THE
Sphinx A*A
—-
The
Sphinx
Volume 5 2
Number
1
February,
1966
ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC. P.O. Box
285
Lincolnton Station New York, N. Y.
10037
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Directory for 1965-1966 Jewel Henry A. Callis
3206 E Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. Officers
General President — Bro. Lionel H. Newsom General Secretary — Bro. Laurence T. Young General Treasurer— Bro. Leven C. Weiss General Counsel — Bro. James H. McGee Editor, The Sphinx — Bro. George M. Daniels
Barber Scotia College, Concord, N. C. 4432 South Parkway, Chicago, III. 2920 Kendall St., Detroit, Mich. 1526 W. 3rd St., Dayton, Ohio 470 Lenox Ave., New York, N. Y.
Vice Presidents Eastern — Bro. Frank J. Ellis Midwestern — Bro. Billy Jones Southwestern — Bro. Jacob T. Stewart Southern — Bro. W. Dewey Branch Western — Bro. Oscar V. Little
1929 W. Lanvale St., Baltimore, Md. 342a East Broadway, East St. Louis, III. P.O. Box #365, Grambling, La. 2801 14th Ave., North, Bessemer, Ala. 5835 Ernest Ave., Los Angeles, Calif.
Assistant Vice Presidents Eastern — Bro. Harry D. Mayo, III Midwestern — Bro. Randall Maxey Southwestern — Bro. Kirby Kirksey Western — Bro. Rufus Skillern Southern — Bro. Warren Davis
# 6 Gray St., Montclair, New Jersey 5100 Whetsel, Cincinnati, Ohio 3002 Ruth Street, Houston. Texas 7991 Sunkist Drive, Oakland, Calif. Florida A and M University, Tallahassee, Fla.
Comptroller— Bro. Gus T. Ridget Historian — Bro. Charles H. Wesley Dir. Ed. Activities — Bro. Oscar W. Ritchie
REGIONAL
105 Greenwood St., Boston, Mass. 179 Doyle Ave., Providence, R. I. 66 Dry Hill Road, Norwalk, Conn. 2190 Madison Ave., New York. N. Y. 40 W. Upsal St., Philadelphia, Pa. Delaware State College, Dover, Del. 3727 Dolfield. Baltimore, Md. 715 E. Princess Ann Rd., Norfolk, Va.
Midwestern Region Indiana — Bro. Montague Oliver I l l E. 19th, Gary, Indiana Northeast Ohio — Bro. Charles Nunn 10926 Pasadena Ave., Cleveland, Ohio Central Ohio — Bro. Oliver Sumlin 2724 Hoover Ave., Dayton, Ohio Northwest Ohio — Bro. Robert Stubblefield 1340 W. Woodruff. Toledo, Ohio Southern Illinois — Bro. Harold Thomas 1731 Gaty Ave., East St. Louis, Illinois West Missouri and Kansas — Bro. Edwin Byrd 2533 W. Paseo Dr., Kansas City, Mo. Wisconsin — Bro. Hoyt Harper 5344 N. 64th. Milwaukee, Wisconsin Southeast Ohio — Bro. Paul Turner 2335 Gardendale Dr., Columbus 19, Ohio Western Michigan — Bro. William Boards, Jr 680 W. Van Buren St., Battle Creek, Mich. Northern Illinois — Bro. J. Herbert King 4728 Drexel Blvd., Chicago, Illinois East Missouri — Bro. Clifton Bailey 3338A Aubert Ave., St. Louis 15, Mo. Iowa — Bro. Ernest Russell 3927 Amherst St., Des Moines, Iowa Southwest Ohio — Bro. Holloway Sells 699 N. Crescent Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio Kentucky— Bro. Herbert Olivera Kentucky State College, Frankfort, Kentucky Regional Secretary— Bro. James T. Adams 4247 Boston Ave., Detroit, Mich. Southwestern Region Oklahoma — Bro. Vernon L. Fosbee 569 N. 9th Street, Muskogee, Okla. Louisiana — Bro. Anthony M. Rachal, Jr 6727 Congress Drive, New Orleans, La. Arkansas— Bro. James A. Vault 2012 Commerce St., Little Rock, Ark. Southern Region
Bro. Odell Lewis Bro William Corbin Bro. Carlton Dias
Contributing Editors
Editorial Advisory
Committee
Frank Ellis, M a l v i n R. Goode, M a r s h a l l H a r r i s , J o h n H. J o h n s o n , Moss H. K e n d r i x , J . H e r b e r t K i n g , B e l f o r d V. Lawson, S a m u e l A. M a d d e n , J . E. M a r t i n , Lionel H. N e w s o m , Gus T. Ridgel, Floyd S h e p h e r d , L. H. Stant o n , Felix W a r r e n , Laurence T. Y o u n g . Staff Photographer Henry Crawford
4272 Washington St., St. Louis, Mo.
DIRECTORS
Eastern Region Massachusetts — Bro. James Howard Rhode Island — Bro. Ralph Allen Connecticut — Bro. W. Decker Clark New York — Bro. Marvin A. Riley Pennsylvania — Bro. Allan Durrant Delaware—Bro. Frederick Franklin Maryland-Washington — Bro. Frank J. Ellis Virginia — Bro. Alfred C. Fentress
Daniels
W. B a r t o n B e a t t y , Charles A. B r o a d d u s , S t e n s o n E. B r o a d d u s , Robert F. C u s t i s , David A. Dowdy, J. M. Ellison, M a l v i n R. Goode, M a r t i n L. Harvey, Maceo Hill, L. W. Jeffries, B e l f o r d V. L a w s o n , S a m u e l A. M a d d e n , Lionel H. N e w s o m , Gus T. Ridgel, Floyd S h e p h e r d , A. Maceo S m i t h , Frank L. Stanley, Sr., L. H. S t a n t o n , Charles Wesley, O. Wilson W i n t e r s , L a u r e n c e T. Y o u n g .
Kentucky State College, Frankfort, Ky. 1824 Taylor Street, N.W.. Washington, D.C. 4778 Lakewood Rd., Ravenna, Ohio
Chr, Alpha Phi Alpha Building Foundation, Inc.— Bro. William M. Alexander
Alabama — Bro. Kirkwood Balton Georgia — Bro. Henry Collier Florida — Bro. James H. Green Mississippi — Bro. T. J. Ranee North Carolina — Bro. G. H. Vaughn South Carolina — Bro. Luke Chatman Tennessee — Bro. George W. James
Editor-in-Chief George M o r r i s
1303 Main St., Birmingham, Ala. 1527 Mills B. Lane Ave., Savannah, Ga. 1539 W. 23rd St., Jacksonville, Fla. 407 Washington St., Brookhaven, Miss. 1708 Shady Ave., Winston-Salem, N. C. P.O. Box 1311, Greeneville, S. C. 1527 E. 3rd St., Chattanooga, Tenn. Western Region 330-22nd Avenue, East, Seattle, Washington 2401 W. Cherry Lynn Road, Phoenix, Arizona 949 Broderick St., San Francisco, California
The Sphinx is the official magazine of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., 4432 South Parkway, Chicago, III., with editorial offices at 282 Convent Ave., New York, N. Y. Published four times a year: February, May, October and December. Address all editorial mail to P.O. Box 285, Lincolnton Station, New York, N. Y. 10037. Change of Address: Send both addresses to Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, 4432 South Parkway, Chicago, III. Manuscripts or art submitted to The Sphinx should be accompanied by addressed envelopes and return postage. Editor assumes no responsibi'ity for return of unsolicited manuscripts of art. Subscription: $2.00 per year. Opinions expressed in columns and articles do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and use of any person's name in fiction, semi-fiction articles or humorous features is to be regarded as a coincidence and not as the responsibility of The Sphinx. It is never done knowingly. Copyright 1965 by The Sphinx, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Reproduction or use, without written permission, of the editorial or pictorial content in any manner is prohibited. The Sphinx since 1914. W. Cannon. Henry Lake
has been published continuously Organizing Editor: Bro. Raymond Organizing General President: Bro. Dickason.
Second class postage paid at New York, N. Y. Postmaster: Send form 3579 and all correspondence to P.O. Box 285, Lincolnton Station, New York, N. Y. 10037.
TOP OF THE MONTH
Contents
Operation 'Crystal Ball'
Features
By the time this issue reaches its readers there will be less than 180 days until the national convention in St. Louis, Mo., August 15, 1966. Epsilon Lambda Chapter pledges to have the "biggest, best and greatest" convention that has ever been held in the history of Alpha. According to Brother Shelby Freeman, president, Epsilon Lambda, on January 1, had 162 financial Brothers — including 32 life members. Sixty-four Brothers have been reclaimed in the past year.
Africa: A Challenge to the Negro college Student by James H. Robinson/ Dick Campbell
Coming Events: Sororities and the Husband Game—by John Finley Scott
World Poverty Can Be Wiped Out
Eastern Regional Midwestern Regional Southwestern Regional Southern Regional Western Regional
Richmond, Va. Akron, Ohio Muskogee, Okla. Memphis, Tenn. Las Vegas, Nev.
May April April April May
13-15 22-24 8-10 8-10 6-8
14 A Letter to the Editor:
DEPARTMENTS
Editorials
13
Alpha Workshop
16
Educational Activities
20
Frat Humor
21
Chapter News
22
A growing number of letters are being received from Alphas who have either gripes or praise not only for the Sphinx but for Alpha as well. Some chapters, for instance, want to know why color has been eliminated in the Sphinx, and why after so many years of publishing are there so few pages? One chapter declared that "black and white gives such a drab appearance" and some articles seem "long and drawn out." Another chapter wrote that too little undergraduate news has been included in the last two issues. These letters will be answered in due time, but perhaps it might be well to mention that news of any chapter, graduate or undergraduate can only be considered for publication after receipt by the Sphinx Magazine. The primary responsibility weighs heavily upon the shoulders of chapter associate editors. However, we hope that the expansion of chapter news in this issue alleviates some of the problems of past issues. Our Contributors Operation Crossroads Africa is one of the human relations miracles of our time — at home and abroad in Africa. Brothers James H. Robinson, founder and director, and Dick Campbell, director of Development and Information, are both well-known New Yorkers, each affiliated with Alpha for more than 30 years. Their article starts on page 4. . . . Sororities and the Husband Game is a provocative critique of sororities and the girls to belong to them. The author, John Finley Scott is a lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Davis. His article was first printed in the September/October 1965 Trans-Action magazine, by the Community Leadership Project of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Coming
COVER: This month's cover of the Sphinx comes from Cairo, Egypt, through the courtesy of Brother Dr. Charles H. Garvin of Cleveland, Ohio, who toured Africa several years ago. "I was tired of seeing poor replicas of the Sphinx being used in so many places," said Dr. Garvin, "so I thought the Fraternity would appreciate a photograph of the real thing."
The May issue will include Dr. C. Eric Lincoln's analysis of the 20th Century Negro family, Brother Mai Goode's fighting critique of Alpha graduates who shirk community responsibility, and a remarkable letter from an undergraduate brother of Delta Nu Chapter, Maryland State College, who has a few kind and unkind remarks for "those graduate brothers who feel far above and beyond" their younger brothers, and who appear to be "top kicks" instead of fathers. Deadline for the May issue: April 22, 1966
AFRICA A CHALLENGE TO THE NEGRO COLLEGE STUDENT By REV. JAMES H. ROBINSON and DICK CAMPBELL Are American Negro college students losing ground in Africa? Are they failing to take advantage of opportunities to develop friendship and rapport with African students? Will more and more U.S. Foreign Service Posts in Africa during the next decade go to non-Negroes by default? These are questions which are troubling the elder statesmen of American Negro leadership. Not enough Negro students seem to be willing to learn about Africa first hand, to identify with the countries, and to meet the challenge offered by such budding nations as Malawi, Zambia, Chad, Kenya, Uganda and others. Perhaps it is due to the great emphasis placed on Civil Rights during the last few years, and if so this can be justifiable to a great extent. But not to the extent that is evident by lack of participation in African Affairs on the part of Negro college students as is the case today. If any organization or agency should know about this lack of interest, it would be Operation Crossroads Africa. Operation Crossroads Africa sends upwards of 300 American college students to Africa for eight weeks each summer. Of the 300, only about 15% are Negroes. Ordinarily this is not a bad representation, but for Africa it should be better. "What will happen to Negro leadership in Africa in another decade?" one might ask. Frankly, Crossroads is concerned. But what is Crossroads, what does it do, and how can it remedy this situation? "Operation Crossroads Africa" said the late President John F. Kennedy, was, "the progenitor of the Peace Corps." It does on the student level what Peace Corps does on the adult level. Crossroads and
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Peace Corps, however, have very different ways of expressing the same American ideal. Ruth Plimpton, in a recent article explains the difference fully. "Crossroads is a private organization and the Peace Corps is governmental. Private and public enterprise are as important complimenting one another overseas as they are at home. The Peace Corps carries the privileges, responsibilities, and the limitations inherent in any governmental organization. Crossroads has the independence of a private institution. It is freer to move. The men and women who form the Peace Corps are for the most part graduate students with a specific skill who are ready to make a two-year commitment. Crossroaders are mainly undergraduates who are not required to have any specific skills but who must be willing to do unskilled manual labor along with their African counterparts. The Crossroads experience offers a student an introduction to Africa during one summer vacation, without compromising his long-term plans. He has the opportunity to observe many different kinds of service overseas which can be very helpful to him in planning his future. Crossroads limits its scope to Africa while Peace Corps has operations all over the world. Many Crossroaders later join the Peace Corps. As one of the Peace Corps officials said, "Participation in Operation Crossroads Africa is one of the most effective ways by which a person may prepare for service in the Peace Corps." Crossroads was founded by its director, Rev. James H. Robinson, Presbyterian minister who also founded the Church of the Master and the Morningside Community Center in Harlem. It is dedicated to building bridges of friendship and understanding between the people of Africa and America. It is a private, voluntary organization supported by charitable contributions, and has a cooperating relationship with some I I 2 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada from which it draws its participants each summer. Nearly 1 800 students have had the Crossroads experience in Africa since it was founded in 1957. They have been involved in 119 building projects in 28 countries of East, West, North and Central Africa, which
included village schools, maternity clinics, community centers, playgrounds, wells, roads and market places. Participants and Programs Crossroads owes most of its success in Africa to the careful screening and selection of its participants. A thorough comprehensive application is followed by interviews and reference checks. Each application is read by five members of the screening committee who mark their judgements of the individual on individual ballots. Pre-screening is done at 1 12 cooperating institutions but the Crossroads Committee makes the final selection. They are looking for students who "demonstrate a high level of scholarship, interest in foreign affairs, a record of constructive extracurricular activities, evidence of leadership potential and above all, desire and ability to relate to persons of other than their own racial, social, religious and economic group." But to get right down to specifics, the basis of Crossroads is the work project. Twenty African and American students working together on a classroom or a community center, cannot reduce the tremendous needs of African countries for technical assistance, for schools, or for new industries — but the Crossroads work project is a symbol — a symbol of the the faith Americans have in the future of Africa. The work project is a place where Africans and Americans can work together on the same level sharing ideas and ideals, a place where Africans can ask Americans about Birmingham and Selma and where American students can ask Africans about one party democracies. In 1963, two-hundred-sixty students were carefully selected from almost 4000 applicants to participate in Crossroads Africa. These students spent one week at an orientation program at Rutgers University where they met with Africans from the countries where they would be going, with members of the State Department, U.S. businessmen who have investments in Africa, with representatives from the church, and with Roy Wilkins of the NAACP. The Crossroaders left Rutgers on June 22, and when they reached Africa they divided into twenty-seven groups
each of which was assigned to one of nineteen countries in Africa. Crossroaders in Bechuanaland nearly nearly completed a library in Sesowe. Crossroaders in The Gambia planted 5,000 trees near Yundum College and then remodeled several abandoned chicken houses into classrooms for the college. In Ethiopia ten American Crossroaders and twenty-two Ethiopian Crossroaders built a community center, and three years prior to that approximately twenty American Crossroaders each with an average of twelve years teaching experience in America have had a special project for primary school teachers in Liberia. The Liberian teachers, who often have just a primary school degree themselves, travelled over
a week to learn teaching techniques from the American Crossroads teachers. This small mustard seed of a project planted in a remote Liberian village became an incentive to the National Education Association, Columbia University Teachers College and others to develop wider and more extensive teaching projects throughout Africa. Now in 1966, a massive program of teacher training has reached into remote areas throughout Africa below the Sahara. And where the N.E.A., Columbia and other large private university programs leave off, the Peace Corps takes over. Over the years, however, the organization has developed more professional service programs as a result of urgent requests
from African countries. These include physical education, medical, public health, nutrition programs, and other pilot programs which sometimes serve as a yardstick for government-supported programs. In Enugu, Eastern Nigeria last summer Crossroaders innoculated over ten thousand babies against measles. The same type of program was followed in Kenya with similar results. At the moment an idea is being weighed by Crossroads to keep a year round medical team functioning in Dahomey, one that would not only innoculate against diseases which cripple millions, but would render aid and relief to those already in need of medical treatment. Again, where Crossroads leaves off in setting up pilot programs such as these,
Crossroaders — American and Canadian inoculated more than 10,000 babies against measles in Enugu, Eastern Nigeria during the summer of '65. Above mothers with babies flock to clinic for inoculations.
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larger and more well equipped programs of a similar nature sponsored by the government would take over in the form of foreign aid. Recently physical education programs have been the focus of some of Crossroads activities. A Tufts University athletic team engaged in a summer's activity in Togo in 1964. Basketball, track and other athletic games were taught by the team to youth groups in this tiny Republic. Likewise in Egypt, where a swimming team headed by coach Clarence Pendleton of Howard University gave instructions to the youth, a great satisfaction was achieved. In Guinea, Senegal and Mali, many of the athletes were assisted in preparation for the Brazzaville games, which is something of an African Olympics. In Somali, the police force was instructed in recreation and physical education during the summer of 1964 and 1965 and more will follow in 1966. Potential Careers Crossroads has thus become a living demonstration at the grassroots level that America cares. People of every religious and ethnic background have taken part in the program, and it is significant that young Crossroaders raise about one-third to one-half of the cost of this participation, although. Crossroads gives every participant a $750.00 grant outright if he or she is fortunate enough to be accepted after
the thorough screening. Each year almost one million Americans have a chance to hear the vivid first-hand descriptions of what has been referred to until fairly recently as the "dark continent." The introduction to more permanent fields of service in Africa and around the world is one of the great Crossroads services, but to the individual Crossroader and the many African agencies in need of enlightened personnel, these opportunities have been one of the privileges of the young generation. Parents of Crossroaders have become so stimulated by the reports of their sons and daughters that they have experienced the desire to share in some of this African experience. As a result, Crossroads charted an Adult Seminar Tour for a three-weeks trip to East Africa in 1964. The impact of the program continues long after participation ends. Over 30% of former Crossroaders have returned to Africa to work with Peace Corps, the United Nations, AID, USIS, the East Africa Teachers Program, or have gone on to major in African Studies or to participate in some other type of international outreach program. American private industry abroad is now absorbing former Crossroaders, not only for African posts but throughout the free world. As American involvement in Africa grows, the need for people who have had experience in Africa, who are able to communicate with Africans and who can
interpret Africa and its unique problems to the people of America increases. For this reason Crossroaders have a responsibility to Crossroads and to their community to communicate their experiences in Africa by making fifty speeches upon their return to America. They give talks on their Crossroads experiences to church, school, college, and civic groups; they write newspaper and magazine articles; and they appear on radio and television programs. The responsibility of giving these talks means continued learning, thinking, and articulating about Africa and is chartering one for four-weeks to West Africa in July 1966. The ultimate goals attained by these students after graduation and after participation in a Crossroads experience is thus the cause of a legitimate concern on the part of American Negro leadership. Perhaps this situation should be posed directly to the fraternities, sororities, campus organizations or the predominately Negro colleges itself. Crossroads is very anxious to increase the proportion of its Negro membership, but realizes there are many more obstacles for a Negro student than there is for a white one to overcome before he can take a summer that spends rather than earn money. It is particularly desirable that groups have a color balance, for Negro Crossroaders often serve as passports to Africa for the white students. The racial identification is immediate and effective, especially in the beginning before the diversified group of Americans, Canadians and African counterparts had the chance to discover the real human beings so often hidden by the many differences of background. Challenge to Students
Steve Moore, extreme left, Orange County Community College in New York teaching members of Somali police force how to handle basketball. Jim Bartok, second from right with sweatshirt similar to Moore's was co-instructor with Steve Moore functioning under Chris Chacis of the same institution.
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For many Crossroaders, the summer offers the first opportunity for Negro and white students to meet as individuals rather than representatives of different races. One girl confessed that her reaction on being introduced to her group at Rutgers was to make a careful count of "how many blacks and how many whites" there were. "By the end of the summer," says Ruth Plimpton who recorded the conversation, "I couldn't have told you, I was too busy counting something else — the
color had nothing to do with it." Can American Negroes afford to view this splendid opportunity to relate to Africa on a grassroots level in a low key? One realizes that Negro students and Negroes generally have been terribly concerned with their own experiences in the field of Civil Rights during the past several years. One is also conscious that this interest in Civil Rights is paying off with greater opportunities every day in this country of ours, but can Negroes generally overlook the tremendous contribution the darker nations of the world have played not only in progress for the Negro in America, but throughout the world? Indeed, the emphasis on Africa and Africans in the United Nations is such that Negroes
all over the world have felt the impact of their fight for a better life. It was not until the surge of African nationalism and its subsequent denial of colonialism that American Negroes really began to reach a more receptive ear to their cries for freedom and equality at home. This identification with the African by the American Negro however, should not stop at the color line. More, much more, is at stake. The newly emerging nations are rich with potential resources for the development of mankind. Pioneering opportunities abound in teaching, medical, technical and other services. Hundreds of nonNegro American and Canadian students realize this, and scores are returning to
Africa after the brief Crossroads experience to make a more lengthly and lasting contribution. And the contributions are working both ways, to those who give and those who receive. Predominately Negro fraternities, sororities and campus organizations could do well to take the lead in this effort, to stimulate discussion within their ranks on Africa and even create scholarship aid to potential Crossroaders who wish to become involved in overseas educational opportunities. Students interested in this kind of meaningful exchange and continuing relationship which benefits both the people of America and Africa might write Crossroads Africa at 150 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.
Pat Sumi, Japanese American from Occidental College, Dr. Brian Harris, Canadian physician extreme left, and Carrie Johnson directly behind Pat Sumi, are only three Crossroaders in picture.
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Sororities and the Husband Can they still guarantee catching the "right kind" of man? JOHN FINLEY SCOTT Marriages, like births, deaths, or initiations at puberty, are arrangements of structure that are constantly recurring in any society; they are moments of the continuing social process regulated by custom; there are institutionalized ways of dealing with such events. A. R. Radcliff-Brown African System of Kinship and Marriage
In many simple societies, the "institutionalized ways" of controlling marriage run to diverse schemes and devices. Often they include special living quarters designed to make it easy for marriageable girls to attract a husband; the Bontok people of the Philippines keep their girls in a special house, called the olag, where lovers call, sex play is free, and marriage is supposed to result. The Ekoi of Nigeria, who like their women fat, send them away to be specially fattened for marriage. Other peoples, such as the Yao of central Africa and the aborigines of the Canary Islands, send their daughters away to "convents" where old women teach them the special skills and mysteries that a young wife needs to know. Accounts of such practices have long been a standard topic of anthropology lectures in universities, for the exotic appeal keeps the students, large numbers of whom are sorority girls, interested and alert. The control of marriage in simple societies strikes these girls as quite different from the freedom that they believe prevails in America. This is ironic, for the American college sorority is a pretty good counterpart in complex societies of the fatting houses and convents of the primitives. Whatever system they use, parents in all societies have more in mind than just getting their daughters married; they want them married to the right man. The criteria for defining the right man vary tremendously, but virtually all parents view some potential mates with approval, some with disapproval, and some with downright horror. Many ethnic groups, including many in America, are endogamous, that is, they desire marriage of their young only to those within the group. In shtetl society, the Jewish villages of eastern Europe, marriages were arranged by a shatchen, a matchmaker, who paired off the
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girls and boys with due regard to the status, family connections, wealth, and personal attractions of the participants. But this society was strictly endogamous—only marriage within the group was allowed. Another rule of endogamy relates to social rank or class, for most parents are anxious that their children marry at least at the same level as themselves. Often they hope the children, and especially the daughters, will marry at a higher level. Parents of the shtetl, for example, valued hypergamy—the marriage of daughters to a man of higher status— and a father who could afford it would offer substantial sums to acquire a scholarly husband (the most highly prized kind) for his daughter. The marriage problem, from the point of view of parents and of various ethnic groups and social classes, is always one of making sure that girls are available for marriage with the right man while at the same time guarding against marriage with the wrong man.
THE UNIVERSITY CONVENT The American middle class has a particular place where it sends its daughters so they will be easily accessible to the boys —the college campus. Even for the families who worry about the bad habits a nice girl can pick up at college, it has become so much a symbol of middle-class status that the risk must be taken, the girl must be sent. American middle-class society has created an institution on the campus that, like the fatting house, makes the girls more attractive; like the Canary Island convent, teaches skills that middle-class wives need to know; like the shtetl, provides matchmakers; and without going so far as to buy husbands of high rank, manages to dissuade the girls from making alliances with lower-class boys. That institution is the college sorority. A sorority is a private association which provides separate dormitory facilities with a distinctive Greek letter name for selected female college students. Membership is by invitation only, and requires recommendation by former members. Sororities are not simply the feminine counterpart of the college fraternity. They differ from fraternities because marriage is a more important determinant of social position for women than for men in American society, and because standards of conduct associated with marriage correspondingly bear stronger sanctions for women than for men. Sororities have much more "alumnae" involvement than fraternities, and fraternities adapt
"The sorority is not the servant of youthful interests; on the contrary, it is an organized agency for controlling, those interests. College-age 'activities' decide only the minor details; parentage alumnae control the important choices."
to local conditions and different living arrangements better than sororities. The college-age sorority "actives" decide only the minor details involved in recruitment, membership, and activities; parent-age alumnae control the important choices. The prototypical sorority is not the servant of youthful interests; on the contrary, it is an organized agency for controlling those interests. Through the sorority, the elders of family, class, ethnic, and religious communities can continue to exert remote control over the marital arrangements of their young girls. The need for remote control arises from the nature of the educational system in an industrial society. In simple societies, where children arc taught the culture at home, the family controls the socialization of children almost completely. In more complex societies, education becomes the province of special agents and competes with the family. The conflict between the family and outside agencies increases as children move through the educational system and is sharpest when the children reach college age. College curricula are even more challenging to family value systems than high school courses, and children frequently go away to college, out of reach of direct family influence. Sometimes a family can find a college that does not challenge family values in any way: devout Catholic parents can send their daughters to Catholic colleges; parents who want to be sure that daughter meets only "Ivy League" men can send her to one of the "Seven Sisters"—the women's equivalent of the Ivy League, made up of Radcliffe, Barnard, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, Mt. Holyokc, and Bryn Mawr if she can get in.
The solution of controlled admissions is applicable only to a small proportion of college-age girls, however. There are nowhere near the number of separate, sectarian colleges in the country that would be needed to segregate all the collegeage girls safely, each with her own kind. Private colleges catering mostly to a specific class can still preserve a girl from meeting her social or economic inferiors, but the fees at such places are steep. It costs more to maintain a girl in the Vassar dormitories than to pay her sorority bills at a land-grant school. And even if her family is willing to pay the fees, the academic pace at the elite schools is much too fast for most girls. Most college girls attend large, tax-supported universities where the tuition is relatively low and where admissions policies let in students from many strata and diverse ethnic backgrounds. It is on the campuses of the free, open, and competitive state universities of the country that the sorority system flourishes. When a family lets its daughter loose on a large campus with a heterogenous population, there are opportunities to be met and dangers to guard against. The great opportunity is to meet a good man to marry, at the age when the girls are most attractive and the men most amenable. For the girls, the pressure of time is urgent; though they are often told otherwise, their attractions are in fact primarily physical, and they fade with time. One need only compare the relative handicaps in the marital sweepstakes of a 38-year old single male lawyer and a single, female teacher of the same age to realize the urgency of the quest. The great danger of the public campus is that young girls, however properly reared, are likely to fall in love, and—in our
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middle-class society at least—love leads to marriage. Love is a potentially random factor, with no regard for class boundaries. There seems to be no good way of preventing young girls from falling in love. The only practical way to control love is to control the type of men the girl is likely to encounter; she cannot fall dangerously in love with a man she has never met. Since kinship groups are unable to keep "undesirable" boys off the public campus entirely, they have to settle for control of counter-institutions within the university. An effective counter-institution will protect a girl from the corroding influences of the university environment. There are roughly three basic functions which a sorority can perform in the interest of kinship groups: —It can ward off the wrong kind of men. —It can facilitate moving-up for middle-status girls. —It can solve the "Brahmin problem"—the difficulty of proper marriage that afflicts high-status girls. Kinship groups define the "wrong kind of man" in a variety of ways. Those who use an ethnic' definition support sororities that draw an ethnic membership line; the best examples are the Jewish sororities, because among all the ethnic groups with endogamous standards (in America at any rate), only the Jews so far have sent large numbers of daughters away to college. But endogamy along class line is even more pervasive. It is the most basic mission of the sorority to prevent a girl from marrying out of her group (exogamy) or beneath her class (hypogamy). As one of the founders of a national sorority artlessly put it in an essay titled "The Mission of the Sorority": There is a danger, and a very grave danger, that four years' residence in a dormitory will tend to destroy right ideals of home life and substitute in their stead a belief in the freedom that comes from community living . . . culture, broad, liberalizing, humanizing culture, we cannot get too much of, unless while acquiring it we are weaned from home and friends, from ties of blood and kindred. A sorority discourages this dangerous weaning process by introducing the sisters only to selected boys; each sorority, for example, has dating relations with one or more fraternities, matched rather nicely to the sorority on the basis of ethnicity and/or class. (A particular sorority, for example, will have dating arrangements not with all the fraternities on campus, but only with those whose brothers are a class-match for their sisters.) The sorority's frantically busy schedule of parties, teas, meetings, skits, and exchanges keeps the sisters so occupied that they have neither time nor opportunity to meet men outside the channels the sorority provides.
MARRYING UP The second sorority function, that of facilitating hypergamy, is probably even more of an attraction to parents than the simpler preservation of endogamy. American society is not so much oriented to the preservation of the status quo as to the pursuit of upward mobility.
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In industrial societies, children are taught that if they study hard they can get the kind of job that entitles them to a place in the higher ranks. This incentive actually is appropriate only for boys, but the emphasis on using the most efficient available means to enter the higher levels will not be lost on the girls. And the most efficient means for a girl—marriage—is particularly attractive because it requires so much less effort than the mobility through hard work that is open to boys. To the extent that we do socialize the sexes in different ways, we are more likely to train daughters in the ways of attracting men than to motivate them to do hard, competitive work. The difference in motivation hold even if the girls have the intelligence and talent required for status climbing on their own. For lowerclass girls on the make, membership in a sorority can greatly improve the chances of meeting (and subsequently marrying) higher-status boys. Now we come to the third function of the sorority—solving the Brahmin problem. The fact that hypergamy is encouraged in our society creates difficulties for girls whose parents are already in the upper strata. In a hypergamous system, high status men have a strong advantage; they can offer their status to a prospective bride as part of the marriage bargain, and the advantages of high status are often sufficient to offset many personal drawbacks. But a woman's high status has very little exchange value because she does not confer it on her husband. This difficulty of high status women in a hypergamous society we may call the Brahmin problem. Girls of Brahmin caste in India and Southern white women of good family have the problem in common. In order to avoid the horrors of hypogamy. high status women must compete for high status men against women from all classes. Furthermore, high status women are handicapped in their battle by a certain type of vanity engendered by their class. They expect their wooers to court them in the style to which their fathers have accustomed them; this usually involves more formal dating, gift-giving, escorting, taxiing, etc., than many college swains can afford. If upper-stratum men are allowed to find out that the favors of lower class women are available for a much smaller investment of time, money, and emotion, they may well refuse to court upper-status girls. In theory, there are all kinds of ways for upper-stratum families to deal with surplus daughters. They can strangle them at birth (female infanticide); they can marry several to each available male (polygny); they can offer money to any suitable male willing to take one off their hands (dowries, groomservice fees). All these solutions have in fact been used in one society or another, but for various reasons none is acceptable in our society. Spinsterhood still works, but marriage is so popular and so well rewarded that everybody hopes to avoid staying single. The industrial solution to the Brahmin problem is to corner the market, or more specifically to shunt the eligible bachelors into a special marriage market where the upper stratum women are in complete control of the bride-supply. The best place to set up this protected marriage-market is where many suitable
men can be found at the age when they are most willing to marry—in short, the college campus. The kind of male collegians who can be shunted more readily into the specialized mariage-market that sororities run, are those who are somewhat uncertain of their own status and who aspire to move into higher strata. These boys are anxious to bolster a shaky self-image by dating obviously high-class sorority girls. The fraternities are full of them. How does a sorority go about fulfilling its three functions? The first item of business is making sure that the girls join. This is not as simple as it seems, because the values that sororities maintain are more important to the older generation than to college-age girls. Although the sorority image is one of membership denied to the "wrong kind" of girls, it is also true that sororities have quite a problem of recruiting the "right kind." Some are pressured into pledging by their parents. Many are recruited straight out of high schooi, before they know much about what really goes on at college. High school recruiters present sorority life to potential rushees as one of unending gaiety; life outside the sorority is painted as bleak and dateless. A membership composed of the "right kind" of girls is produced by the requirement that each pledge must have the recommendation of, in most cases, two or more alumnae of the sorority. Membership is often passed on from mother to daughter—this is the "legacy," whom sorority actives have to invite whether they like her or not. The sort of headstrong. innovative, or "sassy" girl who is likely to organize a campaign inside the sorority against prevailing standards is unlikely to receive alumnae recommendations. This is why sorority girls are so complacent about alumnae dominance, and why professors find them so bland and uninteresting as students. Alumnae dominance extends beyond recruitment, into the daily life of the house. Rules, regulations, and policy explanations come to the house from the national association. National headquarters is given to explaining unpopular policy by any available strategem; a favorite device (not limited to the sorority) is to interpret all non-conformity as sexual, so that the girl who rebels against wearing girdle, high heels, and stockings to dinner two or three times a week stands implicitly accused of promiscuity. This sort of argument, based on the shrewdness of many generations, shames into conformity many a girl who otherwise might rebel against the code imposed by her elders. The actives in positions of control (house manager, pledge trainer or captain) are themselves closely supervised by alumnae. Once the right girls are initiated, the organization has mechanisms that make it very difficult for a girl to withdraw. Withdrawal can mean difficulty in finding alternative living quarters, loss of pre-paid room and board fees, and stigmatization. Sororities keep their members, and particularly their flighty pledges, in line primarily by filling up all their time with house activities. Pledges are required to study at the house, and they build the big papier-mache floats (in collaboration with selected fraternity boys) that are a traditional display of "Greek Row"
for the homecoming game. Time is encompassed completely; activities are planned long in advance, and there is almost no energy or time available for meeting inappropriate men. The girls are taught—if they do not already know—the behavior appropriate to the upper strata. They learn how to dress with expensive restraint, how to make appropriate conversation, how to drink like a lady. There is some variety here among sororities of different rank; members of sororities at the bottom of the social ladder prove their gentility by rigid conformity in dress and manner to the stereotype of the sorority girl, while members of top houses feel socially secure even when casually dressed. If you are born rich you can afford to wear Levi's and sweatshirts.
PRELIMINARY EVENTS The sorority facilities dating mainly by exchanging parties, picnics, and other frolics with the fraternities in its set. But to augment this the "fix-uppers" (the American counterpart of the shatchen) arranges dates with selected boys; their efforts raise the sorority dating rate above the independent rate by removing most of the inconvenience and anxiety from the contracting of dates. Dating, in itself, is not sufficient to accomplish the sorority's
GLOSSARY O F M A R R I A G E TERMS Endogamy: A r u l e or practice of m a r r i a g e w i t h i n a p a r ticular group. Exogamy: A practice or r u l e of m a r r i a g e only between persons w h o are not members of a well-defined g r o u p , such as one based on family or locality. Hypergamy: T h e movement of a w o m a n , t h r o u g h m a r riage, to a s t a t u s higher t h a n t h a t to which she was born. Hypogamy: T h e movement of a w o m a n , t h r o u g h m a r riage, to a s t a t u s loiver t h a n t h a t to which she was born. Polygyny: T h e m a r r i a g e of one h u s b a n d to t w o or more wives. It is not the same as polygamy, which simply means a p l u r a l i t y of mates irrespective of sex.
purposes. Dating must lead to pinning, pinning to engagement, engagement to marriage. In sorority culture, all dating is viewed as a movement toward marriage. Casual, spontaneous dating is frowned upon; formal courtship is still encouraged. Sorority ritual reinforces the progression from dating to marriage. At the vital point in the process, where dating must be turned into engagement, the sorority shores up the structure by the pinning ritual, performed after dinner in the presence of all the sorority sisters (who are required to stay for the ceremony) and attended, in its classic form, by a choir of fraternity boys
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singing outside. The commitment is so public that it is difficult for either partner to withdraw. Since engagement is already heavily reinforced outside the sorority, pinning ceremonies are more elaborate than engagements. The social columns of college newspaper faithfully record the successes of the sorority system as it stands today. Sorority girls get engaged faster than "independents," and they appear to be marrying more highly ranked men. But what predictions can we make about the system's future? All social institutions change from time to time, in response to changing conditions. In the mountain villages of the Philippines, the steady attacks of school and mission on the immorality of the olag have almost demolished it. Sororities, too, are affected by changes in the surrounding environment. Originally they were places where the few female college students took refuge from the jeers and cat-calls of men who thought that nice girls didn't belong on campus. They assumed their present, endogamy-conserving form with the flourishing of the great land-grant universities in the first half of this century. ON THE BRINK The question about the future of the sorority system is whether it can adapt to the most recent changes in the forms of higher education. At present, neither fraternities nor sororities are in the pink of health. On some campuses there are chapter houses which have been reduced to taking in nonaffiliated boarders to pay the costs of running the property. New sorority chapters are formed, for the most part, on new or low-prestige campuses (where status-anxiety is rife); at schools of high prestige fewer girls rush each year and the weaker houses are disbanding. University administrations are no longer as hospitable to the Greeks as they once were. Most are building extensive dormitories that compete effectively with the housing offered by sororities; many have adopted regulations intended to minimize the influence of the Greeks on campus activities. The campus environment is changing rapidly; academic standards are rising, admission is increasingly competitive and both male and female students arc more interested in academic achievement; the proportion of graduate students seriously training for a profession is increasing; campus culture is often to obviously pluralist that the Greek claim to monopolize social activity is unconvincing. The sorority as it currently stands is ill-adapted to cope with the new surroundings. Sorority houses were built to provide a setting for lawn parties, dances, and dress-up occasions, and not to facilitate study; crowding and noise are severe, and most forms of privacy do not exist. The sorority songs that have to be gone through at rushing and chapter meetings today all seem to have been written in 1915 and are mortifying to sing today. The arcane rituals, so fascinating to high school girls. grow tedious and sophomoric to college seniors. But the worst blow of all to the sorority system comes from the effect of increased academic pressure on the dating habits of college men. A student competing for grades in a profes-
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sional school, or even in a difficult undergraduate major, simply has not the time (as he might have had in, say, 1925) to get involved in the sorority forms of courtship. Since these days almost all the "right kind" of men are involved in demanding training, the traditions of the sororities are becoming actually inimical to hypergamous marriage. Increasingly, then, sororities do not solve the Brahmin problem but make it worse. One can imagine a sorority designed to facilitate marriage to men who have no time for elaborate courtship. In such a sorority, the girls—to start with small matters—would improve their telephone arrangements, for the fraternity boy in quest of a date today must call several times to get through the busy signals, interminable paging, and lost messages to the girl he wants. They might arrange a private line with prompt answering and faithfully recorded messages, with an unlisted number given only to busy male students with a promising future. They would even accept dates for the same night as the invitation, rather than, as at present, necessarily five to ten days in advance, for the only thing a first-year law student can schedule that far ahead nowadays is his studies. Emphasis on fraternity boys would have to go, for living in a fraternity and pursuing a promising (and therefore competitive) major field of study are rapidly becoming mutually exclusive. The big formal dances would go (the fraternity boys dislike them now); the football floats would go; the pushcart races would go. The girls would reach the hearts of their men not through helping them wash their sports cars but through typing their term papers. But it is inconceivable that the proud traditions of the sororities that compose the National Panhellenic Council could ever be bent to fit the new design. Their structure is too fixed to fit the changing college and their function is rapidly being lost. The sorority cannot sustain itself on students alone. When parents learn that membership does not benefit their daughters, the sorority as we know it will pass into history.
John Finley Scott is a lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Davis. His published articles deal with kinship in complex societies and the role of norms in sociological theory. This article is based on his paper, "The American College Sorority: Its Role in Class and Ethnic Endogamy," published in the American Sociological Review.
Editorials THE REAL THREAT TO PEACE The ideological differences that have pitted nation against nation are vast, but those differences, whatever they are, are not the real causes of threat to world peace. Nations with their differences have historically gotten along; nations with their similarities have often gone to war. The true cause of threat to world peace is hunger. While the ideological division between nations feeds the cold war and creates situations of tension, in and of itself, it does not lead to open war. On the other hand, ideology is turned into open violence where their is underdevelopment, and misery of poverty provides the human raw material needed for the battle. Giver the subhuman existence of the great masses of the world's population, the spark to light the fire of violence will be permanently jumping from place to place. It is imperative that the widening gap between the rich nations and the poor nations be narrowed before too long. Nearly all the nations of North America and Western Europe have been growing more wealthy by four to five per cent a year since the beginning of the Sixties. Thanks to new techniques of stimulating and guiding the economy, and seeing that enough demand is available to swallow up the rising capacity of our exploding technology to produce more supplies, it seems possible that this rate of increase will go on into the Seventies and beyond. This would mean a minimum increase of resources for the Atlantic Powers each year of some $50,000 millions. This figure, incidentally, is the equivalent of fivesixths of the national income of Latin America. It is $20,000 million more than the national income of the whole continent of Africa. Thus we grow by the equivalent of all that is available to them. One year's addition for us is their whole livelihood. These are the incredible orders of magnitude with which we are now dealing. The 20 per cent of the world's peoples who live in the societies of the West and who absorb 75 per cent of the world's income, investment and trade, are as rich in terms of their national income as were the 19th century tycoons in terms of personal income. The gap between even a well endowed state like Nigeria and the United States or Canada is if anything greater than the gap seventy years ago between a Rockefeller and an unemployed immigrant just landed from Europe. What are we to make of this gap? How are we to aid the have-nots of the world? We believe there are definite and specific ways. We used to talk about the poor inside our domestic economies in the same way we now talk about the poor of the world. The Irish immi-
grant was held by some to be equally hopeless. Today we have in fact turned the vast majority of supposedly hopeless proletarians into fine upstanding workers and consumers. We have done this not by chance but by specific policies of universal education, better health and housing and industrial training. And all of these, largely financed out of income tax, have given us a new literate, technically competent people and converted whole societies to what one can still call middle class standards. At the same time, by welfare payments, by higher wages, by pension funds, by profitsharing, we have given the majority of the people a much larger share of the wealth they help to produce. These policies can and must be pursued in the world at large. If they were successful inside our domestic societies, why can't they, perhaps with some modifications, be successful elsewhere? We do not have sufficient words to indicate the seriousness of the world's hunger situation, its poverty and misery resultant from underdevelopment. The racial conflicts that broke out in Los Angeles last year were clearly caused by profound socioeconomic causes. Frustration sparked by a seemingly insignificant incident, became indiscriminate revenge. Project this to world-wide scale, and the consequences of the present state of things can be clearly seen. The danger of full-scale war, arising from any underdeveloped area of the world is not the product of the imagination. It is a possibility on which we must count every day. But logically we ought not reason from fear, but rather from justice. The present status of the world is one of deep injustice and cannot be tolerated.
RACISM KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES Racial tensions, sputtering again in the United States, are not peculiar to our land. Discrimination—for political or social reasons—is a blight which spreads over every continent of the world. In Indonesia and China racism has been invoked by politicians who are anxious to link their people to particular international blocs. Communists mounted racist campaigns in Indonesia in 1965, labeling Americans "Kaum Imperialis" (the imperialist race) and "white murderers." The three million Chinese living in Indonesia, most of whom have been there for three generations, live in constant terror of an attack from right wing groups who fear alignment with Peking. Racism is more subtle in India and Pakistan, discrimination more pervasive. North India's caste system, which extends into Muslim Pakistan, shades from high to low as skin color darkens. Discrimination occurs in every nation. Yet, as we learn increasingly from today's mass communications, people all over the world have similar longings. It is high time we replaced prejudice with personal understanding, starting with the people next door.
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There is one historical fact which is a triumph of love and chanty over the hunger and despair of 3 billion people.
WORLD POVERTY CAN BE WIPED OUT
Three billion people — an idea almost too big to grasp. An idea that can remain just an idea. It's much easier to concentrate on just a fraction of the three billion — the small group that lives in the United States. It's still easier to concentrate on one-billionth of the people who live in the world — the three or so who live in your home — and forget about the others. Most authorities on world poverty and developing new nations concentrate on the social, political and economic problems which beset the individual countries: problems of industrial and agricultural development, education and employment, population growth and poverty. These are difficulties that Westerners seem prepared to understand, perhaps because they feel they can be solved by judicious a p p l i cations of science, technology and money. Many nationals on the other hand, believe that a "crisis of spirit" lies at the heart of these problems. They fear that if they accept too fully the forms of the West that their own emerging or developing nation will lack a true indigenous character. Whether because of conviction or the practical necessity of living in an everchanging more intimate world society, the person of a developing country who wants to have a say in his country's activities must become a true leader in the sense that he has to work in terms of the common good, not the benefit of a particular group. And if national aspirants can grow to meet the demand of these circumstances in a "world-view" society, they will fill a leadership vacuum that plagues large areas of the world.
habits uprooted, and new wars are engendered in the disorder which ensues. The Second World War carried much further what the First World War had begun. It liquidated the feeble, interim successor regimes which existed in the unpacified
STARVING CHILDREN In Africa, in India, behind the Iron Curtain, in war-torn Korea and Vietnam children wait. With eyes grown large from hunger and heart close to despair. They watch. And wait.
Legacy of the Past
regions of Europe and the Middle East. The Second World War demolished the imperial system in India, in Indo-China, in Indonesia. In Africa, it demolished the colonial system from the Mediterranean down to Angola, South Rhodesia, and the Union of South Africa. The future of the West is bound up with the agonies and hopes of this process."
The situation in new nations around the world today is in large part a legacy of the past. As Walter Lippmann, speaking before a world body, said: "The history of this cruel and bloody century is one of recurring cycles of war and revolution. In this cycle the old regimes and the old landmarks are swept away and old
In making these observations, Mr. Lippmann pointed to a profound truth that too often has been overlooked in dealing with the problems of South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. It is obvious, of course, that the serious situation on the Indian subcontinent today is a legacy of the past.
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Much the same is true of the situation in Vietnam. The problems in that tortured land today are the product of errors of policy stretching over the last fifteen years. Again, in Malaysia, if a little more time had been given before a date was fixed
for the consumation of a somewhat artificial political union, the situation today might be vastly better. In Africa, the withdrawal of British, French and Belgian colonial control from the Dark Continent left an institutional shambles behind. The traditional modes of control have collapsed; the few intellectuals clutch at vague, unassimilated ideologies; the bureaucracies are unskilled; and the population is bewildered. The consequent disorder is everywhere painful. Lagging Economy When the average Latin American washes up each morning, he does not rub his eyes and ask himself, "How am I doing compared with my opposite number
in China?" He is more likely to ask himself whether he is better off today than he was a month ago. What is important to him is that there must be progress from day to day. As long as that feeling is there you can be sure that there will be a fair measure of political stability. A recent estimate shows that present plans for economic development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are barely sufficient to absorb the existing labor forces and certainly not large enough to reduce underemployment, which affects as much as 30 per cent of the total labor force in each individual country. The growth of population also poses problems. In most of these countries housing lags vastly behind need, with half to two-thirds of the existing housing being sub-standard. The general increase in economic output for the developing countries (about 4.6 per cent annually) is partially offset by the growth in population, which is about 2.3 per cent annually for the developing countries. Michael Becher in New States of Asia reminds us that "in 1950 the annual per capital income in North America was $1,100. For Europe it was $380 and for Latin America $170. For Africa $75, and finally, for Asia $50. Two out of every three persons on earth had an average yearly income of $50!" Today in Asia this has risen to $60, or approximately \li a day. Representing 6 per cent of the total population of the world, the developed West consumes 40 per cent of the total production of the world. The life expectancy of a girl at birth is 80 years in the United States and 33 years in India. The average consumption of calories per day is 3,120 in the U.S. as compared to 2,400 in Africa, and 1,990 in the Philippines, or less than the minimum required to maintain health. One American out of 75 follows a course of higher education and one out of 20,000 in the newly autonomous nations of Africa. One-third of the world has three-quarters of its medical doctors. Industrial Development Economic development per se, of course, is not enough. There must be other changes. Especially in the field of industrialization, there is a tendency for an elite group to monopolize management of all
new enterprises and the resultant profits. In this way, although some industrial development may take place and this may be reflected in an increase in the gross national product, as well as in per capita income (covering a range from $50 to $3,000), there may be no corresponding improvement in the living standards of the masses. The real meaning of these pressures is visible in Africa, for example, where the increasing racial tensions in the southern fourth of the continent offer the potential for the most form of war — a racial holocaust — which could yet engulf the continent. However, an even greater threat is the situation of youth; leaders of the independent African governments are profoundly concerned. They won freedom for their countries by capitalizing on the restlessness of their youth, and they know the explosive factors involved. They have reason to be afraid. Forty per cent of Africa's population is under the age of fifteen. Floods of youth, many 12 years old, pour into Africa's cities, educated to little beyond distaste for rural life. In these cities even unskilled jobs are rare, and opportunities for further education are rarer still. In the Copper Belt of Zambia there are now perhaps 80,000; around Nairobi 20,000; around Lagos by 1970 there may be 500,000 unemployed youth. This combustible material is fertile recruiting ground for any form of violence. Thus the sprawling cities become centers of irresponsible pressure and aggravate Africa's gravest risk—the breakdown of civil order. The Far East, Middle East, Near East, Asia contain half the world's petroleum, one-sixth coal, one-tenth iron ore, ninetenth natural rubber, the major part of the world's tungsten, mica, tin, much of the world's jade, sapphire's, emeralds, pearls, spices, fish, sea weed, tropical fruits and coffee—and yet, Asia's poverty is stiffling. East vs. West Consider for a moment an Asian city of 9 million people, Calcutta — a symbol in Asia of the dispossessed, the unwanted, the unloved, the despairing and the hungry, where one person in four is a refugee, where thousands of people sleep every night on the sidewalks.
There is no anesthetic against the hideousness of human suffering. But the suffering is made more bitter by the fact that the hungry people know their suffering can be remedied. In the city's bazaars and on the bookstalls glossy American magazines show the life of the West's affluent society. The social upheaval that is taking place in Asia originates in the fact that these people know that their suffering is remedial and are determined to have it remedied. They want bread and they overthrow the inhibitions of their ancient philosophies and religion that enjoin them to passive acceptance of fate. But it is not enough to have bread. They want bread with dignity and they want it with hope and they want it with honor. People live not only in poverty but in permanent misery and this type of utter poverty brings with it other human sufferings. The first is hunger — a constant, gnawing hunger that is never satisfied day or night. Poverty brings disease that cannot be cured because there are few medical services. Poverty brings illiteracy where the great majority of people cannot read or write. Poverty brings bad housing — slums that breed crime and sin. Poverty means that a mother looks at her newborn infant knowing that it will probably die before the year is out. In the last decade, the problem of poverty,' one of the oldest and deepest that confronts the Christian conscience has taken on a new shape, new dimension and new urgency. There is now a wholly unprecedented historical fact. For the first time in history it is an accepted fact that, given time, the rich have the means to wipe out poverty for the rest of the world. There will be no meaning to civilization if mankind forgets that wealth is a trust and that property carries social obligations and that riches on the scale of the West's modern riches must be redeemed by generosity. These are only a few of the challenges. To surmount them, the West must first of all commit itself to these people, regardless of religion, social conditions or position. These people for the most part are ready for the important points of the West. Tragically, this is not sensed by many leaders in government and industry.
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Laurence T. Young,
General
Secretary
The 60th Anniversary Convention is upon us. A News Letter, from the General Office, was mailed February 10th to all chapters, Life Members and members of the Board of Directors — which stressed in particular, the matter of delegates to the General Convention. Chapter presidents are reminded that under the revised Constitution — By Laws, that: "The chapter president shall be responsible for the chapter representation at the General Convention. The Delegate Credentials are to be executed promptly and returned to the General Office by March 1st, 1966. For chapter representation the appropriate table follows: Num ber of financial Members as of January 1966 to 14 7 20 15 30 50 74 51 99 75 149 100 150 199 249 200 250 and over ELECTION
Number of delegates 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
OF GENERAL
PRESIDENT
Ballots for the election of General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, to serve the 1967-68 term will be mailed to every active Brother from the General Office on April 1. The ballots are returnable, in a self addressed envelope, to a post office lock box in St. Louis, Missouri, and will be counted at the General Convention in August. OMEGA
— BROTHER
JAMES
A.
JEFFRESS
All Alpha Phi Alpha is saddened at the passing of Brother Jeffress of Kansas City, Missouri. Brother Jeffress passed February 10, 1966 at Wadsworth Veterans Hospital. Funeral rites were conducted February 14th at the Episcopal Chapel in Wadsworth, Kansas. Beta Lambda chapter held memorial services at Wadsworth on Sunday, February 13th. Brother Jeffress held many offices in the Fraternity, and was an active brother over the years, initiated in 1925. He remained active consistently until 1965. He was in the front rank of those Alpha Phi Alpha brothers whose lives have been spent in holding up the name of the Fraternity. His charity and his purpose will not be forgotten by those who felt the influence of his good works.
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEET Acting under the revised Constitution and By Laws of the Fraternity — the first Board of Directors meeting was held in St. Louis, Missouri January 7th and 8th. Among other matterns discussed were those revolving around the newly created Alpha Phi Alpha Education Foundation, which gives this Corporation now considerable flexibility. Tax Exempt Status: The U.S. Treasury Department—Internal Revenue Service — has granted this Foundation a tax exempt status as of February 11th, 1966, which in effect means that contributions made to same are now deductible by donors as provided in the appropriate section of the Code. Also, bequests, legacies, devises, transfers or gifts to or for use of same are deductible for Federal estate and gift tax purposes under provisions of the appropriate sections as set forth in the determination letter. Building Foundation: Among other matters discussed at this meeting was the amended Charter and amended Constitution and By Laws of the Alpha Phi Alpha Building Foundation. Now that this Foundation has qualified to operate as directed by the General Convention, plans are in the making for setting up sites for construction of buildings, living quarters, etc., on a non-profit basis. More will be disclosed as to the operation of these two newly created Corporations at the Convention in August. Editor Of "The Sphinx" Brother George M. Daniels was not able to be present at the meeting of the Board of Directors, as he was on a mission in Africa. However, Brother Daniel mailed a progress report, giving the activities of that office and projecting plans for a better official Journal in the future, whereby it will be a strong voice that will not only speak in behalf of the Negro, but to the Negro as well. DATES TO REMEMBER: National Pan Hellenic Council Convention (New York, N. Y.) March 18, 19, 20, 1966 Education & Citizenship Week May 15 - 21st, 1960 REGIONAL CONVENTIONS: Eastern Regional Convention Brother Frank J. Ellis, Vice President Richmond, Virginia May 13,14,15,1966 Midwestern Regional Convention Brother Billy Jones, Vice President Akron, Ohio April 22, 23, 24, 1966 Southwestern Regional Convention Brother Jacob T. Stewart, Vice President Muskogee, Oklahoma April 8, 9, 10, 1966 (Eastern Week-end) Southern Regional Convention Brother Oscar V. Little, Vice President Memphis, Tennessee April 8, 9, 10, 1966 (Easter week-end) Western Regional Convention Brother Oscar V. Little, Vice President Las Vegas, Nevada May 6, 7, 8, 1966 60th Anniversary Convention of A<t>A St. Louis, Missouri August 15, 16, 17,18, 1966 Brother John D. Buckner, Convention Chairman
Three Seek General Presidency Balloting Underway Three candidates are running for election as General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. One candidate, the incumbent General President, Brother Lionel H. Newsom, is seeking re-election. The others are Brothers Wayne C. Chandler and the Rev. LeRoy Patrick. Ballots for the election are to be mailed to every active Brother (see Alpha Workshop) and they will be tallied at the 60th Anniversary Convention in St. Louis, Mo., according to General Secretary Laurence T. Young. Biographical sketches of the candidates appear on this and the following pages.
Bro. Lionel H. Newsom Formerly Professor of Sociology and Director of Honors Reading Program at Morehouse College, Atlanta, the incumbent General President Bro. Newsom is president of the Barber-Scotia College in Concord, N . C. A native of St. Louis, Mo., he received an A.B. in history (cum laude) and studied at the University of Michigan where he received an M.A. in sociology. At Ohio State University he took work in social administration specializing in criminology and penology.
A Rosenwald Fellow at Fisk University under the late Bro. Dr. Charles S. Johnson, eminent sociologist and later president of Fisk University, Bro. Newsom won a Ph.D. in sociology and anthropology at Washington University. From 1957 to 1961 as director of educational activities for Alpha Phi Alpha, he coined the motto: "Don't Be Average, Be Exceptional." While he was director he designed a unique certificate and award for high scholarship which is still being used. He also sent out car stickers, "A voteless People Is A Hopeless People," emphasizing "Maximum training for Championship performance." A commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Military Police in the Second World War and discharged honorably as a First Lieutenant, Bro. Newsom was initiated at Alpha Psi, Lincoln University, served as Treasurer, Epsilon, University of Michigan; secretary and associate editor of The Sphinx; President, the Ohio State University, Alpha Chi, Fisk University; Alpha Rho Lambda, Columbus, Ohio; Beta Zeta Lambda, Jefferson City, Missouri, where he was honored with the Beta Zeta Lambda Achievement Award, 1950. Additional service to Alphi Phi Alpha includes: Advisor to Alphi Psi undergraduates, Epsilon Lambda, St. Louis, Mo.; Beta Iota Lambda, President, secretary and associate Editor, Sphinx; and General Chairman of the Southwestern Regional, 1954. He has also served as advisor to Beta Sigma undergraduates for four years, and in 1962 received the Southern Regional "Man of the Year" Award. Brother Newsom has served the national organization as chairman of the Recommendations Committee in three general conventions; chairman of the Public Policy Committee under former General President A. Maceo Smith. A member of the Ritual Committee and the Reorganization Commission, Chairman of the Achievement Committee under former Gen. Pres. Lawson. He was primarily responsible for the crest or coate of Arms used by undergraduates on sweaters and sweetheart jewelry. He was Regional
Director under both Brothers Lovelace and Fleming in the Midwestern Region; also while in the Southwest served as Regional Director and Regional Educational Activities Director with Bro. A. Maceo Smith, then the Southewestern Vice President. From 1949 to 1951 he was Midwestern Vice President, during which time he emphasized the present desegregation of schools and the need for Alphas to take the leadership in their local situations. An affiliate of the American Sociological Association; the Southern Sociological Association and American Association University Professors, Bro. Newsom is a member of the National Committee " S " (Academic Freedom for Students). Other affiliations include the Advisory Council of the Danforth Foundation Associates and the Advisory Committee of the American Friends Committee on Merit Employment (Baton Rouge). Also the National Association of Social Science Teachers; former Vice President of the Lincoln University National Alumni Association; Vice Chairman, Georgia Council on Human Relations; Advisory Board of the Hungry Club; NAACP (former secretary of the Columbus, Ohio, branch); Advisor to the Morehouse Chapter and former Advisor of the Southern University Chapter; and holds membership in the Pi Gamma Mu National Honor Social Science Society. While in Georgia, he served by appointment of Governor Carl Sanders on the
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Commission to improve Education in the State of Georgia. Secretary of Labor Willard W. Wirtz appointed him to the Executive Defense Commission. Winner of the 1965 Lincoln University Alumni Award, Bro. Newsom is married to the fromer Jane Maxine Emerson of Springfield, Ohio. The Newsoms have an 18-year-old daughter, Jacquelyn Carol Newsom, who is a sophomore at Lincoln University. Bro. Newsom is the author of "A Stormy Rally in Atlanta" {Today's Speech) in April, 1963, and was a participant in an exchange of taped discussions between students of Negro and white colleges which appeared in written form in the November, 1962, The Speech Teacher. Bro. Newsom views his task as general President as being an activist and, if necessary, assuming the responsibility to go to the trouble spots and converse with chapter leaders and members and, when and wherever possible, provide remedies. "These are some of the facts of our fraternal life which may not be avoided. Without question, urgency and planning are major requirements of our day and age, and the old ways and old techniques are no longer effective." He concludes, "I would emphasize, the new President must bring to the office a sense of urgency, a spirit of dedication, a clear mind of what needs to be done, and the willingness and the ability to do the job."
Bro. Wayne Cornelius Chandler Representative South Coast Life Insurance Co. Born Wewoka, Oklahoma Education: Public Schools Wewoka, Okla. AB Langston University, Langston, Okla. M.A. University New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mex. Post Graduate Student Okla. University, Norman, Okla.
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Southwestern Vice President, 3 years 14 years Member Executive Board Okla. Conference Alpha Phi Alpha Member Program Committee, East 4th Street, YMCA Member Urban Renewal Advisory Board Member Community Action Program Committee Active Participant Democratic Party Programs Member Program Committee Mens Brotherhood Group Member Langston University Alumni Association Family:
Post Graduate Student OSU, Stillwater, Okla. Special Certificate Exceptional Child, Central State College, Edmond ,Okla. Work
Experience:
Prin.-Teacher, Elementary Schools 6 years, Seminole County, Okla. Prin.-Teacher, Lima Junior High School, 6 years, Lima, Okla. Supt. Boys Training School, 4 years, Boley, Okla. Teacher Special E d u c , Moon Jr. High, 3 years, Okla. City Educ. Counselor, Marshall Fields World Book Division, 3 years, Okla. City Inspector Alcohol Beverage Control Board, State of Oklahoma, 5 years Professional
& Fraternal
Organizations:
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Beta Kappa 1933 Life Member 1955 Sigma Pi Phi Phi Delta Kappa Mason Shriner American Veterans American Legion Urban League YMCA N.A.A.C.P. Fraternity Service: Treasurer Beta Kappa, 1 year President Beta Epsilon Lambda, 2 years Regional Director Okla. & Kansas, 2 years State Director Oklahoma, 4 years State President Okla. Conference Alpha Phi Alpha, 4 years
Married former Mildred L. Maxey B. S. Spelman College, Atlanta, Ga. M.A. Central State College, Edmond, Okla. Son Wayne C , Jr. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Senior USU, Stillwater, Okla. Daughter Chery Kay, Freshman OSU, Stillwater, Okla. Son Albert Morris, Freshman Moon Jr. High, Oklahoma City, Okla. Church Preference: Protestant Hobbies: Bridge, Hiking, Study of Job Jerformance of Elected Officials.
Bro. Leroy Patrick Brother Leroy Patrick, a Presbyterian clergyman, is minister of Bethesda United Presbyterian Church and Director of Bethesda Church Community Center in Pittsburgh, Pa. He graduated from Lincoln University, Pa., in 1939, and received an M.A. in Social Theology from New York City's Union Theological Seminary in 1946, and that same year he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity degree at Lincoln University. Bro. Patrick has been a member of the Alphi Phi Alpha since 1936 and has attended ten of the last eleven National Conventions. Dr. Patrick has received many awards and commendations during his career. In 1953 he was selected by Time Magazine and the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of
on Religion and Race, the Greater Pittsburgh Improvement League, the East Liberty Community Service Association, the United Negro Protest Committee. He is a member of Golden Shield Lodge #69, St. Cyprion Consistory #4 and Sahara Temple #2. Civil Rights
Commerce as one of Pittsburgh's "100 Newsmakers of Tomorrow," and was cowinner of the James and Rachel Levinson Foundation Brotherhood Award. In 1961, Dr. Patrick was elected moderator of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh. He is presently chairman of the Commission on Religion and Race of the United Presbyterian Synod of Pittsburgh and president of the Homewood-Brushton Council of Churches and also of the Presbyterian Institute of Industrial Relations. Last year he was elected president of the National Presbyterian Health and Welfare Association, the social service arm of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States. He is a board member of the NAACP, the Allegheny County Council on Civil Rights, the Pennsylvania Citizen's Committee on Migrant Labor, East Liberty Citizen's Renewal Council, HomewoodBrushton Citizen's Renewal Council, and the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Red Cross. He is a member of the following organizations: The Nominating Committee of the Presbytery of Pittsburgh and of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A., the General Assembly's Special Committee of Seven to study the Christian, the Church, and Work, the Department of Church and Community of the Pittsburgh Presbytery, the National Missions Committee of the United Presbyterian Synod of Pennsylvania, the Homewood-Brushton Ministerium the Pittsburgh Area Council
Activities:
During 1951-1954, when Dr. Patrick first arrived in Pittsburgh, he led the fight, with the small youth group of his new church, to open up city and county swimming pools to Negroes. The group was stoned, nearly drowned, and in one case assaulted at several of the city and county pools, but were successful in integrating the pools. During 1954-1956 Dr. Patrick and a small band of intensely interested citizens almost single handedly saved the kindergartens from being abolished in Pittsburgh public schools by the State Legislature. Between 1952-1965 he was chairman of the Allegheny County Council on Civil Rights and is now a board member and he was also chairman of the NAACP Public Accommodations Committee which is responsible for opening bowling alleys and restaurants to Negroes. Dr. Patrick has also been working hard in the field of employment for Negroes through the United Negro Protest Committee, of which he is chairman of the Construction Industry Committee. His committee has met with both union and industry officials in order to resolve differences. As a result, Negroes have been admitted to apprenticeship programs in local craft unions. The past summer an active campaign to protest county hiring practices was launched, resulting in several skirmishes with the police. He also chairs the NAACP Education Committee whose meetings with the Board of Education have resulted in Negroes in administrative positions rising from 3 percent to 11 percent to date. Upon arriving home from the Chicago Convention this past August, Dr. Patrick set about meeting with the Board of Education concerning a concrete program for elimination of de facto segregation in Pittsburgh schools. His critique of the
Board's position on this matter received wide coverage in the news media. One of Dr. Patrick's talents seems to be his ability to influence others to actively support our cause. Many of his fellow Presbyterian Ministers have participated in the swim-ins, sit-ins, picketing and demonstrations he has led over the years. In January he issued a call for a convention of Negro Democrats in Pennsylvania. The group met in Harrisburgh to lay its demands before the power structure of the State. Church and Center
Activities:
Dr. Patrick is minister of a very active and progressive congregation of 460 members, with a full range of church and community activities. He is director of the Bethesda Community Center which has an enrollment of over 1000 persons. The Bethesda Center employs 13 fulltime paid and 20 part-time paid persons, along with 145 volunteers. Activities at the Center include, a nursery school, high school sorority and fraternity meetings, boys and girls gym programs, sewing and cooking classes, boxing and judo classes, study hall and tutoring periods, millinery and ceramic classes, club groups, Bible Study and discussion groups, various community meetings and boy and girl scout meetings. The Center has opened a psychiatric unit in cooperation with the Offices of Economic Opportunity (Poverty Program). This unit has a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a psychiatric social work consultant and four psychiatric social workers. It provided out-patient and psychiatric evaluation and treatment of emotionally disturbed children, adolescents and adults, where hospitalization is not needed, group therapy for individuals referred by their private therapist for participation in the Community Center program as a part of their therapy. Married to the former Norma A. Brandon of New York City, the Patricks have two sons, Stephen and Gregory. Mrs. Patrick, a psychiatric social worker, is a graduate of Hunter College, New York, and the School of Social Work of the University of Pittsburgh, Pa.
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EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES Recently, A Manual for Scholarship and Education Committees was published by the Office of Director of Educational Affairs. This thirty-three page booklet contains information, suggestions, and instructions designed to help chapters achieve their educational objectives. Any chapter which has not yet received a copy of this publication may, upon request, receive one from the Director of Educational Activities. With this manual as a basic aid, every graduate chapter can have a viable and successful education program, if it does not already have one. Even chapters with successful education programs are almost certain to find some helpful hints in the pages of this guide. In either case, every graduate chapter is urged to renew or redouble its efforts to facilitate access to student financial aid for the young people of its community. * * * From time to time parents, counselors, and graduate brothers write to this office requesting scholarship application form and/or information for their children and/or young friends who are about to graduate from high school. At first glance this expression of interest appears to be most commendable. Upon closer examination, however, such efforts can easily be seen to be a disservice to these prospective applicants. There are at least two reasons. First, these scholarship applicants are in a competitive situation in which the winners are necessarily selected "sight unseen." This is to say that since the applicants do not appear before the selection committee, in person, they must be evaluated and rated in accordance with their merits as revealed in their representations, including scholastic records, recommendations, and any letters they, themselves, write. Second, the education of a person, broadly conceived, includes much more than the formally determined experiences of the school system. As a matter of fact, the exercise of individual judgments, the cultivation of productive relations, and the development of skills in communication are indispensable elements of a "good education." Thus it is that writing one's own letter is at one and the same time a part of one's educational experience and a demonstration of responsible behavior. Conclusion: When "pop" writes a letter for "junior" the latter misses a significant "do it yourself" experience. Request: Help them if you must, but please don't do it for them. * * * The letter which follows was received by the Director and is self-explanatory. Hopefully, its message will be carried to those who may be personally interested and who stand to benefit from such an apportunity. 'P.O. Box 7 October 7, 1965 Dear Sirs, I am a member of the Committee on Negro Enrollment of the Civil Rights Commission of the University of Notre Dame. This committee was formed with the expressed pur-
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Scholarship, Education Committee Manual Available pose of increasing the number of Negroes matriculating at Notre Dame. I would greatly appreciate any information that you may have regarding your scholarship fund and also any list of prospective students which may be useful to our committee. Thank you very much for your assistance in this matter. Sincerely, Robert Redis"
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Today, there is a current and widely held belief that Negroes in the United States commit more than their "proportionate share of crimes" It is at one and the same time both interesting and signicant that many Negroes, including some Negro leaders, accept this claim and are apologetic because, as they believe, this condition exists. In the judgment of the writer the idea of a "proportionate share of crime" when viewed within a democratic context, is patently ridiculous. Admittedly this evaluation is a statement of opinion, nothing more. When, however, a claim of the sort under discussion is alleged to be a fact, it is reasonable to expect, indeed to require, that supporting evidence shall be provided. Is the proportion of crimes committed by Negroes greater than the proportion they bear to the total population? Many people answer this question is the affirmative. But where is the evidence? Do the relevant facts support this claim? What are these facts? First, the relevant facts available are to be found in crime statistics. These statistics show that less than half of the crimes committed in the United States in any one year are cleared by arrest. The important meaning of this is that more than half "who got away" could not be identified (although some of them are identified later). It is significant to note here that the evidence is clear and conclusive that Negroes are disproportionately involved in arrests, convictions, and imprisionment. But no one knows who (wphat racial, ethnic, class, or age category) commits how much crime. Finally, statistics such as Uniform Crime Reports do not include all criminal law violations. Each year thousands of white collar, professional, and racketeering (criminal) offenses are not reported to or recorded by the Justice Department in its Uniform Crime Reports. Furthermore, and, as already indicated, many of the offenses included in these Reports are not cleared by arrest. As a result, the identity of thousands of criminal law violators is not known and may never be known. Moreover, the offenders who are apprehended and therefore identified do not (so far as is known) constitute a representative sample of all offenders. For the reasons stated above, therefore, the inescapable conclusion is that there is no sufficient evidence to support the contention that any one category of people, racial or otherwise, is more, or most, criminal. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;OSCAR W. RITCHIE
Risibilities Anent a mother-in-law: One of the most formidable of the species arrived for one of her frequent and protracted visits, and the dutiful son-in-law welcomed her with appropriate and most insincere expressions of joy. "Make yourself completely at home, mother, he urged. "I want you to look upon this house just as though it was your own." She did. She sold it. * * *
Humor, as Mrs. Webster's son Noah asseverates in a dictionary published by the Merriman Company, means quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous, comicality, wit. So for a moment of mirth during your perusal of the next issue of this erudite Sphinx I am submitting a few excerpts of mirth and humor. Not original, but an anthology of chance and leisurely collected gems that I hope will help maintain your tenuous interest in this column. Lapsus Linguae President Lyndon B. Johnson in his address at Howard University during a highly forensic moment said: "I am appealing to the outstanding Negro leaders of both races." Aha! so he found out some of his Southern friends were "passing." Bell Telephone supervisors are still trying to track down the new substitute phone operator who dutifully told callers one morning "the lion is busy." *
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Âťk
Faux pas
Frai
Humor By O. WILSON WINTERS
Thirsting for a drink sublime, Into the slot goes my last dime; As frustration burns me up, First comes the soda; then the cup. (With apologies for the snack bar the Delta Pi brothers have at Cheyney State College, Pennsylvania.) * * *
=;: *
Flattery is like smoking cigarettes. Neither will hurt you so long as you don't inhale. * * * A young lady stepped into a drug store and asked how to take a dose of castor oil without tasting it. The druggist said, he'd look up some suggestions, but meanwhile would she relish a refreshing drink of lemonade? She would. When the bev-
"Look what I got for my wife," exclaimed Jones as he pointed with pride to a brand new convertible. "You lucky dog," Smith said in envy, ""where did you make a trade like that?" Horse sense is that added sense a horse has that keeps him from betting on people.
Sign in the middle of the road: "Road closed. Do not enter." On the other side of the sign was printed: "Welcome back, stupid." Here's a good trick if you can do it. Take two matches, light one and throw it into a can of gasoline. The trick is to throw the second match into the same can.
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Hurrying to keep his appointment to meet Mrs. Astorbilt at the close of the opera matinee, Archibald had a serious auto accident and was taken to the hospital. The dowager upon hearing of the crash went to the hospital and imperiously demanded to see the chauffeur. "Are you his wife?" asked the resident interne. "Indeed not, she haughtily replied. "I am his mistress!"
erage was entirely consumed, he asked laughingly, "Well, did you taste it?" "Good heavens!" gasped the girl, "Was that castor oil in that lemonade? I wanted it for my mother!"
"Sic Transit Gloria Alabami" There was much commotion at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter asked the guardian of the heavenly portcullis what the trouble was about. He was told that there was a young colored gentlemen who demanded immediate entrance. When asked why, the Negro said he was one of the most famous personalities that ever came up there from Alabama. "What made you so famous?" "I became distinuished by marrying a white southern belle on the steps of the Selma Alabama Court House steps? "When did that happen?" "About five minutes ago." The Termite (adapted) Some primal termite knocked on wood, And tasted it, and found it good. And that is why your Auntie May, Fell through the parlor floor today. Adios!
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news from the chapters GAMMA PHI BROTHERS Active Across Nation Many brothers of Gamma Phi chapter, Tuskegee Institute, Ala., were quite active during the '65 school and summer year. Some worked on campus with the Summer Education Program, one of the many programs designed to help alleviate poverty at home and abroad. Others attended ROTC summer camps and pursued advanced studies at various institutions. Bros. James Paul, Lee Grimsley, Matthews, and John McMullen attended ROTC Summer Camps a portion of the summer and all made remarkable showings. Bros. McMullen and Grimsley received top honors in their units and were awarded highest positions in the Air Force and Army ROTC Corps upon their return to campus. Bro. Lee T. Watts spent his summer in Africa working with "Operation Crossroads". He has related his experiences to the brothers as well as to the student body. Gamma Phi had three representatives at the National Convention in Chicago. They were Bros. Cutting. Love, and James Armstrong. The reports made by them at our first and second meetings were comprehensive and quite interesting. They brought back many ideas which they are still trying to incorporate into their program. Bro. Love was also busily contacting Sphinxmen during the summer making sure that they were upholding the values for which we activated them into the Sphinx Club. The pledges numbered six at the beginning of this semester and they are now brothers of Alpha. The Neophyte Brothers are: Bros. George Gibbs, Chemistry Major, Grier, Ga., Richard C. Caldwell, Biology, Charlotte, N. C , Artis Harper, Engineering, Forest, Miss., Walter G.
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RECENT APPOINTEE â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Bro. Courtney P. Houston, was named by Gov. Charles Terry of Delaware to be Magistrate in Kent County, Dover, Del. Houston, a 33rd degree Mason, and former member of the William Henry H. S. faculty, is the first Negro to hold this position in lower Delaware. Bro. Houston hails from Zeta Rho Lambda, Dover. Robinson. Engineering, Muscle Shoals, Ala., Robert Baker, Engineering, Cedartown, Ga., and Calvin Austin, Mathematics, Birmingham, Ala. Although the awarding of trophies for the Greek Line having the highest academical average hasn't been activated on this campus, there is no doubt that they would have easily walked away with it as the overall G.P.A. of this line was approximately 3.2 on the 4.0 system. The chapter is loaded with diversity of talent, the brothers majoring in Veterinary Medicine composing the bulk. Among them are: Bros. J. R. Love, G. B. Cutting, L. T. Watts, R. Truss, R. McCurdy, W. J. McCorvey, and W. P. Hood. All are doing very well.
ETA CHAPTER Listing a year-end round up of the significant events of 1965, Eta Chapter, in New York City, can point with pride to the numerous events which they sponsored, all of them highly successful.
The week of 29 November-5 December was set aside as Founder's Week. Last year Gamma Phi's theme was "Alpha's Endless Procession of Splendor". Bro. Charlie Williams coordinated the activities for the week. Exhibitions portraying all aspects of the fraternity were on display at frequently visited places on campus. On December 4, the Initiatory Banquet was held in the Pine Room of Dorothy Hall Hotel. Bro. G. W. A. Scott was guest speaker. The following day brothers of Gamma Phi were presented at a luncheon with the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorors. Our annual Smoker was held on December 7. This seemed to conclude the majority of the work for last year (1965). Bro. Armstrong, a graduate biology student from Tougaloo College initiated "Christmas Around the World", a program for the mentally retarded and underprivileged children of Macon, the county in which we operate. On the same afternoon they visited John Andrews Hospital and gave Christmas cards and fruits to over 200 patients and to several needy families in the community. This climaxed the activities of the school year 1965. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. held its annual Alabama State Convention at Tuskegee Institute, on January 29. Each chapter in the state was represented. Bro. Love, Gamma Phi Chapter acted as moderator for the two sessions. Each chapter made a progress report of the activities for the preceding term. We anticipate a prosperous semester and hope for all brothers across the nation and abroad the same.
highlights of 1965 Beginning in January with a banquet and their first annual Cocktail Sip, the chapter carried over into February and April with three small but well attended social affairs. The month of April was
characterized by typical Alpha politics as the annual elections drew near. Also in April the spring line was formed, and as May rolled around the brothers took a breather for final exams. Highlighting the month of July was the chapter's selection of their first Sweetheart. Miss Patrician Morris, a pre-law senior at Brooklyn College walked off with top honors and will reign for the coming year. The annual smoker, along with a gratifying win over the Kappas in the Greek Thanksgiving Basketball Tournament rounded out the month of November. To conclude the year the chapter sponsored a "swinging", Christmas Party. Brother Sandy English, president of the chapter described their greatest single achievement as gaining prestige within the Greek world in New York. As a summary of the years events, it should be noted that Brother Harry Mayo III was elected Eastern Regional Assistant Vice-President.
WYATT WALKER HEADS MAJOR PUBLISHING COMPANY In what may be unique in the corporate business experience of the nation, Negro personnel now make up the key management of a major publishing firm. Wyatt Tee Walker, former chief of staff to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was recently elevated to the presidency of Educational Heritage, Inc., publishers of the Negro Heritage Library. Rev. Walker, an ordained Baptist minister, and an active Alpha, is flanked by two Negro Vice-presidents, Alfred E. Cain, Editorial Director of the firm, and Oswald P. White, Jamaican-born and Cambridge-trained, who is in charge of Administration and Personnel. A third vice-president, Walter Blum, the only non-Negro officer in management, has assumed Walker's former post as Marketing and Sales Vice President.
QUEEN FOR A YEAR â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Lovely Patricia Morris, Eta Chapter's Sweetheart, flanked by runners-up (I) Louise Parks, and Sonnie Humphrey. (C) former Queen Mrs. Wilhemina Edwards, along with additional runners-up Constance Williams and Emily Richardson.
The publishing industry, for the most part, has been alien territory to the Negro despite the tremendous gains that have been made parallel to the contemporary civil rights revolution. The incidence of Negro personnel, particularly at the management level, is sparse in an industry where either few Negroes have ventured or little opportunity has been provided. The publishing field is a complex and demanding business. For the most part, much of the trade in the reference book field is serviced by the "giant" corporations. Educational Heritage is a relatively small independent firm that has developed what is now an exclusive product in the reference book field. To a large degree, America is a reading nation and the annual consumer traffic in books and reading materials is staggering. An appreciable amount of this market is in reference books of one sort or another. Noel N. Marder, Walker's predecessor, built the firm from a little cellar operation seven years ago to its present 10 million dollar status. Until October 1964, Educational Heritage distributed only encyclopedias but had started phasing into the Negro Heritage Library project in 1962. Marder, a man who, while white, was deeply sensitive to the broad spectrum of the Negro revolution and himself a member of a minority community, was convinced on the basis of his experience with the Negro market, that his Negro Heritage Library concept was not only a viable commercial venture but also contained the potential for a meaningful sociological impact. The material contained in the reference books sets that Negroes generally buy (Britannica, World Book, Americana, etc.) is not readily available and accessible, for the most part, in the public school experience of the nation's children. Precious little is embraced in the public school texts or the nation's history books that casts the black community in a positive light. Walker reasons that a family financially able to absorb a reference library of any sort is far better off with a set that,
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HEADS PUBLISHING FIRM—Brother Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, former chief of staff to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Walker, on leave from King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was recently named President of Educational Heritage, Inc., publishers of Encyclopedia about the Negro. for the first time, will provide Negroes with heroes who have black faces. He sees Negro Heritage Library as more than a commercial venture. He calls it a crusade to diminish what he terms "the cultural black-out" — the intentional and premeditated exclusion of the black man's significant and critical contribution to American and world history. "We have not created anything new so far as the content and substance of our
library is concerned. What we have done uniquely is to provide the reading public and educational institutions with a fingertip accessible reservoir of historical data that sets the record straight and fills in the missing pages of history, particularly as the Negro relates to the American experience. The information is not exclusive, only the form. We are presently marketing a lot of books and our ultimate aim is to so stimulate the American reading public about the facts of American and world history that the present renaissance in the history of the black man will be deepened and broadened. One day, hopefully, the teaching of Negro history and the interpolation of the significant role we have played will be included as routinely as 'readin', 'ritin—and 'rithmetic' " The present franchising operation of Educational Heritage includes Miami, Detroit, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Nashville, Rochester, San Francisco and Los Angeles. By the end of 1965, franchises were granted for Atlanta, several cities in North Carolina, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Sixteen new cities will be opened in 1966, each of these operations providing numerous job opportunities in the sales field coupled with the added incentive of sales management careers. At least half of the proposed franchises will be wholly owned by either Negro or interracial operators.
FOURTH TERM — Brother James T. Henry Sr., Professor of Geography at Central State University, Wilherforce, Ohio, being sworn into his fourth term of office as City Commissioner, by Bro. Marshall J. Massie, popular Xenia attorney and former Municipal Judge.
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5 ALPHAS, SPHINXMAN Elected to Who's Who Five brothers of Gamma Chapter, Virginia Union University, Richmond, Va., were recently elected to Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges. The five brothers were Wilbert D. Talley, Gideon A. Adegbile, Adedokun A. Oshoniyi, Walter B. Holland, and James R. Roebuck. The Sphinxman was Willie Lee Williams. Brother Talley also was recently nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship — one of 21 students nominated for this high honor.
THETA PI LAMBDA to Host Vegas Confab Within two years of its inception, Theta Pi Lambda has been successful in its initial endeavor to host the Western Regional Convention; which will be held in Las Vegas, May 6-8, 1966. The site chosen for this convention will be the Dunes Hotel and Country Club. This hotel probably needs no introduction anywhere. The Dunes, considered by many to be the finest site located in the "Convention Center of the World", stands haughtily tall on the famed Las Vegas "Strip". A more noteworthy achievement, perhaps, is the fact that this will mark the first time a predominantly Negro organization will host a major convention in Las Vegas. Though the chapter's program is still in the development stage, it is anticipated by its president, Bro. Floyd Plymouth, that Theta Lambda will continue to follow the standing precepts and the excellent guidelines set forth in the statement of Public Policy at the recent General Convention.
College, Atlanta, Ga., where he is a senior majoring in psychology. Another Alpha, Brother Otha Brown was honored recently when he won reelection to the City Council of Norwalk. He is the only Negro who holds an elective office there. In other activities, Brother Granville Roman, a recent initiate in Zeta, was appointed assistant principal in the Stamford Public Schools system, and Brother Clifford Barton was appointed a member of the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency
ZETA PHI LAMBDA Awards Scholarship Brother Clifton B. Rawls of Norwalk, Conn, has been awarded the 1965 Scholarship Award from Zeta Phi Lambda chapter of Fairfield County, Conn. Brother Rawls, a graduate and top athlete of the local high school, received the $300 award to aid his return to Clark
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Dr. E. W. Bashful, Dean of Southern University in New Orleans was recently appointed to the Louisiana Youth Commission by Gov. John McKeithen. Brother Bashful, a prominent educator and member of the Sigma Lambda chapter in New Orleans was one of the first two Negroes to be named to standing State committees in recent weeks by the Louisiana governor.
as an administrator of special services of the Westport School Systems. Two other Zeta brothers, Robert Randall and William D. Clarke, also have been honored for their achievements. Brother Randell, former vice president of of the chapter, has been appointed president of the newly formed Intra-America Life Insurance Company, with offices in New York, and William D. Clarke, president of the chapter, was cited for becoming the counsel for Carver Federal Savings and Loan Association in New York. â&#x20AC;˘
FANTASY OF THE SEA-â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Highlighting a pre-Christmas Ball, presented by the Zeta Mu Lambda Chapter of Biloxi, Mississippi, was the crowning of their Queen for the J 965 Debutante Ball. Pictured above, the Queen Miss Toni Martin and the eight runners-up. (L. to R.) Rosa Munford, Jacqueline Gaggins, Cynthia Burns, Jo Ann Clark, Queen Toni Martin, Deloise Wilson. Cynthia Johnson, Eucharidt Roach and Jacquelyn Wells. Along with the coveted title, Miss Martin received a scholarship check of $200.00.
Beta Delta Lambda Chapter, BethuneCookman College, honored three of its members during a Founders Day Program for outstanding achievements in the fields of education and Local Government. Honorees above (1) Harrison F. DeShields, registrar, Bethune Cookman presenting awards to James E. Huger, business manager, Bethune Cookeman recently elected to the City Commission of Daytona Beach; Clifton G. Dyson, West Palm Beach, named by Gov. Haydon Burns to the Florida State Board of Regents for Higher Education and Ted Nichols, teacher, recently elected to the City Commission of Melbourne, Fla. Dr. Lionel H. Newson, (right), president Barber-Scotia College at Concord, N. C. Dr. Newson was the keyenote speaker.
A FUTURE ALPHA is sixteen year old James Anthony Roper, (right), a junior and "B" student at Manasquan H. S. in New Jersey. He is the son of Bro. Ivan Roper, (left), a member of Zeta Epsilon Lambda Chapter, Jersey Shore. Young Roper is a star quarterback, in addition to being a member of the school's baseball and howling teams.
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Brother Frank J. Ellis (Seated, Center) Eastern Vice-President confers with regional Planning Committee in Richmond. (Seated, L. to R.), Brothers George Johnson, Walter Holland, Pres. Gamma Chapter; C. A. Pennington, Ellis, Nathaniel Lee, Pres. Beta Gamma Lambda Chapter; J. Rupert Picott, Regional Convention Chairman; and Paul Vance, Coordinator of State and Regional Conventions. (Standing, L. to R.), Brothers Donald Thompson, Wendall Foster, Norman Ross, Frederick Black Jr., Rev. E. William Judge, Samuel Barham, Charles Spurlock and Harvey O. Freeman. COACH OF THE YEAR â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Brother Richard A. Hill, honored at a testimonial dinner for his success as track coach of the championship team at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. Named NAIA Coach of the Year, Hill has been credited with developing Olympic sprinted Bob Hayes, during his coaching tenure at Florida A &M, before coming to Southern U. Pictured above, Bro. Hill (1) and his wife, receive a plaque from Beta Iota Lambda Chapter President E. E. Johnson.
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FOREST RANGER â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Brother Octavius Rowe, former undergraduate member of Gamma Psi chapter at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, N. C, is the first Alpha to climb the 10,968 ft. Mt. Holmes. Working as a Park Ranger in Yellowstone National Park this past summer, Rowe was cited by the U.S. Dept. of Interior for outstanding achievement.