This article is taken from the June 2024 issue of Fraternal Review titled, “Freemasons and The Modern Olympics”
Most of us are aware that, during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens won four gold medals: 100 Meters, Long Jump, 200 meters, and the 4×100-meter Relay, resulting in his being regarded as the most successful athlete at the Olympic Games and, as an African-American man, is credited with “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy.” (Schwartz, 2000).
Adept in the events of sprints and the long jump, Brother Owens has been lauded by many as “perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history.” With his decisive victories during the 1936 Summer Games, Owens’ achievements may be rightly viewed as yet another early nail in the coffin—as it relates to the inferiority or superiority of one group of humans over another. However, despite the Great Architect of the Universe providing observable clues to the irreducible fact that there is only one race—that of the Human Race, with its many shades, cultures, norms, and values—the erroneous notion of inferiority as it relates to people of African descent persists; much to the contrary as it relates to Masonic Ritual itself.
Bro Jessee Owens (1913-1980) Recognizing that Masonic Ritual makes no mention of a Candidate’s skin colour, it is nonetheless obvious—from history, surviving documents, and the founding of Prince Hall Freemasonry by Prince Hall and his fourteen (14) compatriots on 29 September 1784—that some early Freemasons within predominantly white lodges (PWLs) sought to maintain the arbitrary and socially constructed lines of demarcation between the two groups of men and their respective peoples. As to the why of such an action and positions taken by some members of PWLs within the early United States, one may select from many obvious and subtle reasons from the annals of social history without much speculation and be, we submit, on solid footing. However, despite such early positions of some white Masons, there were still calls from those within Prince Hall Freemasonry for Brethren to maintain their spiritual and social centre and execute the Great Work as called upon by exposure to Masonic Ritual.
In an effort to counter such mental and physical attack—and to bolster Prince Hall Masons in attendance for their journey ahead, through an increasingly unwelcome society, seemingly for both the moment and future—Brother Prince Hall, in a poignant moment from his 1797 Charge comments:
Although you are deprived of the means of education, yet you are not deprived of the means of meditation; by which I mean thinking, hearing and weighing matters, men and things in your own mind, and making that judgment of them as you think reasonable to satisfy your minds and give an answer to those who may ask you a question.
In the above passage, it seems Hall understood that one’s strength came from that deep well of silence resident within and accessible by all. For him and others keen to contemplate and live Masonic Ritual, such inner resilience becomes commonplace for one’s daily travels through life.
While not initiated into the Craft until later in life, within Mount Zion Lodge No. 88 in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1974, we can see that Brother Owens was an exemplar of virtue for decades before his initiation. We posit that this was due to the fact that we live within the universe and are subject to all its laws, as we understand and work within them, be it consciously or unconsciously. In short, when we come to understand such, our hearts, minds, and lives come to be lived more fully and in accord with the Universal Principles inculcated within Masonic ritual and related to the Craft itself.
In sum, as evidenced by the life and accomplishments of Brother Jesse Owens, we are compelled to live the highest and best of that which Nature has endowed us; and we labour against false narratives that seek to elevate one socio-cultural group over another—which can lead to the destruction of all.
Fifty years earlier, Joseph Auguste Anténor Firmin provided the language that Owens would need to fight those false narratives. Firmin’s book, De l'égalité des Races Humaines (On the Equality of Human Races), published French in 1885, served as a rebuttal to Joseph Arthur de Gobineau’s Essai sur l'inégalité des Races Humaines (An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races). Firmin states in his book, “Throughout all the struggles that have afflicted, and still afflict, the existence of the entire species, one mysterious fact signals itself to our attention. It is the fact that an invisible chain links all the members of humanity in a common circle. It seems that in order to prosper and grow human beings must take an interest in one another’s progress and happiness and cultivate those altruistic sentiments which are the greatest achievements of the human heart and mind.”
Jesse Owens’ performance at the 1936 Olympics and his destruction of de Gobineau’s argument that served as the ideological basis for the Nazi’s claims of Aryan superiority, provide an opportunity for us all to achieve those altruistic sentiments of heart and mind. However, not everyone took advantage of this opportunity. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself a Freemason, presumably due the tenor of the time, was among those opting not to acknowledge Owens’ accomplishments. According to Owens, “[The] Führer didn’t snub me—it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”
Fireman, while not known to be a member of the Craft, sounds not unlike a Freemason when he posits, “The doctrine of the equality of the human races, which consecrates these rational ideas, thus becomes a regenerative doctrine, an eminently salutary doctrine for the harmonious development of the species. Ultimately, it evokes for us the most beautiful thought uttered by a great genius, “Every man is man,” and the sweetest divine instruction, “Love one another” (Firmin, pp. 450-451, 2000). So, with Brother James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens’ electric smile on my mind, I also say to all of you, “Love one another.”
BIO:
R.W. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong, PhD, PDDGM, 32° is an Adjunct Assistant Professor with Maharishi International University and, along with his wife, Mina, serves as Director of the Transcendental Meditation® program in Cambridge, MA. They have three children. Baruti’s Doctoral Dissertation Research focused on reports of mystical experiences among Freemasons, both qualitatively and quantitively, resulting in a proposed Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress. You may view his Dissertation Defense via YouTube by following this link: https://youtu.be/qkUWvXqB4rU.