{"id":865,"date":"2021-06-11T17:05:36","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T17:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bendingtowardjustice.cah.ucf.edu\/?page_id=865"},"modified":"2022-07-13T18:45:35","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T18:45:35","slug":"organizations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bendingtowardjustice.cah.ucf.edu\/index.php\/organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 4: Religious and Fraternal Organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"Like other rural Black communities, Ocoee was not isolated from the national dialogue on race, equality, and the vote. Although Black citizens faced enormous barriers to voting and political engagement, they protested the violations and prohibitions of their citizenship and they provided social and charitable relief through religious and secular organizations. Churches, mutual benefit societies, and women\u2019s groups were at the heart of the Black community. The overlap of Black fraternal, religious, and humanitarian organizations with groups such as the NAACP meant that even if a community did not have a lodge, branch, or club for all national organizations, they had access to, knowledge of, and participation in initiatives and efforts for political, social, and economic equality.\n

Prince Hall Masonic Lodge<\/h2>\n
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Prince Hall Masons of Ocoee Lodge, No. 66. July Perry is listed as Senior Warden and Valentine Hightower as Treasurer.<\/p><\/div>\n\nMany community leaders were members of the Prince Hall Masons, the Knights of Pythias and other fraternal organizations who played an integral role in challenging oppression. Grand Master David Daniel Powell of the Brothers of the Most Worshipful Union Grand Lodge of Florida set forth an initiative to encourage his fellow Prince Hall Masons to register voters for the 1920 Presidential Election. Ocoee Lodge #66 was burned to the ground during the Ocoee Massacre.\n

Knights of Pythias<\/h2>\n
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Knights of Pythias lodge and the home of W.W. Andrews \u2013 Jacksonville, Florida. c.1919. (Courtesy of Florida Memory.)<\/p><\/div>\n\nThe Colored Knights of Pythias played a pivotal role in registering Black members across the state of Florida to vote. A national fraternal organization founded in the 1880s after Black men were denied membership\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0White brotherhood of the same name, by the early twentieth century the\u00a0Pythians\u00a0boasted the highest rates of membership of Black individuals of any fraternal order in Florida. The\u00a0Pythians\u00a0operated under the three core tenets of friendship, charity, and benevolence that inspired the organization\u2019s activism.\n

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1912 Orlando City Directory. (Image courtesy of STARS, UCF.)<\/p><\/div>\n\nSelf-empowerment and empowering others shaped the political and social activities of the group. Though the order provided practical needs such as insurance and welfare to members\u2019 widows and children, the Knights of Pythias also engaged in a program of uplift that promoted Black empowerment.\u00a0\u00a0When it came to voting on Pythian issues, they championed full participation where every member had an equal voice. This same spirit seems to have applied to Pythians\u2019 attitudes about voting rights, and it especially was the case for the 1920 election.\n\nIn the years leading up to the election, Florida Grand Chancellor W.W. Andrews declared that Black Americans were duly authorized citizens and participants in American democracy and \u201cWhat the [N]egro will be in this country depends more on what he does for himself than on what others may do for him.\u201d At the annual state lodge convention in 1920, a Florida woman\u2019s club praised the Colored Knights of Pythias for requiring every member of the organization to be a registered voter and to pay their poll taxes.\n

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National Association of Colored Women\u2019s Clubs (1896-1914), National Association of Colored Women (1914-present)<\/h2>\n
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Meeting of the Southeastern Branch of the National Association of Colored Women. (Photo courtesy of RICHES.)<\/p><\/div>\n\nFounded in 1896 in Washington, D.C., the National Association of Colored Women\u2019s Clubs organized around the principles that included protection for women and children, education, racial harmony, and woman suffrage.\u00a0 Their motto, \u201cLifting as We Climb,\u201d indicated that while they fought for the rights of women, they believed that all Blacks should enjoy the benefits of equality and full citizenship.\u00a0\u00a0The first president of NACWC was Mary Church Terrell whose diplomatic and organizational skills enabled the organization to climb to 100,000 members by 1924.\u00a0\u00a0Members in the early years of the NACWC came from the Black elite, but by 1920 middle and working class Black women joined as well.\n\nMary McLeod Bethune was a member of the NACW and served as president of the organization from 1924\u00a0to 1928.\u00a0 She was also president of the Florida Branch of NACW.\u00a0Once women won suffrage in\u00a01920\u00a0she\u00a0bicycled from door to door in Daytona urging Blacks to\u00a0\u201ceat your bread without\u00a0butter, but\u00a0pay your\u00a0poll\u00a0tax!\u201d\u00a0On election day, Bethune marched at the head of\u00a0Blacks going to the polls, having advised that they should go together to minimize the threat of violence.\n\nIn Orange County, there were chapters\u00a0of NACW in Orlando (Parramore) and Eatonville.\n

Colored women\u2019s clubs, their presidents, and locations in Central Florida in the early twentieth century<\/h3>\n