“We all knew about the famous Alphas who were out in the real world,” says my father-in-law, Albert Thomas, who joined while attending South Carolina State. “The Alpha brothers were always reminding us. Since they had a more socially conservative and academic agenda, I knew that’s where I would join.”
So carefully does Alpha Phi Alpha monitor its image and reputation that its president, Milton Davis, received an apology and retraction from NBC after the network’s show Saturday Night Live aired a controversial skit in 1995 that portrayed drunken white college students who were wearing the fraternity’s copyrighted logos and mocking blacks who participated in the historic Million Man March. In a letter that was later duplicated and distributed to all the Alpha members, NBC offered a carefully worded apology that insisted the program’s intent had been to contrast unruly white frat brothers with the civilized demeanor of blacks who participated in the march. They claimed that the black-and-gold Alpha Phi Alpha outfits had coincidentally landed in the show’s wardrobe department.
“That whole branding tradition is not as gruesome as it sounds,” says Dr. James Norris, as he defends a popular practice in many of the chapters of Omega Psi Phi. The New York physician joined the Omegas in 1954 while at Hampton University. “It’s not as painful or as permanent as a tattoo. It’s really just a hot iron with the Omega symbol on it.”
Omega Psi Phi is often thought of as the fraternity with the most personality and the most gregarious members. The Omegas’ tradition of branding, though shared by other fraternities, is mostly associated with them. Usually referred to as “Q’s,” many new members of the Omegas have been branded on the arm with a hot iron displaying the fraternity’s letters. While the other frats sometimes followed this practice, the Omegas were most famous for it because it played into the group’s more macho reputation. Further highlighting that image is the Omegas’ secret rallying cry: a barking sound that young frat brothers will often make at large Omega gatherings.
Like most of the other black Greek-letter organizations, Omega Psi Phi was founded at Howard University. In 1911, three students formed the fraternity with the help of biology professor Dr. Ernest Just, a black Dartmouth graduate who also earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago. Most Omegas will quickly tell you that Just is the only fraternity founder to appear on a U.S. postage stamp. Consisting of a large number of physicians and dentists, the group has grown to a membership of approximately 130,000, with 717 chapters around the world.
Among the Omega members are such people as Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder; Atlanta mayor Bill Campbell; Urban League head Vernon Jordan; Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander; Howard professor Charles Drew; former NAACP heads Roy Wilkins and Benjamin Hooks; actor Bill Cosby; Rev. Jesse Jackson; scientist Dr. Percy Julian; Black Enterprise founder Earl Graves; poet Langston Hughes; former secretary of HUD Robert Weaver; and Howard University presidents James Nabrit and H. Patrick Swygert.
Although equally respected, the fraternity that is least identified with a particular stereotype is Kappa Alpha Psi. It is also the smallest of the three old-guard fraternities. Founded in 1911 at Indiana University, Kappa Alpha Psi now consists of approximately 110,000 members in 660 chapters. While the Alphas and Omegas often find themselves paired off with AKAs and Deltas, the Kappas are not often associated with one of the sororities.
“When I joined the Kappas at Virginia State, very few of my classmates had a sense of what the different fraternities were doing beyond the boundaries of our campus,” says Bill Richardson, who pledged Kappa in his sophomore year and recently retired from Schieffelin Somerset and Co., the national distributor of distilled spirits, where he was an executive. “In fact,” adds Richardson, who runs into many of his former Kappa fraternity brothers at gatherings sponsored by the Boulé and the Prince Hall Masons, “when I was in college, many students picked the fraternity because of an impression they had of who would fit in there. At Virginia State, it seemed that the premeds and prelaw crowd were Alphas, the athletes were Kappas, and the gregarious social types were Omegas. Since I was on the football team, I chose the Kappas.”
Although they have annual conventions, the Kappas also gather every two years at conclaves to elect a new Grand Polemarch, the highest ranking Kappa officer. Among the well-known Kappas are Federal Reserve Board member Andrew Brimmer, New York attorney and businessman Percy Sutton, Congressman John Conyers, Congressman Mervyn Dymally, Congressman Walter Fauntroy, Soft Sheen Products president Edward Gardner, TLC Beatrice founder Reginald Lewis, former Urban League head John Jacob, Congressman Louis Stokes, and former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley.
The smallest and youngest of the fraternities is Phi Beta Sigma, which was founded in 1914 at Howard University. With 650 chapters, the Washington-based fraternity often partners with its sister organization, Zeta Phi Beta, on civic projects such as voter registration among blacks and Project SATAP, a program aimed at reducing teen pregnancy. Although its membership has included Dr. George Washington Carver, Atlanta builder Herman Russell, Chicago mayor Harold Washington, and Congressman John Lewis, the group has never enjoyed the same prestige as the Alphas, Omegas, and Kappas.
Although Ersa Poston is one of Alpha Kappa Alpha’s “Golden Girls”—a label the sorority uses for its fifty-year members—she remembers that she and her girlfriends in college had all originally planned to pledge Delta. “Of course it all worked out in the end,” says the Washington resident, who served under Governor Nelson Rockefeller and then under President Carter as a commissioner of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, “but in my generation there was quite a bit of blackballing that went on at some campuses. No matter how smart or loyal you were, it was possible for one girl—it required just one—to ruin your chances of getting into a particular sorority. That happened to me when one of the Delta girls found out that a boy she liked also liked me. That was the end of my chances of ever becoming a Delta.”
Since she went on to break numerous barriers, including becoming the first black cabinet officer in New York state government, Poston acknowledges that she’s done well by the AKAs.
Many say that among the old-guard women of the black elite, you’re either a Delta or an AKA—or you’re not in a sorority at all. Among this crowd, there are not many choices, and at the undergraduate level, the two sororities are often competing for the same candidates. AKA, the oldest of the sororities, was established in 1908 by a group of women at Howard. Since then, the AKAs have grown to more than 140,000 members participating in 860 chapters.
The competition that exists between the AKAs and the Deltas is so widely acknowledged that it is unusual to find a well-educated black woman who remains neutral on the issue. In fact, the best things I recall my AKA relatives saying about the Deltas when I was growing up were backhanded compliments like, “The Deltas are a great second choice for a girl who can’t get into AKA.” Since their inception, the two sororities have attempted to distinguish themselves by comparing the grade point averages and other accomplishments of their student members. Even in its first five years of existence, in an act of sheer public relations genius, AKA staked its claim on superior scholarship by establishing an AKA award at Howard University for that female student who achieves the highest grade point average. Just because of a long-standing family bias toward AKAs, I always presumed that the AKAs were the premier group of the two. Today, I realize that both of them place a great emphasis on achievement—perhaps an emphasis that is not matched by any of their male counterparts.
My aunt, Phyllis Walker, recalls that when she was a college sophomore, “long before the step shows came into existence, we had to learn a lot more about the historic beginnings of the AKAs, and we did it by writing long letters of application to the Ivy Leaf Pledge Club—the senior wing of the sorority that regulated the admissions process—and then attending monthly meetings where the older students tutored us on the history.”
Like other sororities, the AKAs would have a “pledge week.” If
you survive being “on line”—a time when your grades are closely scrutinized—as well as the pledge week, then you are admitted.
“Even though I was presented at the AKA cotillion in Pittsburgh, I always knew that my sister and I would grow up to be Deltas,” says Paquita Harris Attaway of Washington, as she recalls her mother’s staunch support of the group. “My mom loved being a Delta and ended up serving as vice chairman of the National Panhellenic Council.” A tradition of more mother-daughter memberships may be a particular attraction for some pledges who select the Deltas over the slightly more famous AKA group.
Although it is the second oldest of the sororities, the Deltas are the largest of the black sororities, as well as the largest black women’s organization in the United States. With just under 200,000 members in 850 chapters, they have been a powerful force in politics, as well as civic and social affairs.
Included in the Delta membership roster through its history have been Patricia Roberts Harris, who served as President Johnson’s secretary of HEW and ambassador to Luxembourg; Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois; Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm; Lena Horne, actress and singer; Mary McLeod Bethune, college founder and adviser to Eleanor Roosevelt; Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who was the first black to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention; journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault; and Dr. Betty Shabazz, wife of Malcolm X. Delta was founded in 1913 at Howard University, and the Deltas have chapters throughout the United States as well as in Haiti, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Virgin Islands, and various countries in Africa.
Vashti Turley Murphy, the daughter of John Murphy, the publisher of the powerful newspaper Afro-American in Baltimore, was a student at Howard when she helped start the group. In recent years, the Deltas have gained some additional popularity through the publication of In Search of Sisterhood, a book about the Deltas by Paula Giddings, a well-respected Howard graduate and Delta member.
In addition to organizing their own annual national and regional conferences, the Deltas send delegates to international conferences that address human rights issues. For example, the Deltas sent a team of sorors, including eighteenth national president Hortense Canady, to Beijing, China, for the controversial World Conference on Women, at which they presented workshops on research and educational issues. The group has also made presentations at the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual legislative weekend. Among their past national presidents are two of black American history’s most prominent women: Dorothy Height and Sadie Alexander. Height, who served as president from 1947 to 1958, holds honorary degrees from Tuskegee Institute, Harvard, and many other universities, and is distinguished by her leadership of the National Council of Negro Women and her board membership at the American Red Cross. The group’s first national president, Sadie T. M. Alexander, was a Philadelphia attorney, a Ph.D., and the first black woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School—in 1927.
“Some of the most accomplished women in American history are Deltas,” adds Delta member Sharon Mackel of Cleveland as she prepares to leave a recent Jack and Jill conference to attend a Delta convention. “They are the most inspiring group of people.” In many cities, the Deltas, along with the AKAs and the Links, are considered among the most important hosts of the old guard’s prestigious debutante cotillions.
Although they perform a great deal of public service and fund-raising to support diabetes research and projects sponsored by the March of Dimes and the National Council of Negro Women, Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho are not nearly as popular among the old guard.
Founded in 1920 by five classmates at Howard, Zeta Phi Beta has eighty-five thousand members with six hundred chapters in the United States, Africa, Germany, Italy, and the Bahamas. The female Zetas are often partnered with the male Sigmas, and their membership has included writer Zora Neale Hurston, singer Dionne Warwick, actress Esther Rolle, and former National Bar Association president Algenita Scott Davis.
Youngest of all the large sororities, Sigma Gamma Rho was founded in 1922 at Butler University in Indianapolis and has about 72,000 members. Although it has not attracted quite the same number of high-status alumni, Sigma has included Dr. Lorraine Hale, director of Hale House; Congresswoman Corrine Brown of Florida; and Academy Award–winning actress Hattie McDaniel among its members.
As a virtual outsider to the entire college fraternity experience, there have been many social and business gatherings where I have found myself at a disadvantage for not having belonged to a black fraternity. And not surprisingly, to some blacks above the age of fifty, I am “suspect.” I am seen as being less connected and less committed to the black culture and the “black struggle.” In conversations at New York business networking events or at Martha’s Vineyard summer cookouts, there is inevitably a moment when a host or guest asks the question, “So, are you an Alpha?”
And the answer they are seeking is not whether I belong to a fraternity. The presumption is that since we are in the presence of other black people, and since we consider ourselves to be authentically black, I must, of course, have ties to one of the great black Greek college groups.
To respond that Princeton had no fraternities is not a satisfactory answer because I could have gotten on a bus and joined at another campus that did have them. To respond that I belong to the Boulé, the prestigious fraternity for adult black men, is also not satisfactory because it does not account for how I spent my four college years. The only response is to admit my guilt, and then somehow spend the next fifteen minutes trying to win back my place among a group that doesn’t take kindly to outsiders.
Regardless of how people like me explain our decision not to join black fraternities in college, there are many real challenges to the growth of black fraternities and sororities.
White colleges that have been unsupportive of black fraternities are just one of the challenges that threaten the black Greek system today. This lack of support makes the organizations appear unstable and unpopular, as the groups see their chapters activated, temporarily deactivated, and then reestablished. For example, the Rho Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta was formed at Columbia University in 1923, then deactivated in the 1960s, and then reactivated again in the 1980s.
“Another one of our challenges,” says a Kappa who graduated from the University of Virginia, “is that black frats are not nearly as rich as the white frats. When I was in school, the white frats had generations of rich alumni sending them money to build incredible mansions for their frat houses. We didn’t have that kind of support because there were so few black alumni.”
But there are problems facing some of the black fraternities that money can’t solve: the recent “animal-house” type of hazing incidents that, until recently, were more typically associated with white Greek-letter organizations. In recent years, there have been a rising number of violent incidents during the admissions or initiation stages at several campus chapters. In 1994, for example, at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a student pledge of Kappa Alpha Psi died of injuries inflicted by two frat brothers who later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. And in 1995, a University of Maryland student sued Omega Psi Phi, and was later awarded $375,000, after he suffered injuries following initiation beatings that lasted over a four-week period. During that time, the student, Joseph Snell, said that frat brothers regularly hit him with a hammer and a horsewhip, and that they forced an electric space heater near his face in order to darken his skin because they felt he wasn’t “black” enough.
As the Omega national office said in the Maryland case, such offensive initiations are not sanctioned. The Omega’s former Grand Basileus Dr. C. Tyrone Gilmore is frustrated by the aggressive nature of some of the fraternity brothers. “We are seeing an angry, mob mentality among some students that never existed in my father’s or my own generation.” He adds that the whole intent behind these organizations is to increase camaraderie among members and that all the fraternities an
d sororities work hard to remove rogue frat brothers who violate the organizations’ codes of ethics.
Even though the hazing incidents have created sad moments, they involved a very small percentage of the groups’ members. Nonetheless, the incidents have caused some older members to adopt more conservative attitudes. “These new students have it easy,” says Delta member Ella Yates. “In my generation you had to walk a fine line to both get into and stay inside one of these groups. Some people say we ought to loosen the academic requirements. I say we should do just the opposite.”
Many of the old guard agree with Yates. Many of them recognize that what makes these organizations important and special is the high standards and the prominent members who belong to them. When I attend gatherings of frat brothers or sorority sisters—people who may not have known each other in college, but who share an identity that was formed there—I find myself recognizing that there are few institutions that are able to unify so many people for such lasting relationships. For this reason, the black fraternities and sororities will endure regardless of how admission requirements might change.
CHAPTER 6
The Links and the Girl Friends: For Black Women Who Govern Society
“What about the ones hanging on that rack?”
“Or the ones on that table?”
The saleswoman could see that neither my father, my brother, nor I knew anything about buying evening handbags. We’d been to Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, finally arriving at Neiman Marcus by the late afternoon.
“Your mother’s taking this stuff seriously,” my father remarked. “So, it’s got to be something good.”
As the slender saleswoman opened up a light blue cloth bag and pulled out a small purse covered with glittering crystals, she smiled broadly. “This is a Judith Leiber,” she said as we shrugged our shoulders at a name that meant absolutely nothing to us. “She only uses fine Austrian crystals, and it’s a brand that says you’ve made it.”
Our Kind of People Page 14
