They don’t pretend to be Lawrence’s oldest black-run organization.

“Oh no, some of the churches have been around a little longer than we have,” said 71-year-old James Barnes, a past worshipful master at the Western Star Masonic Lodge No. 1.

But not many.

Western Star Lodge No. 1 members – sometimes more than a hundred, other times barely a handful – have gathered twice a month since Aug. 17, 1865, less than six months after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox put an end to the Civil War.

Western Star was the first Masonic lodge for blacks in Kansas.

The lodge will mark its 140th anniversary with a dinner Saturday at the Hereford House restaurant, 4931 W. Sixth St.

“This is a milestone worth celebrating,” said Charles “Chuck” Jarrett, also a past worshipful master. “A lot of lodges and fraternal organizations have come and gone in the past 140 years, but we’re still here.”

But these are troubled times, Jarrett said. In recent years, lodge participation has dwindled to 16 members.

Lawrence resident James Barnes, 71, a member of the Western Star Masonic Lodge No. 1, discusses the history of the fraternal order Friday morning at his Lawrence home, where he has assembled artifacts from his time as a member.

“A generation ago, most people worked day shift. They had their nights and weekends off,” Jarrett said. “But these days, people work around the clock, and they’re involved in all sorts of activities. It’s more and more difficult to get a group together.”

“And you got TV, sports and girls going on,” said Verner Newman III, 75. He, too, is a former worshipful master.

Today, most of the lodge’s members are retirees.

“We’re old,” Newman said.

Newman worked for the Lawrence Police Dept. for 26 years He was the department’s first black officer to achieve the rank of captain.

Barnes put in 30 years at the cellophane plant in Tecumseh. He retired 11 years ago.

• Membership in fraternal organizations waning

Jarrett, 59, was a safety engineer at Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant near De Soto for 36 years. He now works at Hallmark Cards.

“When I work the night shift, I can’t make the (lodge) meetings,” he said.

Seated around the Newman’s dining room table last week, the three men openly worried about the lodge’s inability to attract new, young members.

“Back in 1928, we had 128 members,” Newman said. “We have 16 now and, really, only six or seven are able to come to meetings with any regularity.”

“Every fraternal organization is going through this,” Barnes said. “We’re no different.”

James Barnes wears a ring displaying traditional Masonic symbols.

Taking care

Clearly, lodges aren’t what they use to be.

“You have to understand that back in the 1860s, there were very few welfare-type programs, so lodge members took care of each other,” said Robert Pfuetze, grand secretary at the Grand Lodge of Kansas in Topeka.

“There were widow-and-orphan funds, medical funds and scholarships,” Pfuetze said. “And there was trust – no matter where you went. If you met a brother, you knew he could be trusted. You knew he would help. Friendship was instant.”

Today, Pfuetze said, these roles have been replaced with Medicaid, Medicare, employer-backed health insurance and a long list of government-funded aid programs.

“What the fraternal organizations used to do, the government has taken over,” he said, “for better or worse.”

The Grand Lodge of Kansas will celebrate its 150th anniversary in March.

Race questions

Western Star Lodge No. 1 hasn’t had an easy ride.

For decades, blacks weren’t allowed to join white lodges. Their presence at Masonic conventions proved contentious.

In this undated photo, a mason representing the Knights of Pythagoras rides on horseback in a parade. The black Masons in Kansas have a history dating from shortly after the end of the Civil War. The Law-rence black Masons, Western Star Lodge No. 1, will celebrate 140 years Saturday.

“I don’t remember the year – it was in the 1960s or the 1970s – we had gone to a grand lodge session in Salina,” Newman said. “I happened to get sick that day, so I stayed in my motel room. I remember looking out the window and seeing that almost all the (Western Star Lodge No. 1) members’ car windows had been smashed.”

He added: “Back in the earlier days, if we went somewhere, we had to stay in black families’ home because the motels and such wouldn’t take us in.”

Newman said the lodge wasn’t affected by the black radicalism and riots that rocked Lawrence in the summer of 1970.

“None of the members were involved in any of that – and the kids who were involved, their parents weren’t lodge members,” Newman said. “I know that for a fact, I was a patrol officer at the time.”

Though not forgotten, Newman, Barnes and Jarrett said they try not to dwell on the past.

“What we’re about is making good men into better men,” Jarrett said. “That’s certainly been my experience.”