PRINCE HALL (c. 1735-1807) was Boston's most outspoken black activist during the Revolutionary era. Born a slave, Hall gained his freedom in 1770, and thereafter worked as a craftsman and community organizer. In 1735, he and fourteen other free blacks formed a fraternal society devoted to education, community building, and moral uplift. At first informal, Hall's organization would, on May 6, 1787, become African Lodge No. 459, a Masonic order that inspired the formation of similar fraternal societies in other northern cities. In 1808, the African grand Lodge renamed the national order the "Prince Hall Masons," in honor of its distinguished founder. Throughout the Revolution and early republic, Hall was among the most vociferous advocates for liberty and equality. From the 1770s to the 1790s, Hall petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to end slavery, requested financial assistance to support African emigration, and opened up a school for black children, the first of its kind in Boston, in his home. A gifted writer, Hall published numerous writings to promote community among blacks and to combat prejudice and inequality. His second "Charge," published in 1797, addressed the plight of black Americans and the need for strong community in the wake of racial hostility. Invoking the example of Haiti - where a successful slave rebellion led to the creation of the first independent black nation - Hall's popular tract was an eloquent example of free black resistance to discrimination in the Age of Revolution.
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Now my brethren, as we see and experience that all things here are frail and changeable and nothing here to be depended upon: Let us seek those things which are above, which are sure, and stedfast, and unchangeable, and at the same time let us pray to Almighty God, while we remain in the tabernacle, that he would give us the grace of patience and strength to bear up under all our troubles, which at this day God knows we have our share. Patience I say, for were we not possess'd of a great measure of it you could not bear up under the daily insults you meet with in the streets of Boston; much more on public days of recreation, how are you shamefully abus'd, and that at such a degree that you may truly be said to carry your lives in your hands, and the arrows of death are flying about your heads; helpless old women have their clothes torn off their backs, even to the exposing of their nakedness; and by whom are these disgraceful and abusive actions committed, not by the men born and bred in Boston, for they are better bred, but by a mob or horde of shameless, low-lived, envious, spiteful persons, some of them not long since, servants in gentlemen's kitchens, scouring knives, tending horses, and driving chaise. 'Twas said by a gentleman who saw that filthy behaviour in the common, that in all the places he had been in, he never saw so cruel behaviour in all his life, and that a slave in the West-Indies, on Sunday or holidays enjoys himself and friends without any molestation. Not only this man, but many in town who hath seen their behaviour to you, and that without any provocation - twenty or thirty cowards fall upon one man - have wonder'd at the patience of the Blacks: 'tis not for want of courage in you, for they know that they dare not face you man for man, but in a mob, which we despise, and had rather suffer wrong than to do wrong, to the disturbance of the community and the disgrace of our reputation: for every good citizen doth honor to the laws of the State where he resides.
My brethren, let us not be cast down under these and many other abuses we at present labour under: for the darkest is before the break of day. My brethren, let us remember what a dark day it was with our African brethren six years ago, in the French West-Indies. Nothing but the snap of the whip was heard from morning to evening; hanging, broken on the wheel, burning, and all manner of tortures inflicted on those unhappy people for nothing else but to gratify their masters pride, wantonness, and cruelty: but blessed be God, the scene is changed; they now confess that God hath no respect of persons, and therefore receive them as their friends, and treat them as brothers. Thus doth Ethiopia begin to stretch forth her hand, from a sink of slavery to freedom and equality.