Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 12, 1990 TAG: 9003123042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Margaret Camlin New River Valley Bureau
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
Last year, Clarence Hunter got the same treatment from the Winchester Moose Lodge - Virginia's largest, with more than 4,000 members.
Brown and Hunter are black. Both firmly believe that is why they didn't get in.
Oscar Williams, president of the Montgomery County NAACP chapter, also believes race has everything to do with Brown's rejection. The chapter is investigating.
"Something is definitely wrong here and it smells racist - there's no question about it in my mind," Williams said last week.
The governor of the Montgomery County lodge, Robert Johnson of Christiansburg, said he has no idea why Brown's application was rejected.
"A lot of white ones [applicants] go down the tube the same way," he said.
Several men have threatened to quit the Christiansburg lodge if a black is ever allowed to join, said Luther Bower of Floyd, a member for about two years.
Bower, who sponsored Brown for membership, said he heard "through the grapevine" that some members believe Brown applied "mainly to cause trouble."
He expects the issue to divide the lodge.
"There are members there that don't care one way or another," said Bower, who works with Brown at Federal Mogul. "Others are dead set against blacks."
Moose member James Metcalf of Christiansburg, who also works at Mogul and signed Brown's Moose application, said Brown "had the same shake as anybody else. Naturally he's going to say it's on account of his race."
Brown, a graduate of Blacksburg High School where he was a running back on the football team, said this is the first time in his 40 years that his color has stood in his way.
He said he still wants to be a Moose. His rejection letter says he can reapply in six months.
"There are professional contacts I could make," he explained, "fellowshipping and socializing with people I deal with every day. And I would enjoy that."
Last Christmas, while Brown's Moose application was pending, he organized Federal Mogul's 35 to 40 black employees to oppose plans for a company party at the Christiansburg lodge because of suspected discrimination by Moose lodges in general.
The party was moved to another place, Mogul personnel manager Dave Hall said.
This followed accusations that the Bedford Moose Lodge had canceled Christmas party reservations for a group whose band included blacks.
Brown talked about the situation during an interview in his home in McCoy.
"It's a real sickening feeling to think that black and white people work together and fight in foreign lands for freedom together but can't socialize in a normal setting together right here in the county where I live," Brown said.
Clarence Hunter, a 61-year-old assistant principal at Handley High School in Winchester, said an article in the local paper about his rejection awakened the "consciousness" of many Winchester Moose members. He may reapply, he said.
Hunter has been a member of the Winchester Rotary, a business and professional club, for 14 years. He said he doesn't really care about being a Moose. What bothers him is that the Moose lodge has no black members, yet does not have to pay property or income taxes.
"Why should they be exempt if they are going to discriminate?" he said.
Brown shares Hunter's view, though they have never met.
"It's a racist organization and it should not have certain privileges," Brown said.
In Virginia, fraternal, benevolent organizations are exempt from state income taxes and local property taxes. But localities can pass an ordinance to require such organizations to show each year that they are operating for benevolent purposes, according to an official with the state Department of Taxation.
The national Moose organization operates Mooseheart, a home in Illinois for about 300 orphaned or needy children who are relatives of Moose members.
It also runs Moosehaven, a retirement home for more than 500 elderly Moose members and their wives near Jacksonville, Fla.
Christiansburg's Moose lodge gave away 30 baskets of food to low-income families last Christmas, threw a benefit dance last September and raised $300 for victims of Hurricane Hugo. It also donated more than $500 to the Massey Cancer Center in Richmond, Patterson said.
James Chappell, general governor of the national Moose, said he and other national leaders have tried to discourage discrimination by Moose lodges in Virginia and elsewhere.
"We've talked with them and encouraged them to process everything correctly," Chappell said. "But I personally can't say how well it's working."
When asked if the Winchester lodge had black members, administrator Ray DuBruller said, "I'm not telling whether they do or don't have them."
In Christiansburg, there are no blacks in the lodge, according to Bill Patterson, lodge administrator.
Many of the 2,300 Moose lodges in the country have black members and board members, said Chappell, in an interview from his office in Mooseheart, Ill.
Patterson said he knows of a black Moose member in Roswell, N.M.
Randall Proffitt of Blacksburg, state Moose director for Virginia, said there are black members in Virginia, but he could not say where.
"I have no idea," he said. "There's no way to find out" because Moose records do not include members' race or ethnic background.
Chappell, the national Moose general governor, said the organization opened its membership to all men, regardless of race, because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The official change in the organization's whites-only membership policy, however, did not occur until 1973, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In Washington in 1972, a black man had sued the U.S. Treasury secretary, wanting the department to stop granting tax benefits to fraternal and non-profit groups that excluded non-whites from membership. Although the Moose were not mentioned by name, the organization is one of those classified as a fraternal organization by the Internal Revenue Service.
A federal judge concluded that the government's tax exemption indicated approval of the organizations and their discriminatory practice and aided that discrimination.
"We have no illusion that our holding today will put an end to racial discrimination or significantly dismantle the social and economic barriers that may be more subtle, but are surely no less destructive," the conclusion stated.
"But the Supreme Court has declared that the Constitution forbids the government from supporting and encouraging such beliefs."
Two years earlier in Harrisburg, Pa., another federal judge ruled that a Moose lodge's liquor license - granted by the state - was invalid "because it is in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."
According to the court findings, the Moose lodge maintained a policy and practice of restricting membership to whites and permitting members to bring only white guests to the lodge, particularly the dining room and bar.
Legal challenges to fraternal orders like the Moose have been rare because of constitutional protections of freedom of association, according to Tim Philipps, a tax law professor at Washington and Lee University.
"It sounds like a great case to make, but if you start looking at the law, it's not as clear," Philipps said. "This is an issue that's baffled lawyers for 50 years."
Johnson, the governor of the Montgomery County lodge, says he is not bothered at all by pressure from the Montgomery County NAACP to examine its membership practices.
"It's a sticky situation," he said. "I knew this was going to come sooner or later."
Comparisons are commonly made between the Ku Klux Klan and the Moose and other predominantly white men's clubs, said Eva Sears of the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal, formerly known as the National Anti-Klan Network.
"We don't have hard facts and documentation about any such connections," Sears said. But she said the Klan and the Moose, and similar men's clubs in small towns, often shared meeting halls.
"The makeup of the membership was very likely to cross over - there's no question in my mind," she said. "What we're talking about is institutionalized racism rather than organized, violent racism."
Williams, the Montgomery County NAACP president, issued a statement last Thursday urging the Christiansburg Moose Lodge and other community organizations to examine their admission practices and broaden their memberships.
It specifically asked the lodge to "have the courage to ask, `Was race a factor in this decision?'" to reject Brown's application.
Jack Gravely, president of the state NAACP, says racial discrimination at private clubs is among many NAACP concerns, but not at the top of its agenda.
More pressing is the Virginia Beach GreekFest Labor Day weekend riot, redistricting for better political representation of blacks, and judicial appointments, he said.
"That's not to belittle it," Gravely said. "It's an issue I'm quite sure we'd be interested in."
Nor is it a primary concern of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"We're supportive of efforts to eradicate discrimination of any kind . . . but it's not a major battle at this time," state director Kent Willis said.
"We take seriously freedom of association" protected under the Constitution, said Helen Hershkoff, associate legal director for the ACLU. But a distinction should be made as to whether the clubs are based upon "intimate connections" or whether they are fostering professional or economic opportunities for their members, she said.
The courts have to determine if the exclusive membership practices of private clubs serve as a "cover for racism or sexism," Hershkoff said.
For now, Brown says he's a little worried about the repercussions of being the first black to seriously apply to the Montgomery County Moose.
"I will probably be a lot more careful than I've been in where I go and who I see in the next couple of months," he said.
"I find it interesting that we have the nation's first black governor, and yet these organizations are still allowed to flourish and exist and grow," he said. "I've thought about what would happen if Doug Wilder wanted to join the Moose."
by CNB