly Union Lodge #7, in the 1800’s) was formed in 1857. It remains the lodge with the largest number of Grand Masters in the jurisdiction of Massachusetts originating from it’s membership. The current lodge was erected and completed in the 1990s. They used to have a lodge on Kempton Street which was burned down in the 1960’s during a Black Power rally, (can you say “Irony?”)where the only two buildings threatened was the temple and a Black church (Which the pastor and members persuaded the so-called revolutionaries not to burn).

The current temple looks a little like a labyrinth from the outside. I could see that the upstairs windows were open, as the curtains blew in the breeze. As I had mentioned, my Grandfather had been a member of this lodge. In fact, most of your local Wampanoags who had been Prince Hall Masons came through this lodge, including several prominent members of the New Bedford community, such as attorney’s Andrew Bush (who served as Grand Master in the 1800’s) and Edwin B. Jordain (Who was an attendee and participant in W.E.B. Dubois’ catalytic Niagara Movement meeting in 1905). This summer, the lodge is celebrating it’s 150^th anniversary (1857 to 2007).

In the two years that preceded this June morning in 2002, two of the lodges members, at different times, had told me about the lodge and discussed the consideration of membership, the first being Jibreel Khazan (meeting him the first time is an article in itself); the other being one of those strange chance meetings. From 1998 to 2001, I ran a youth theatre program in New Bedford and would often stop at the Staples in Fairhaven to make photocopies of scripts, flyers, grant proposals, etc. It seemed that each time I was in the shop; I’d meet this man who would be busy photocopying a variety of documents. We often conversed about current events, music (it turned out that we both grew up in the Bronx and have a love of Afro-Latin music), and so forth. His conversation and range of interests revealed him to be a true renaissance man.

After months of these meetings, he asked what I knew about Freemasonry. As a history buff and occasional reader of conspiracy theory literature, I knew a few things about the craft, and was particularly intrigued by the history of Prince Hall masons and the roles that the order’s members played in the advancement of disenfranchised people of color. Curiously, most of the conspiracy theorists did not include Prince Hall masonry as a part of the quest for world domination, albeit the order has had a fair number of Black nationalists among it’s membership, including Hall himself, Alexander Crummell, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, and Elijah Poole (Muhammad). The gentleman, John Cole, gave me his phone number and after a weeks worth of contemplation, I was sitting at his dining room table, filling out an application for membership to the lodge…

The front door of the temple opened, and a large, bald-headed man with a moustache, wearing a tuxedo, beckoned me to come in.

Chapter One

When I was around twelve or thirteen, I used to have this recurring dream about this building. It was a Greco-Roman forum looking structure on the outside, with giant columns in front. I remember the interior being mid-twentieth century styled offices upstairs with lots of wood paneling and the like.

A friend of mine from the Rocky Boy reservation in Box Elder, Montana once said, “We instinctively travel the paths of our fathers.” A brief look at my own experiences would indicate this to be true. It was a hot morning, that 29^th of June in 2002, as I started my trek from Mashpee to New Bedford. I was about to be initiated into Union Lodge No. 4, the Prince Hall Masonic lodge in New Bedford. I had found out after making application that Union Lodge had been the home lodge to many a Wampanoag Freemason, including my grandfather during the 1920’s to the ‘40’s. I didn’t even know that my grandfather had been a mason; then realizing that my father, who had joined a lodge while stationed in Germany, was the only of my grandfather’s sons to enter the craft. Union Lodge No. 4 has been the home lodge to a large number of Wampanoag people from all of the tribes, all the way back to it’s formation in 1857.

That morning, I chose to take Route 28 across the bridge, into Buzzards Bay and use Route 6 to go to New Bedford. Why 6 when I could’ve taken 195, you ask? It was the route that my grandfather used to get to New Bedford. According to my elders, the numbered routes that pass through the towns of Massachusetts (28, 44, 123, 6, etc.) are based on the trails and paths of the Wampanoags, Narragansetts, and Nipmucs traveling to all of the places that our people lived. Route 6 was a well worn path for many Wampanoag people, traveling back and forth to visit families, bands, and tribes along the coast. Over time, I came to find that the paths and locations of significance to my familiar antecedents would also have special meaning to me.

Some Mashpee families have lived in New Bedford for many generations; their ancestors coming to the “big city” for greater opportunities in employment, education, and the like. In the early part of the 20^th Century, my grandfather came to New Bedford to go to high school, as it was the custom on Cape Cod to dissuade students of color from continuing past the eighth grade, directing them towards menial and manual jobs. Afterward, he went to Boston to attend college. For me, New Bedford was a place to hang out in my teens, a place to do my youth theatre programs in my early adult years, and now I’m a full-fledged resident (closer to my job), who still often goes home to Mashpee.

For native people, April is our New Year, which makes a lot of sense since spring is the season of rebirth and renewal. This New Year was particularly significant for Mashpee Wampanoags, receiving federal recognition and opening a satellite tribal council office in New Bedford. Interestingly enough, it’s located on the second floor of a building that I used to dream about as a child. People who I’ve been seeing around the city over the years turned out to not only be neighbors, but in some cases, relatives. The things one will find when they travel the paths of their father’s.