Quatuor Coronati Lodge: Our Next Meeting
Quatuor Coronati Lodge meets five times a year on the second Thursday in November (Installation); third Thursday in February; second Thursday in May; fourth Thursday in June; and second Thursday in September. Lodge meetings are usually held at Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen Street, London.
Thursday, 13 May 2021
– The KKK, Freemasonry, and the Fraternal Press –
Adam Kendall
Since its Reconstruction-era inception in Pulaski, Tennessee, the infamous Ku Klux Klan (also referred to by the abbreviations KKK or the Klan) has been frequently characterized as a Southern US-based phenomenon. Its revival in 1915, however, was one of the most widespread and the group found appeal from the Atlantic seaboard to the West Coast. Adopting a structure reminiscent of well-known fraternal orders spread across the nation, the KKK joined in the post-World War I wave of social reform but espoused a fervent patriotism informed by militant Protestantism and white supremacy. Reminiscent of earlier nativist and anti-Catholic movements in both Europe and the US, the KKK deployed fearmongering and conspiracy theories to decry the country’s moral erosion at the hands of a ‘papal plot’ to use immigrants and social vices to undermine the social order. Promoting its campaign of ‘One Hundred Americanism’ as the antidote to these perceived corrosive influences, the Klan styled itself as the ‘World’s Greatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order’: an elite fraternity that was the inheritor of the American Masonic legacy. ‘The KKK, Freemasonry, and the Fraternal Press’ provides an overview of the social conditions that gave rise to the Klan in the early 20th century and the role of the press to assist it in positioning itself as an analogue and a successor to American Freemasonry. Adam also comments on how some US Grand Lodges interpreted and countered the Klan’s claims.
A written copy of the delivery paper can be viewed here.
The lecture is also available to view on QC’s YouTube channel.
We will be hosting a Zoom Q&A Webinar in which you can put questions to Adam. This will take place on May 13, 2021 in lieu of the regular Lodge meeting. You can log in from 3.45 PM London time.
Please register in advance for this Zoom Webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DoLwJJ9_QeS4fgkgD3cFEw
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. The webinar is limited to a maximum of 100 participants. If you miss or are unable to log in on the day owing to the maximum number of participants having been reached, please don’t worry, we will be posting the Q&A to our YouTube channel immediately afterwards.
Please note that the paper (and all other AQC papers), are copyright QC/QCCC and should not be reproduced or circulated.
Questions and comments on the paper should be submitted in advance or within 24 hours of the Q&A via email to editor@quatuorcoronati.com.
The Speaker
Adam Kendall is the editor of The Plumbline, the quarterly bulletin of the Scottish Rite Research Society, a team editor for their annual transactions, Heredom, and a member of their board of directors. A past master of San Francisco’s Phoenix Lodge No. 144 and the Northern California Research Lodge, Adam is a full member of Quatuor Coronati, in London, England, serving on the lodge’s editorial committee for Ars Quatuor Coronatorum and as Regional Secretary for QCCC in North America. He is a past president of the Masonic Library & Museum Association; and the former collections manager and curator of exhibits for the Henry W. Coil Library and Museum at the Grand Lodge of F. & A.M. of California.
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We look forward to welcoming members of QCCC to all our in-person meetings and encourage everyone to stay to dine and chat informally with the speaker and members of the Lodge.
Please click here for details of our dining arrangements and here to download the QC Dining-Form.
