Grand United Order Of Odd Fellows from Organizing Black America:

Grand United Order Of Odd Fellows from Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African American Associations | BookRags.com

Grand United Order of Odd Fellows

The Grand United Order of Odd Fellows had the largest membership of any African American fraternal society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Only the Elks and the Masons enrolled more black members in the late twentieth century. Like a few other black fraternal lodges that shared a name with a white organization, the black Odd Fellows obtained their initial charters from a white fraternal society located in England. Since their beginnings in the mid—eighteenth century, the Odd Fellows of England had undergone many splits, the major one taking place in 1813. At that time, the Independent Order (Manchester Unity), soon to become the numerically predominant Odd Fellow organization, broke away from the Grand United Order. Nearly all the white Odd Fellows in the United States identified themselves with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In the early 1840s, after the white Odd Fellow lodges in the United States refused to charter black lodges, African Americans living inNew York City turned to the older organization, the Grand United Order in England.

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