Our Kind of People

by Lawrence Otis Graham

  Founded in 1956 by a group of women from Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newport News, and Washington, D.C., the Continental Societies, Inc., is another popular women’s social club. With chapters in most major American cities and Bermuda, the Continentals—as they are known—provide programs and raise money for young people, families, and institutions that focus on health, employment, recreation, and education. Whether by design or by accident, the group has remained relatively small, adding only six chapters in the last sixteen years, bringing the total to thirty-five chapters. Manhattan resident Dee Matthews serves as the group’s national president.

  Another rather small group is the Carats, first formed in the mid-1970s. Its three hundred members belong to chapters in thirteen cities including Cleveland, New York, Detroit, Chattanooga, Columbus, and Macon, Georgia. In addition to hosting social functions, the group gives scholarships to college students.

  Some say that the elite women’s social clubs are beginning to face new challenges as the number of women in the black upper class increases. Some are watching the good work of the Coalition of One Hundred Black Women and trying to figure out if professional groups like that will satisfy the new, young elite. I’ve heard the discussions among my family and friends. They argue that the old-guard families will start getting displaced by women with new money and new families that have few connections to what was familiar to the older founders who focused on lineage and black issues.

  “It’s true that the old families aren’t the only ones with money these days,” says a Florida Link, “but you’ll never see them letting in nouveau wives of athletes and entertainers. They’ll hold the line on that kind of member.”

  Others insist that the growing phenomenon of integration and the increase of interracial coupling will create challenges to the agenda of some of the groups, steering them away from black-focused charity giving. “I can’t imagine we’d ever move away from our agenda of supporting black causes,” adds the Floridian, “but it’s true that an emphasis on one’s black lineage may get diluted by these rich young people who live a more integrated life than the rest of us. And of course some of these new biracial kids and adults don’t care about blacks at all. But we’ll survive them too.”

  “As educated professional black women, our most important duty is to serve as role models, mentors, and volunteers in our communities,” says Evelyn Reid Syphax, a member of the Links, Girl Friends, AKAs, and Coalition of One Hundred Black Women. Although the Arlington, Virginia, resident’s famous and well-to-do family can trace its ancestors back to American first lady Martha Washington’s grandson, she says family background and social status are not the reasons these women are working together in these organizations. “The kinds of programs and activities that we’re involved in should be performed by people who have the resources and the ability to pull them together. If I’m fortunate enough to afford to do these things, it’s my duty. These other talented black women feel the same way. Social status doesn’t have to be a part of our picture.”

  While Syphax and other members of old-guard families are convinced that the next generation of young women will join these groups with the same fervor, I am not so sure of it. It is true that the Links, the largest and most aggressive of the black women’s groups, has maintained its popularity, but the other groups are challenged by the fact that more women among the black elite are busy with high-profile positions that make it impossible for them to do the things that their nonworking mothers did for these groups a generation ago. Many of my black female friends are saying that they want to join these groups and participate in the social and civic activities, but they are postponing it until they reach their forties. For now, these women are saying, “Let me write a check for a thousand dollars instead of asking me to volunteer my time.” For the most part, these groups will wait around for them, but in order to do this, they are going to see the average age of their members increasing. Unless they are willing to wait or accommodate the working professional woman, these elite groups will be populated primarily by retirees and by wealthy socialites who can make the commitment. Since it appears that they are unwilling to change their standards and widen the pool to include less affluent and less accomplished women, these organizations will have to grit their teeth and hold out for the best that the sisterhood has to offer. Unfortunately for them, the “best” may not be as substantial a number as it once was.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Boulé, the Guardsmen, and Other Groups for Elite Black Men

  “If your Boulé friends will back you, people will know you’re for real,” said my uncle when I told him that I was considering running for political office.

  “The Boulé?”

  My uncle looked at me in astonishment. “That shouldn’t surprise you. Where else are you going to find better mentors? These are the kind of advisers you need.”

  Although reluctant, within a half hour I was on the phone with some of the most influential men in the country—all of them black, all of them accomplished in their professions, all of them members of a men’s group into which I had been inducted three years earlier. The fact that this national organization included virtually every black mayor, congressman, banker, or millionaire was a reality that I should not have forgotten. After all, this was the organization that had already introduced me to E. Thomas Williams.

  Many people would say that E. Thomas Williams Jr.—known as E.T. among friends and colleagues—is one of the reasons that there continues to be a demand for elite black men’s organizations. Living with a foot in both the black and the white worlds, Williams is a prototype for the integrated black professional who is deeply rooted in old-guard black society yet comfortable at socializing and building a successful career among affluent white businessmen and philanthropists.

  His résumé is dazzling. It has included such board memberships as the Museum of Modern Art, the Central Park Conservancy, the Brooklyn Museum, Boys Harbor, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the Visiting Committee of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Eastville Historical Society in Sag Harbor, and the Fiduciary Trust Company. His social memberships include the exclusive University Club and the River Club. In the 1960s, he volunteered in the Peace Corps, where he roomed with Senator Paul Tsongas, and later held senior management positions at the Chase Manhattan Bank before becoming a real estate entrepreneur. For forty years, he has been an important player in the black Sag Harbor community of the Hamptons and has held board memberships with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Schomburg Center library in Harlem, and Atlanta University. As an avid collector of artwork by Romare Beardon and Jacob Lawrence, he received the Patron of the Arts award from the Studio Museum of Harlem.

  E.T.’s wife, Auldlyn, as the daughter of a well-regarded Baltimore surgeon, was presented at the Me-De-So Cotillion, then graduated from Westover, Bennington, and Fisk. She was the first black to join Baltimore’s Junior League. Their children are graduates of Spence, Andover, and Harvard.

  E.T. has ties to the most important men’s groups in the world of black society: Sigma Pi Phi Boulé, the Comus Social Club, the Reveille Club, and One Hundred Black Men.

  “The reason I joined groups like the Boulé, One Hundred Black Men, and the Comus Club,” explains Williams while reclining in a wicker chair at his summer home in a family compound in Sag Harbor, “is that I feel it’s important for black people to find places where we can meet, network, and socialize with people that understand our experiences and our concerns.”

  When you look at the résumés of most men among the black elite, you find fewer different social organizations than are represented by the many women who are active in the social and civic world. Because of this, some members of the black elite insist that women are the primary social organizers. But even if there are not as many different organized men’s groups, the number of prominent and accomplished men involved in these select, very elite organizations belies that claim.

  The groups discussed here are organizat
ions which are fraternal, professional, or social, but which have no ties to Greek-letter college fraternities. Some of the groups are as informal as the Rainbow Yacht Club, a group of black yacht owners, most of whom are physicians in New York and surrounding areas. The best-known groups are formally incorporated institutions with local chapters throughout the country. The most prestigious of all these groups is the Boulé, a fraternal organization founded in 1904, but many say that all of these groups found their roots in a group that my father and many other family members have participated in: the oldest surviving black fraternal men’s organization, the Prince Hall Masons.

  Founded in 1776 by Prince Hall, a black Methodist minister who had been born on the island of Barbados and emigrated to Massachusetts, the Masons spun off from an already-established white organization for men. Before later serving a nine-month term in the Revolutionary War, Hall and fourteen fellow blacks living in Boston joined the British Army Lodge of the original Mason organization. When he and the other blacks felt they were not received as well as they had hoped, he asked permission to start an all-black lodge of the same organization. After repeated requests, the British Grand Lodge gave him permission to begin what became a “black version” of the organization. As head of the new organization, he assumed the Mason title, “Most Worshipful Master” of the organization. By the late 1790s, Hall was permitted to form affiliate lodges in Philadelphia and Providence.

  While the group never focused on attracting affluent men as members, it has always emphasized the goals of collegiality and intellect. As the oldest ongoing black fraternal group in the United States, it is often seen as a model for the black men’s groups that followed. Intensely secretive, the Masons remain a large group with lodges in most major cities and metropolitan areas. When my father became the head of his lodge in Harlem, he found himself instantly linked to a network of black members—they refer to the group as “the Craft”—who are deeply involved in scholarship as well as community projects throughout the country.

  Founded in 1904, the Boulé was the first elite national black men’s club. Although its official name, Sigma Pi Phi, suggests that it might be just another Greek-letter fraternity, nothing could be farther from the truth. The Boulé, as it is better known, is older than all of the black college fraternities, and as it is the quintessential organization for professional black men, members are not even considered until they are well beyond college and graduate school. It is considered by many the elite men’s club, and its membership has included the most accomplished, affluent, and influential black men in every city for the last ninety years.

  Distinguishing itself from other men’s clubs that might operate only on a local level, the Boulé selects its national membership strictly on the basis of professional accomplishments rather than popularity among a certain local social group. Conducting all of their official activities and social gatherings in black-tie attire with formal ceremonies, Boulé members are men who are attracted to the fraternity because of its intellectual discussions and its interest in promoting scholarship among a group of accomplished black professional men. Although the group no longer conducts its activities in secret settings, as it did during the first sixty years of its existence, it still has strict rules regarding which Boulé events can include nonmembers and which events will exclude unmarried sons and daughters of members. There are even rules regarding the burial or cremation of a deceased member of the Boulé.

  “In many ways,” a Washington member explained while recalling some of the members that he had met during his participation over the last thirty-five years, “the Boulé is a more select, male version of the Links group. We have attorneys, activists, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, socialites, executives, physicians, ambassadors, judges, and politicians—all of them highly accomplished and highly educated.”

  The group began when Dr. Henry Minton asked five colleagues—all doctors working in Philadelphia—to join him in forming a social organization that would, as he explained, “bring together a selected group of men with a minimum degree of superior education and culture—men who were congenial, tolerant, and hospitable.” Minton, a graduate of Phillips Exeter, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, and Jefferson Medical School, was a prototype of the kind of black men that the Boulé would both seek and attract. Not only had he been well educated and married into the powerful Wormley family of Washington, but he was also an achiever who was dedicated to improving the lives of other blacks.

  “Dr. Minton was responsible for opening the first two hospitals for blacks in the city—both Douglass and Mercy,” says Philadelphia-born Boyd Carney Johnson, who belongs to the Boulé in Westchester County, New York. “The Mintons who came after him were all dedicated to confronting racial discrimination in Philadelphia. When I was growing up, you heard about them constantly because they were opening doors that had been closed to black people previously.”

  An intensely intellectual group of men, these six doctors chose to model their group after ancient Greek organizations, in terms of structure and nomenclature. The word “boulé” was used because it meant “council of noblemen” or “senate.” The members were each referred to as “archons,” with the president known as “sire archon” and other officers taking Greek titles such as Grammateus, Thesauristes, Rhetoricus, and so forth.

  When I joined the group at the unusually young age of thirty-three, I remember it being an exciting but unsettling experience—not because members made it difficult, but because of the pressure I felt after reading the group’s history and hearing friends and family members speak of its prominence. Several weeks before my initiation into the chapter that had nominated me, I got hold of the 450-page Boulé manual and history book. It didn’t exactly prepare me for what I was in for.

  “So, Mr. Du Bois,” said a gravelly voice from behind me as I walked up the steep front steps of the Williams Club—a brownstone on the East Side of New York.

  I turned to him and shook my head, “Oh, no, I’m—”

  “I know who you are, Archon Graham,” the older man responded while extending his hand, complimenting me on my new Calvin Klein tuxedo and introducing himself as Dr. somebody. I was too uneasy to remember his name. I only noticed that he appeared to be a few years older than my parents.

  As we walked into the club, we were greeted by a white maître d’ who directed us toward an ancient elevator that seemed only large enough to carry three average-sized people. Nevertheless I was squeezed in with four other formally dressed men aged somewhere between fifty-five and seventy years old. “So, how are your parents?”

  “Very well, thank you.” These pleasant men looked familiar, but my mind was drawing a blank on each one of them. I had no idea what their names were yet felt encouraged that they obviously knew me. A couple were people I’d seen in the New York newspapers—the other two were faces I had met at various times during my childhood. I somehow got the sense that they knew I didn’t know their names—and that they enjoyed putting me at that disadvantage.

  The four men indicated that they knew my résumé quite well—even my brother’s, as one of them remarked that he had referred a patient to Richard’s practice. As the tiny elevator car screeched slowly up its path, I could think of nothing intelligent to say. All eight eyes were on me, but all I could do was stare alternately at the starched white collars peeking above these men’s conservatively cut tuxedo jackets. I pasted a smile on my face and immediately wondered if my Calvin Klein tux made me seem too nouveau for this group.

  “Say something conservative,” I told myself. “No, something clever. No—say something racial. No, tell them how grateful you are to be here—no, pretend it’s no big deal. No, maybe you’re not even admitted yet. Jesus Christ, why doesn’t somebody break the ice here?”

  The men continued to stare.

  And it was getting hotter.

  “When is this elevator going to stop? This building is only four stories!” I could hear myself screaming inside, shouting every thou
ght between my ears. As the elevator passed a second floor, I wondered if this was part of the test. Yeah, maybe getting through a three-minute elevator ride in the Williams Club with the Waspiest black men in New York City was the test. Just don’t fuck this up, Larry. Just don’t fuck it up.

  “This is possibly slower than the elevator at the Yale Club,” I finally said, shooting my wad at this reticent group.

  One of the men cracked a smile without showing his teeth. At least it looked like a smile.

  “We’ll be going over to the Yale Club with the wives later tonight,” said one with glasses. “I hope you and your wife will be joining us.”

  The door squeaked open and as we were led single file down a hallway, I wondered if the Yale Club invitation was an actual offer—or if it was conditional. “I hope you will be joining us? I hope you will join us.” There’s a difference between those two sentences, I thought. I’m still not accepted yet!

  At the end of the hall, the men went into one room, and then I was directed to wait in a narrow holding room at the other end. That’s when I learned that I was not the only new recruit.

  I was quickly told by a young member—a Morgan Stanley banker—that three of us were being “brought up” that evening at a private session to start momentarily.

  What do you mean, brought up? I asked myself. What does brought up mean? Is that like being proposed, or being initiated? There’s a big difference.

  The tall, slender banker also indicated that there was to be a formal dinner with speeches later that evening with the entire membership and all of our spouses in a downstairs dining room.

  Still not sure if I was being initiated or merely voted on, I introduced myself to the other two guys who stood silently against the hallway wall. They were both several years older and seemed amazingly calm. One of them looked black and the other looked white—completely white. The black-looking one was a managing director at a Wall Street investment bank (three years later he was to be profiled with my wife in a Fortune cover story on high-powered blacks in corporate America), and the other was an attorney at a major media company. We had all gone to Harvard Law School, and, in fact, there were five Harvard degrees between us.