Even though blacks have attended southern black universities since the 1860s and northern white universities since the early 1800s, black Greek-letter organizations were not established until the early 1900s—more than 125 years after the white fraternities began. These black college fraternal groups began as small elite social groups that eventually made scholarly discussion and social activism a part of their agenda. When Alpha Phi Alpha, the first fraternity, was begun by a group of black students at Cornell in 1906, it was an important bond between the seven black men who belonged, but was virtually invisible to the rest of the mostly white Ithaca, New York, campus.
But as the presence of Alpha Phi Alpha and the other seven black fraternities grew on black campuses during the early 1900s, they were each known for building their popularity by seeking out certain desirable student candidates (e.g., smart, popular, accomplished, affluent, athletic, good-looking) and turning down others. Even as some campus chapters developed tough standards for minimum grade point averages and other criteria, black Greek life was highly sought after because of the parties and other social gatherings that were offered by fraternity and sorority membership.
Throughout most of the twentieth century, blacks who attended white colleges were not allowed admission into the white fraternities operating on their campuses—just as they were not allowed to live in some of the “white housing” located on or around their college campuses. Because of this, although five of the first eight black fraternities were founded on black campuses, the black fraternities saw their fastest and widest expansion taking place on white college campuses where black students had no housing and where they were facing extreme discrimination and isolation. Clearly, a need for black fraternities had been expressed at both black and white schools.
Most blacks who attended historically black colleges had hopes of joining one of the black fraternities because that was one of the surest ways to become accepted among the campus elite. In the early 1900s, the groups were small, intellectually elite, and rather secretive in their activities. By the 1930s and 1940s, the fraternities and sororities had become more dominant on campus, offering large social gatherings and serving as a magnet for not just the intellectual elite but also the economic elite, who looked at the groups as a way to distinguish themselves from non-members who could not afford the membership fees or pay for the kinds of clothes, parties, and automobiles that were de rigueur for members. By the early 1950s, many of the fraternity alumni who stayed active in their graduate chapters had launched important civic programs to respond to the black community and its problems.
While some argued that there was too great a dichotomy between young fraternity members who focused on socializing and the older fraternity alumni who were using their efforts to advance the black agenda, both groups were often attacked as supporting elite organizations that further divided the larger black community into the privileged and the working classes.
By the late 1950s, when many of the fraternity members—students as well as alumni—had gotten involved in the southern civil rights movement, a greater solidarity developed between members and non-members. They had a common cause to fight for, whether they were operating on mostly black or mostly white campuses.
A new issue developed for black students who began entering white colleges in the late 1950s and 1960s. Because such bigotry was exhibited by the white Greek-letter organizations on so many campuses where well-to-do, integrated blacks were now students, the black Greeks had an even greater role at the white colleges—except at schools like my own Princeton, where fraternities were not permitted for any racial group.
Barbara Collier Delany’s experience at Cornell in 1956 underscored the problems waiting for black students who faced the white fraternities and sororities operating on white college campuses. Delany made national headlines in 1956 when, as a student at the Ivy League campus, she was offered membership in the white sorority of Sigma Kappa. She remembers being one of only a handful of blacks at the college at the time. “I was the first black ever to be offered membership in a white sorority,” says Delany, who had grown up in a family of privilege. She belonged to Jack and Jill, debuted with the Girl Friends, and graduated from the elite all-girl Hunter High School in Manhattan. “The girls in the sorority were very nice to me, but the officials at the national headquarters were furious, and they told the students that they had better reject me or headquarters would shut down the sorority’s chapter at Cornell,” says Delany, who still corresponds with some of those classmates. “When the white students refused to kick me out, headquarters shut down the sorority.”
Even though I was a generation after Delany, I was also a Jack and Jiller from New York who would miss both the black college scene and the black fraternity scene. I was slightly envious of a couple of my Jack and Jill friends who attended white colleges that had black campus fraternities. They were able to continue living among whites while replicating the kind of black experiences and interaction we had grown up with through our Jack and Jill weekends. I, on the other hand, was at Princeton, a school that frowned upon fraternities of any type—black or white. Instead, our social activities were built around the eating clubs—a unique Princeton institution that was focused on thirteen stone mansions that lined Prospect, a residential street at the east end of the campus.
“You’re just the kind of black that would fit in at Ivy Club,” suggested one of my white sophomore classmates, as we considered which eating club would most likely fit our personalities and backgrounds. While most fraternity buildings on college campuses served as places for members to live, eat, and study, the eighty-year old mansions that served as eating clubs at Princeton performed one function: they served as elegant dining halls. They had formal living rooms, parlors, libraries, and—in a few cases—featured waiters, large lawns, patios, and staircases, all of which served as the backdrop for twice-a-year formals.
Although there were thirteen eating clubs—each with at least one hundred members—only a handful of blacks joined the groups. Instead, most chose to eat their meals in the more egalitarian, university-owned dining halls. Perhaps this is why when whites come upon a white Princeton alumnus they ask the question, “Which club were you in?” whereas black alumni are asked, “Were you in a club?” The presumption is obvious, and the two lonely years I spent in my 99-percent-white Princeton eating club bear that out.
Having grown up in a family that clearly valued a strong racial identity, I have, on occasion, wondered why neither my own parents nor my wife’s parents—all products of segregated southern schools—encouraged us to enter fraternity life. My parents certainly had nothing to do with my decision to join an eating club; I did that because I was determined to enjoy what I thought was the quintessential Princeton experience. But I have wondered why they didn’t insist that I travel to another campus and join a black fraternity. I am fairly certain they would have insisted upon it if I had attended a black college or even a large, predominately white state university.
But I believe that my own parents’ reticence was grounded in ignorance—an ignorance that most blacks of my parents’ generation would have had regarding life in an almost uniformly white 250-year-old Ivy League university. They had no idea of the rules—for blacks or whites. Like many of the upwardly mobile Jewish, Italian, or Asian parents who were sending the first generation of their families into such bastions of WASP culture, my parents had no idea what the rules would be. Yes, we had cousins and Jack and Jill friends who had attended the schools in recent years, but they had done so only after graduating from the top boarding and private day schools. None of us knew how much or how little of our ethnic culture should be shown or celebrated on these campuses. Maybe we were supposed to latch onto the other black kids. Maybe we were supposed to emulate the dominant culture’s way of dress, speech, and thinking. Maybe we were supposed to tiptoe around campus, trying to make the white professors, administrators, and students forget we were black or forget we were even there.
“Now, don’t go getting involved in a whole lot of racial protests and sit-ins,” said my father as we unpacked the car at Princeton upon our arrival and I remarked on a flier that talked about the school’s investments in companies that supported apartheid in South Africa.
Thinking back, I now realize that my parents were somewhat intimidated by Princeton—not because they had not interacted with well-to-do whites before, but because they couldn’t advise me on how to go about gaining social comfort on that campus. They weren’t going to tell me to assimilate completely into the white WASP culture, but they also weren’t going to encourage me to segregate myself—as some black students did—into an all-black existence. Just as they wouldn’t have been able to tell me the secrets of surviving at a Wall Street bank, they couldn’t give me the inside track on finding social success at Princeton. It was a school that had eating clubs rather than fraternities, few blacks, and few examples of interracial dating or interracial rooming arrangements. And hardest of all, it had no groups analogous to Jack and Jill, no safe harbor like the one the children’s group had always provided me after weeklong stretches with little or no black cultural discussions or interaction. Given my parents’ inexperience with such a university, it is no surprise that black fraternity life was never discussed as a consideration during my tenure at Princeton.
Today, the National Panhellenic Council, the ruling body of black college fraternities and sororities, has eight organizations. For men, there are Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, and Phi Beta Sigma. For women, there are Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Sigma Gamma Rho, and Zeta Phi Beta. A great deal of what has determined the prestige of specific fraternities or sororities depends on the age of the organization, its size, and the wealth and prominence of its members. In fact, many among the old-guard black elite would argue that only three of the fraternities—the Alphas, the Kappas, and the Omegas—and two of the sororities—AKAs and the Deltas—actually fit the “society” profile.
“What made all of these fraternities and sororities so prestigious,” says second-generation Alpha member Boyd Johnson, “was the fact that our membership requirements were so much more challenging than in the nonblack Greek-letter groups. High grade point averages and extensive community service are what distinguish us.”
In fact, over the years, there have been many white college administrators who express surprise that the black Greek officials insist on such high GPA standards, thus creating a barrier for large numbers of potential members.
Another barrier that stood between the black fraternities and potential members was certain reluctant school administrators who banned the organizations from campus. Not surprisingly, the ultrasocial all-women’s Bennett College was one of them. “I really resented the fact that President Jones looked down on sororities and refused to allow them on campus,” says Beatrice Moore Smith-Talley, who had to wait until she graduated to pledge AKA. “It would have been nice to have pledged while I was in college, because it’s a much different social experience when you go through it as an eighteen-year-old than when you do it in a graduate chapter. A lot more bonding takes place.”
Atlanta resident Ella Yates remembers wanting to join the Deltas when she was a student at Spelman in the late 1940s. “But our president, Florence Read, felt sororities would distract us from our work and create divisions and cliques,” says Yates, who joined one of the sorority’s graduate chapters several years after college.
Although the leaders of Bennett and Spelman finally relented in later years and allowed the Greek organizations to establish themselves on their campuses, there remained some critics. Many of these were white university administrators who simply didn’t encourage the creation of fraternities—as I found at my own college. Other critics were specifically critical of black fraternities. The most prominent one was Howard University sociology Professor E. Franklin Frazier, who, in his book Black Bourgeoisie, criticized the extravagant spending he saw among the black fraternities, who spent outrageous sums during their annual meetings and conventions. He noted, “During the Christmas holidays in 1952, the Greek letter societies meeting in four cities spent $2,225,000.”
Because the organizations have grown larger, with richer members, that number would be considerably higher today. True, these five- or six-day annual gatherings feature lavish social activities, cruises, and parties, but many would argue that all of the fraternities use their money to establish and support important and unique programs throughout the nation and throughout the African diaspora.
“These groups can enhance every aspect of our lives,” says Dr. Eva Evans, the AKA Grand Basileus, a title used for the highest-ranking officer in the sorority. When Evans says this, I know for sure that she would appreciate my Aunt Phyllis’s dedication. As head of the country’s oldest black sorority, Dr. Evans also seems like someone who can’t imagine why not every accomplished young black woman would want to be shrouded in the pink and green colors of the AKA sorority.
“If you visited us on the World Wide Web or if you looked at some of the Web pages that our AKAs have at Harvard, Wellesley, and elsewhere, you’d be very impressed with what our sorors are doing,” she says when asked how active the ninety-year-old sorority is on predominately white campuses. After all, the old AKA was once epitomized by the stereotypical black doctor’s or judge’s daughter who went to Howard or Spelman before marrying well and settling into a life of quiet volunteerism. But Evans doesn’t play into the stereotype.
“As a college sorority, we’ve always advanced an educational agenda. We always had high GPA requirements. And more than ever, we’re pushing the importance of math and science for our girls. We need more black women in those fields,” adds the breathless Evans, who lives in Lansing, Michigan, and holds a Ph.D. in administrative higher education. “Of course that’s not to say that we don’t have some top AKA sorors in those areas—like the astronaut Mae Jemison and the former secretary of energy Hazel O’Leary.”
“How about in government?” I ask Evans, testing her almost encyclopedic memory of where every prominent soror is at every moment.
“Oh, please,” she responds, as if I were some sort of an amateur. “Some of the most powerful women in government are AKAs. We’ve got plenty of state officials and mayors like Sharon Pratt Kelly in Washington, Congresswoman Cardiss Collins, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee—but you know,” Evans adds after pausing briefly, “we don’t have a U.S. senator yet. Somehow Carol Moseley-Braun got snatched up by the Deltas.”
To understand the history of the fraternities and sororities of the black elite, one must both recognize the reason for their existence and understand the comparisons that are often made between them. Even though officers like Evans have a daily agenda that focuses on developing programs, monitoring legislation, and raising funds to benefit members and their international causes, there is an obvious undercurrent among members that causes these students and past graduates constantly to measure one group against another. Unlike whites, who can choose between more than fifty national fraternities and sororities, with only a vague sense of how one group differs from the others, the black elite has a clear sense of which black frats and sororities among the National Panhellenic Council have a strong presence, and which ones don’t.
Alpha Phi Alpha is the oldest of all the black Greek-letter college organizations, and it is the one to which most of my friends belong. Founded in 1906, it was the only black fraternity or sorority to have been started at an Ivy League school: Cornell University. Even though there were fewer than a dozen black students at the rural Ithaca, New York, campus at the time, seven Cornell men—now referred to as the Alpha’s “Seven Jewels”—formed the organization.
Quickly identifying themselves with programs that emphasized scholarship rather than mere social interaction, the Alphas launched, in 1919, a national “Go to High School, Go to College” campaign to combat the eighth-grade dropout rate of 90 per
cent among black children. The Alphas also contributed resources and manpower in 1935 to assist in the racial discrimination suit by black Amherst College graduate Donald Murray, who had been rejected by the University of Maryland Law School because he was not white. Not only did the fraternity pay his school expenses, but the group also provided his attorneys, who were Alphas and well-known civil rights attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston. The fraternity also gave support to a case that successfully challenged the practices of segregation at the University of Texas Law School when Alpha brother Herman Sweatt applied for admission.
Today, the group has over 150,000 members, with 750 chapters spread out over the United States, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. Working in conjunction with the Kellogg Foundation, the fraternity operates mentoring centers in fifteen major cities around the United States that serve as after-school sites for inner-city teenagers. Some say that the stereotypical Alpha is professionally ambitious, bookish, not overly gregarious, and “safe.” My father-in-law, who pledged Alpha in 1947, says, “He’s the mensch—the nice guy—that everyone wants his sister to date.”
A veritable “who’s who in black America,” the membership has included such people as Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall; Dr. Martin Luther King; Atlanta mayors Andrew Young and Maynard Jackson; scholar W. E. B. Du Bois; former U.S. senator Edward Brooke; former congressman William Gray, who now heads the United Negro College Fund; Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens; Canaan Baptist Church head Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker; Ebony magazine founder John Johnson; New Orleans mayor Marc Morial; Seattle mayor Norman Rice; Parks Sausage founder Henry Parks; National Urban League directors Hugh Price, Lester Granger, and Whitney Young; Detroit mayor Dennis Archer; San Francisco mayor Willie Brown; New York congressman Charles Rangel; U.S. cabinet secretaries William Coleman, Samuel Pierce, and Louis Sullivan; Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr.; and New York City mayor David Dinkins.
Our Kind of People Page 13
