Charles H. Brooks wrote the Official History of the GUOOF

Brooks, Charles H.(born: 1859 – died: 1940)Charles H. Brooks was born in Paducah, KY. A lawyer, businessman, and writer, Brooks wrote the official history of the Odd Fellows Fraternity and was a delegate to the International Conference of Odd Fellows in Europe in 1900.

Born in Paducah in 1859, Charles H. Brooks grew to embody the very definitions of brilliance and success. He began teaching at age seventeen, and by the age of twenty-three had been appointed the principal of the Runkle Institute, one of the earliest state supported high schools for African-Americans in Kentucky. Seeking bigger challenges and opportunities, Brooks left Paducah in 1889 and moved to Washington D.C. to work in the Pension Bureau Office. While in D.C., he not only completed his degree in bookkeeping, but also entered law school at Howard University. Such was the respect for his character, that upon graduation from law school in 1892 he gained admission to practice before the Supreme Court of the District.

Teacher, principal, accountant, and lawyer all by the age of thirty-three…we could stop there and declare Brooks an enviably accomplished man. Not to mention the fact that he did all this while sporting a dazzling set of “friendly muttonchops” (the term for when your mustache connects to your sideburns).Brooks’ success wouldn’t stop there, however. He’d ultimately find his greatest impact in his next venture, which wasn’t as a teacher or lawyer, but as an advocate and author for the Odd Fellows.
He was educated in the Colored school in Paducah [info NKAA entry], and after finishing his studies in 1876, he became a teacher at the school. He taught for five years, and was then named the school principal. While he was principal of the school, Brooks became a member of the Paducah Odd Fellows Lodge No. 1545. He served as secretary and was influential in the building of the Colored Odd Fellows Lodge in Paducah [info NKAA entry]. Brooks was State Treasurer, he was secretary of the B. M. C. and was Grand Director at Atlanta, GA.

On the national level, he was Grand Auditor. Brooks’ work with the Odd Fellows was also during the time he was Secretary of the Republican County Committee in Paducah, and Secretary of the First Sunday School Convention and Baptist Association. In 1889, he successfully passed the civil service exam, and Brooks left Kentucky to become a clerk at the Pension Bureau Office in Washington, D.C. While in D.C. he attended Spencerian Business College, completing a course in bookkeeping. Brooks left his job in D.C. and entered law school at Howard University where he completed his LL.B in 1892, which was also the year that he was elected Grand Secretary of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows.
As a lawyer, Brooks gained admission to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. He left D.C. in 1892 to work full time at the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows Office in Philadelphia, PA. He was there for ten years, and led the effort to pay off all debts, sustained a surplus of $50,000, and established a printing press and the publishing of a weekly journal. Brooks traveled extensively throughout the U.S. to visit the various Odd Fellows lodges. He also traveled to England; the Colored Odd Fellows dispensations came from England, and they were the only Colored organization with a regular affiliation to the English fraternity.

When Charles Brooks retired from the Odd Fellows Office in Philadelphia, he operated a real estate and insurance office. He continued to be active in organizations such as the National Negro Business League, Gibson’s New Standard Theater, Model Storage Company, and he was secretary of the Reliable Mutual Aid and Improvement Society, all in Philadelphia. He is author of The Official History of the First African Baptist Church, Philadelphia, Pa., published in 1922. Charles H. Brooks was the husband of Matilda Mansfield Brooks (1862-1945, born in KY). The couple married on August 24, 1880 in Paducah, KY [source: Kentucky Marriages Index]. Both are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Paducah, KY [source: Find A Grave website].

Despite those professions of inclusion, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in the United States did not welcome non-white members into its organization. Thus, in 1843, a West Indian immigrant named Peter Ogden founded a new inclusive branch called the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, after a charter in England that was inclusive to men of all races.This is the order of Odd Fellows that Brooks first joined while teaching in Paducah and a membership that he maintained through all his subsequent careers. Brooks’s intelligence, civic mindedness, and social compassion gained such renown in the organization, that following his graduation from law school, he was unanimously elected to serve as the Grand Secretary of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. He left his job as a lawyer to work for the Odd Fellows, and used his position to spread the word about his beloved organization.

In his writings about the official mission of the G.U.O.O.F., Brooks penned these beautiful words: “The true Odd Fellow, he is out in the field, gathering the ready harvest; in the workshop, laying his strong hand to the anvil, the loom, and the forge; in the counting house, employed in the pursuits of professional labor. He is at home, fulfilling the duties of parent, husband; gladdening the hearth and the board by the virtues of the social spirit. He is by the bed of sickness, wiping the moist brow and cooling the parched lips; he is in sorrowful places ministering to poverty, comforting affliction, and relieving distress.”

As the primary spokesman for a prominent and predominantly African-American organization, Brooks also became an early voice for civil rights in a period of time not too far removed from Emancipation. In a book Brooks wrote called “The Official History and Manual of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America,” he chronicled the establishment of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in opposition to blatant racism. With these powerful words, Brooks heralded the wisdom and conviction of founder Peter Odgen: “He [Ogden] thought it folly, a waste of time, if not self-respect, to stand, hat in hand, at the foot-stool of a class of men who, professing benevolence and fraternity, were most narrow and contracted, a class of men who judge another, not by principle and character, but by the shape of the nose, the curl of the hair, and the hue of the skin.”

Brooks served the Odd Fellows for ten years, and followed that career by operating his own real estate and insurance firm in Philadelphia. He stayed socially active with organizations like the National Negro Business League and the Reliable Mutual Aid and Improvement Society. Brooks died in 1940 at the age of 81 and is buried beside his wife in Oak Grove Cemetery, back home in Paducah.To learn more about Charles H. Brooks or other great Paducahans, visit us in the Local and Family History Department at the McCracken County Public Library. And if you like this post, make sure to “Like” our Facebook page so you have access to more stories.–Matt Jaeger, Shared on the McCracken County Public Library Facebook Page.