CASS, Donn A. “Negro Freemasonry and Segregation” [Ezra A. Cook, 1957]

CASS, Donn A. Negro Freemasonry and Segregation: An Historical Study of Prejudice Against American Negroes as Freemasons, and the Position of Negro Freemasonry in the Masonic Fraternity.

Chicago: Ezra A. Cook Publications, Inc., 1957. First edition. 8" x 5.5". x + 152pp + 3 ads. Frontispiece portrait of Prince Hall from an early engraving. Original publisher’s red cloth, gilt-lettered within a gilt rule frame to upper board and spine. Light rubbing at corners and spine ends, small ink ownership signature at head of title page, mild foxing to endpapers. Front hinge cracked. Good+.

A substantial mid-century study of Prince Hall Freemasonry and racial segregation within American Masonic institutions, published at the height of the early Civil Rights era. Cass traces the historical exclusion of Black Masons while documenting the parallel development of Prince Hall lodges as autonomous fraternal bodies. The book occupies an important intersection of African American history, fraternal studies, and civil-rights-era scholarship, and is increasingly sought by institutional collections and collectors of Black history and American social movements.