Although African American fraternal organizations grew vigorously in the United States starting in the eighteenth century, they have received little scholarly attention. Researchers’ attention to Black fraternal orders has been eclipsed by their interest in the churches, social clubs, and civil rights and political organizations they consider more central to the Black experience. The Black church, for example, is often portrayed as the incubator for other Black institutions, including fraternal orders. But the African Methodist Episcopal church actually emerged from the work of Philadelphia’s Free African Society, a fraternal organization. Thus, while emphasis on the Black church and other institutions is not necessarily misplaced, increased attention to Black fraternal orders could illuminate hidden dimensions of Black civic participation.

However, the scholarly neglect of Black fraternal orders also results from scholars' inattention to secret societies of all kinds in American social history. Most historians simply perceive fraternal orders as insignificant. Moreover, twentieth-century American historians were profoundly influenced by the Chicago School of sociology, whose scholars treated fraternal orders as ineffective responses by rural folk to the city’s erosion of primary rural associations. Finally, until recently, historians shared certain stereotypes of fraternal orders as unrealistic ventures into fantasy due to those organizations' use of exotic rituals and regalia.