Tag: ioof

Now hiring: Oddfellow hit teams? – the crown, sword and crook – 'We are God types' – organized horror – system bent beyond repair. Citations needed– I am trying to find out when the Independent Order of Odd Fellows stopped being racially segregated.

This is new to me but would not surprise me:

The reasons for the split from the English parent(s) are by no means clear. It is possible that it was provoked by the 1843 chartering of a black lodge, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, under the jurisdiction of the old United or Union Order of Odd Fellows in England.

And this is similar to things I have read elsewhere, but never with a concrete citation or reference:

The Odd Fellows propagate that all human beings, regardless of race, skin-color or position is society are brothers and sisters. In the past this was different. Until the mid-sixties of the 20th century, only white people could join the I.O.O.F. This was common use for societies in the United States, but orders outside the U.S., including the Netherlands adopted this policy. It has to be noted that the Dutch order had a compensation for the admission of members with an East-Indies background, due to the colonial history [Dutch East India Company].

In the late fifties discussions about this ‘full white blood clause’ arose in the Netherlands. This case was also investigated by Dutch police and justice department. The Dutch order, together with some European orders brought this clause up for discussion. The Sovereign Grand Lodge abandoned this clause some years later officially, also due to the changed attitude towards racial segregation in the U.S.

Not just in the I.O.O.F. regulations was a racist tendency, also in one of the rituals. In an older version of the ritual of the second Encampment degree, the black race was typed as: "in general they are barbarians and monsters in the practice of the most dire rapine". According to the Dutch Grand Secretary this ritual is no longer in use, but words as ‘wilds’ and ‘heathens’, in combination with the black race are still common in the American rituals. These words should be used in a different perspective.