The SPHINX | Fall 1995 | Volume 80 | Number 3 199508003

The Alpha Renaissance

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"The members of this Fraternity, no strangers to injustice and discrimination,? seasoned by their long history of struggle against incredible odds, should not flinch because of the odds that so many seek to stack against s. Indeed, we should regard ie siege as a challenge and the effort to create new obstacles as an invitation to climb the new obstacles to new heights of success."

—Brother Dr. John Hope Franklin

She has a dream.

A Big Sister has helped her set goals and look forward to her future. Now she has a dream. . .

. . . a dream of college, of a career, of having a good life.

And one day, she'll dream of someone she can share that future with, someone with a dream of his own.

There are many young men out there who need a positive African American role model and mentor â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a Big Brother.

Alpha Phi Alpha encourages you to call your local Big Brothers/Big Sisters agency to volunteer. Help us help our children â&#x20AC;&#x201D; pass it on.

Big Brothers Big Sisters OF

AMERICA

Volume 80 Number 3 Fall 1995

THE

sphinx

OFFICIAL ORGAN OFTHE ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC.

PRESIDENT'S LETTER ALPHA FORUM Affirmative Action Ms. Black & Gold College Brother of the Year Collegiate Scholars Bowl CTE OFTHE FRATERNITY

Brother John Hope Franklin's Public Program address was

ENTIOh Brothers Must Lead, Act...Now Photo Gallery Scoring for Life

both inspiring and challenging.

It set the tone for what was a stimulating 89th Anniversary Convention. His address in its

Get An Education Alpha South Leadership Changes Alumni Brother of the Year Black Caucus Alliance Grows Stronger

entirety is reported in this issue as is a summary of his remarks. And Alpha men were no less responsive than Brother Franklin was challeng-

Honorary Memberships

ing in his address. Individual and Fraternity contributions to

Affirmative Action Baby—A Review "Great Job, My Brother" —Impressions For Colored Girls—A Review

the NAACP totaled $31,000

America's Oldest African-American Business

H 65

Brothers Asked to Speak Out HAPTER NEWS OMEGA CHAPTER 'ORATE DIRECTO

The Sphinx (USPS 510-440) is published quarterly for $10 a year by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., 2313 St Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-5234. Second-class postage paid at Baltimore, MD and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Sphinx, 2313 St Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21213.

The Sphinx is the official magazine of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Send all editorial mail and change of addresses to Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. The Fraternity assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts or art Opinions expressed in columns and articles do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Alpha Phi Alpha FraternityTlnc. Use of any persons name in fiction, semifiction, articles or humorous features is to beregardedas a coincidence and not as the responsibility of The Sphinx, and is never done knowingly. Copyright 1976 by The Sphinx, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Reproduction, or use without written permission, of the editorial or pictorialcontent of the magazine in any manner is prohibited. The Sphinx has been published continuously since 1914. Organizing Editor Brother Raymond W. Cannon.

Organizing General President Brother Henry Lake Dickason.

Fall 1995 •

The Sphinx A 1

President's Letter Milton C. Davis General Presidenl

ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC. Corporate Headquarters • 2313 St. Paul Street • Baltimore, MD 21218 Phone: (410) 554-0040 • Fax: (410) 554-0054

Darryl R. Matthews, Sr. EiecuHve Director

October 26, 1995

Mr. Robert Wright President and CEO NBC Studios 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY 10112 Dear Mr. Wright: I am writing to protest the sketch spoofing the Million Man March aired on NBC Studios' Saturday Night Live on October 21, 1995. The sketch, in addition to being in poor taste, infringed on the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.'s copyright of its Greek-letter emblem.

In a live telecast of the Saturday Night Live program, one of the show's actors appeared in a T-shirt with the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity colors and the Greek letters "AOA" emblemed on the shirt.

The actor wearing the T-shirt portrayed a beer-drinking, inebriated member of this organization. The character vomited when a newsperson in the sketch attempted to interview him. At a different point in the sketch, another actor vomited on the T-shirt and the A<J>A letters.

Alpha Phi Alpha, since the Fraternity's founding in 1906, has been one of the leading influences in the uplifting of the African American community. The Fraternity has been consistent in its efforts to increase the educational, economic, political and social wellbeing of African Americans and the disadvantaged in the nation.

On college and university campuses across the country, Alpha Phi Alpha members traditionally have ranked academically at the top. The Fraternity's alumni is comprised of leaders from every spectrum of the community. From the Fraternity's ranks have come such distinguished men as: Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Edward Brooke, W E B . Dubois, Andrew Young, Maynard Jackson, Jesse Owens, Lenny Wilkins, Duke Ellington, John H. Johnson, David Dinkins, Dennis Archer and many others.

Henry A. Callis

Charles H. Chapman

Eugene K. Jones

2 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

Founders: George B. Kelley

Nathaniel A. Murray

Robert H. Ogle

Vertner W. Tandy

In the light of Alpha Phi Alpha's accomplishments and its commitment to the African American community, it distresses me to see the Fraternity's image distorted in such a manner as was done by Saturday Night Live. The outcry against the portrayal from our members nationwide has been great.

Alpha Phi Alpha was one of the first organizations in our community to endorse the gathering of African American men for the Million Man Marchâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which promoted unity among black men. Thousands of our Alpha Phi Alpha members attended the march.

Many wore Fraternity paraphernalia. None of the members' conduct approached the portrayal shown on Saturday Night Live.

The Fraternity's letters and emblems are copyrighted by the organization. Saturday Night Live cannot lawfully use the AOA letters without permission from the Fraternity's Corporate Headquarters. The Saturday Night Live sketch was libelous mockery and an infringement of our rights under U.S. copyright laws.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity demands a written and formal apology from NBC Studios and Saturday Night Live for abuse of the Fraternity's image in the sketch. We also demand that a retraction be aired stating that the conduct of the actor in the sketch was in no way similar to the conduct of Fraternity members at the march, and that the Fraternity's image was used without the permission of the Alpha Phi Alpha Corporate Headquarters.

We would appreciate your prompt attention in this matter. Thank you.

Sincerely,

-z,4^

Sk

<4~-

Milton C. Davis GENERAL PRESIDENT MCD/SJW cc:

Lome Michaels Executive Producer Saturday Night Live NBC Studios Tyrone C. Means General Counsel Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 3

Alpha Forum Brother Wallace L. Walker

Affirmative Action

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othing over the past 35 years has caused more public discussion and controversy than affirmative action. Affirmative action was conceived with a view toward racial reconciliation but has instead bred anger and division between people of good will.

T H E HISTORY The concept of affirmative action found its way into federal law innocuously enough as Presidential Executive Order No. 10925. It was signed in 1961 by President John E Kennedy and the term affirmative action within the Executive Order is attributed to Hobart Taylor, Jr., an African-American attorney who served as a presidential aide to Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson.

Executive Order 10925 was intended to reflect President Kennedy's commitment to promote racial preferences and ban discriminatory hiring by federal contractors.

The order incorporated principles pursued by two President Dwight D. Eisenhower committees which sought to prevent discriminatory hiring in federal civil service and by federal contractors. These committees were collectively referred to as the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity.

There is no question that the earliest efforts relating to affirmative action were racially based. It later took on a gender dimension at the behest of feminist groups.

In 1964, the legislative branch of the Federal government became involved, for the first time, in this debate. It was also the legislative branch who first introduced the

4 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

apparition of quotas. An intent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was to ban racial discrimination in the workplace. Quotas were not validated by the Act but only after much Congressional discussion and the power of Southern Senators. The final version of the legislation expressly disavowed quotas. The Act did set up the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The Commission, however, was given no enforcement power. n September 24, 1965, the Executive Branch of government again seized the moment in moving affirmative action forward. President Johnson on that date signed Executive Order 11246. The significance of this action by President Johnson was, for the first time, to put teeth in the government's goal to rid employment opportunities of racial discrimination. President Johnson's action was in no small part in response to racial unrest amuck in the country at that time.

The Watts Insurrections were recently completed and the demand for jobs in the African-American community was being heard in Washington, D.C. The order was, in part, a recognition by the Johnson Administration that too much of the focus for pressing affirmative action pursuits was coming from the White House. This Order shifted efforts to end discrimination in employment from the White House to the U.S. Labor Department. Suddenly, this effort enjoyed the support of an entire Federal governmental agency and its many resources.

By 1965, officials through EEOC and the Office of Federal

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Contract Compliance, an agency also created by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, defined their mission as "aggressively promoting affirmative action." President Jimmy Carter, through his Executive powers, in 1979 promulgated a mandate that effected affirmative action programs enforced by the Federal Communications Commission.

In 1969, from the unlikeliest of sources, racial quotas were introduced into the struggle. President Richard Nixon, through his Secretary of Labor George Schultz, expressly required that a specific percentage of contracts be directed to minority contractors. This practice of specific set-asides for minorities became known as the "Philadelphia Plan." Prior to 1969, governmental officials used the 1964 Civil Rights Act to introduce "numerical racial hiring goals" in governmental contracting.

From 1962 to 1971, affirmative action enjoyed wide-based support and was essentially an effort propelled by executive, and, to a lesser degree, legislative action. The concept was politically popular and Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter, took action to promote it as a national goal.

President Kennedy, following the lead of President Eisenhower, moved to institutionalize the requirement that contractors awarded federal contracts hire minority employees in the completion of their contracts. It was clear that race was the determining factor in achieving this mandate. President Johnson through his support of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and his Executive Order, before mentioned, continued to attack racial discrimination in the workplace. Presidents

Alpha Forum Nixon and Carter introduced quoas employment or educational tas and reviewable goals to measure opportunity. It was clear by 1971 the extent of programmatic that if standardized test scores were progress. used to decide who benefitted from employment or educational oppory 1971, the evolution of tunities that whites would continue affirmative action conto occupy the most meaningful jobs tinued but took a new and enjoy the preferred educational direction. The 1964 Civil Rights opportunities.

Act expressly allowed for the use of standardized tests in hiring. Some Even though the DeFunis case argued that "objective tests" deterwas finally dismissed by the U.S. mined merit and others argued that Supreme Court as moot, Associate such tests should only be a factor in Justice William O. Douglas presuch determinations. This debate was especially robust in the areas i of employment and education.

I fear that we have come full circle.

More and more testing was being After the Civil War our government used by tiie late 1960s to make decisions about who should be started several "Affirmative Action" hired or promoted in the workplace or given aid at colleges and programs. This Court in the Civil universities. The role of testing in such matters made its way to Rights Cases and Plessy v. Ferguson the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971. destroyed the movement toward This was the High Court's first major foray into this debate. The complete equality. For almost a cenCourt, as was the tenor of the time, restricted the use of stantury no action was taken, and this dardized test scores as screens for inaction was with the tacit approval employment in Griggs vs. Duke Power Co. This issue was of the Courts. brought into even starker view when the U.S. Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall agreed to hear the complaint of a law school applicant named Marco DeFunis, Jr. He was denied admission to the University pared an opinion. His opinion of Washington even though his reflected the great difficulty even undergraduate grades and Law liberals were beginning to voice School Admission Test scores were about the perceived negative effect higher than virtually all of the affirmative action was having on African-American students admitwhite males.The Court rendered ted in 1971. the case moot because DeFunis was admitted to the law school by temDeFunis came to symbolize the porary order and he was near gradrising claim of white Americans uation by the time the case reached that affirmative action had come to the Court for decision. Douglas, represent reverse discrimination who issued some of the orders against whites. The 1971 Griggs keeping DeFunis in school, used decision by the Supreme Court was this case to memorialize his views. especially troubling to affirmative He finally decided that DeFunis action opponents who advocated should not be admitted. He opined the removal of race in determining that the use of standardized test who was entitled to a benefit such

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scores was an inappropriate reason for admitting whites over AfricanAmericans to the law school. He determined the LSAT to be culturally biased and therefore an illegal basis for admission. This issue was revisited in 1978.

It was in the case of University of California Regents v. Bakke, where the supporters and opponents of affirmative action drew their respective battle lines.

In Bakke the majority of the Court held that, "the Fourteenth Amendment provided rights to individuals and not to groups."

The majority of the Court did conclude that race could be a factor in determining which individuals) was most deserving of special consideration in matters of higher education.

The Court's holding in Bakke reflected a dispute that had divided legal scholars for more than 100 years. That debate revolves around the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States. The claim by white Americans that discrimination against them was prohibited by the 14th Amendment, i.e. reverse discrimination, was questioned by some constitutional scholars. These scholars maintained that the 14th Amendment was enacted to protect AfricanAmericans from discrimination, not whites. These scholars argue that the 14th Amendment was enacted to protect slaves from acts by states who were unfriendly to recently emancipated slaves.

Brother Thurgood Marshall in his Bakke dissent strongly disagreed with the majority's conclusion that the 14th Amendment of the Federal Constitution protects only the rights of the individual. In his well researched and reasoned dissent, Brother Marshall compellingly demonstrated that AfricanAmericans have been collectively

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 5

Alpha Forum discriminated against because of race. He concluded: "I fear that we have come full circle. After the Civil War our government started several 'Affirmative Action' programs. This Court in the Civil Rights Cases and Plessy v.

Ferguson destroyed the movement toward complete equality. For almost a century no action was taken, and this inaction was widi the tacit approval of the Courts."

44 A I

Ahen we had Brown v.

Board of Education _M_ and the Civil Rights Act of Congress, followed by numerous affirmative-action programs. Now, we have this Court again stepping in, this time to stop affirmative-action programs of the type used by the University of California."

When the court rejected Brother Marshall's interpretation of the 14th Amendment, that it was enacted to protect and assist former slaves and their ancestors as a group, he correctly saw the kind of Supreme Court decisions that are today causing such consternation among the supporters of affirmative action. The Court has decided that the 14th Amendment does not protect a group that has suffered historical group discrimination.

Shortly after Bakke, the Court focused on cases relating to work and employment. In 1979, Justice William Brennan addressed the issue of whether private employer voluntary affirmative action plans were subject to protection in United Steelworkers vs. Weber.

Weber presented a slightly different legal issue for the Court because discrimination is generally a matter requiring governmental involvement before it becomes actionable in Court.

Although the Courts since

6 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

1979 have retreated somewhat from Justice Brennan's position, he decided then that such plans were constitutionally protected. The Court even allowed for the hiring of minorities and women with less qualifications for a job than white men (Johnson vs. Santa Clara County, 1987). The Court in 1980 approved minority contract setasides for Federal programs (Fullilove vs. Klugnick).

By 1989 the Supreme Court had dramatically changed, from 1980, to a more Conservative group. A Chief Justice William Rehnquist-lead majority had its first impact on this issue in two important cases. In Richmond vs.

J.A. Creson, Co., the majority invalidated a minority set-aside plan for public contracts. This case was decided in proximity to Ward's Cove Packing Company vs.

Antonio which held that an employment practice with apparent discriminatory effect can be justified if it serves, in a significant way, the legitimate goals of the employer.

These cases set the broad course the Court is now following.

T H E PRESENT During the 1994-95 Supreme Court term, the Court passed on two major affirmative action cases and declined to pass on one other.

The Court invalidated a Congressional district in Georgia because it was drawn based on racial considerations. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority 5-4 opinion. Justice Thomas is but one of two justices on the Court who believes that affirmative action efforts are unconstitutional on their face. In this case, the dimensions of the district enabled the majority to conclude that, in voting cases, race cannot be the determining factor in the cre-

ation of a Congressional district. It is not clear from that opinion whether race can be a factor.

In a case the Court decided not to accept, a lower Court ruling that declared scholarships for Black students unconstitutional was allowed to stand. This action by the Court reaffirmed its position that if it finds race to be the major factor in making a distinction between people, that kind of discrimination will not be upheld. In other words the Court has adopted the concept put forward by white males, reverse discrimination.

The Court also decided Adarand vs. Pena. This case confronted the role race can play in the awarding of federal benefits.

Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor seemed to reach back to Bakke. While saying that such programs can be constitutional they will be subjected to close examination.

Justice O'Connor wrote for a 5-4 majority that: "Programs beneficial to recipients when race defines who receives that benefit must be subject to the most searching judicial inquiry and can survive only if they are narrowly tailored to a compelling governmental interest."

The majority of the U.S. Supreme Court seems to be committed to allowing race to remain a criteria in affirmative action decisions. Its role however, has all but disappeared. The Court has rejected the view that affirmative action can be used as a remedy to correct past racial wrongs of a group. The Court seems to be saying that if an individual within a previously discriminated against group can show past wrongs, a government or private individual(s) may craft narrowly constructed remedies specifically intended to correct the identified wrong.

The Clinton administration in

response to Pena issued new guidelines for evaluating federal affirmative action programs.

The new guidelines require federal programs to now be justified by evidence of "particularized discrimination in a specific sector" rather than a general assumption of widespread racism or sexism. The meaning of Pena will be clarified through future Court decisions.

But, at first blush, Pena is a clear retreat from earlier affirmative action goals. It was not until Bakke that the Federal government through the U.S. Supreme Court retreated from race as the driving force behind affirmative action. It does appear that the government wants to maintain a mechanism for dispensing benefits to people to the detriment of White males, but it will use criteria for those decisions other than race. It is my thought that future cases will define those criteria.

The standards announced by the Court this past term will make the affirmation of benefit programs almost impossible if race plays a significant role in its effect. The Court's action has emboldened state executives like Governor Pete Wilson of California to dismantle affirmative action programs long in effect in his state.

President George Bush signed the 1991 Civil Rights Act and supported its efforts to reverse the negative effects of Supreme Court decisions. But today there is no real will to enforce the 1991 Act. The Act included new protections for women and minorities in the workplace.

CONCLUSIONS

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ffirmative action as it has been known since 1961 is not dead, but it is on life support. Those who still believe it is a mechanism through

which past racial discrimination will be addressed are, in my opinion, unduly optimistic. A recent study indicated that affirmative action for all of its governmental support over the years has minimally advanced African-Americans toward educational, employment and voting parity with whites.The University of California increased its AfricanAmericans student enrollment by less than 3% over the past 25 years. overnor Wilson saw the increase sufficiently threatening to disband the University's affirmative action programs.

The hostility to an idea that seems to be so morally correct is sometimes perplexing to those who support the concept. This is particularly true when rules of law institutionalize that hostility. The Court will continue to affirm the concept of affirmative action but its support will be tepid and essentially meaningless. e Alphas would do well to recall the wise counsel of Brother Charles Hamilton Houston. Brother Houston, the architect of Civil Rights law in this country, made the following observation when he developed the legal strategy that eventually dismantled the "separate but equal" doctrine in this country. He noted that it was sophism to argue in Courts that the "separate but equal" doctrine was unconstitutional on its face. He said that the very people you would be making this argument to were the very people who had benefitted most from the doctrine. One would be naive to believe that these people would be the destroyers of a system that had served them so well. Brother Houston's strategy of requiring states to "equalize" unequal schools, for instance, was enforced by the Courts because it was unavoidable and eventually the

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country came to see that two equal systems were economically unfeasible.

A strategy has not yet been devised to cope with this country's retreat from affirmative action. But as in Brother Houston's time, the strategy to meet this challenge will come from our community and more likely from our Fraternity.

Wallace L. Walker, Esquire 1962 — Initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Alpha Delta Chapter (University of Southern California) 1 9 6 3 - 6 4 — Assistant Western Regional Vice President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. 1966 — BA (Journalism) California State University at Los Angeles 1970 — J D (Law) University of California at Los Angeles.

Life m e m b e r of Fraternity — Active in O m i c r o n Delta Lambda Chapter — Philadelphia, PA Attorney in private practice in Philadelphia, PA

people you would be making this argument to were the very people who had benefited most from the doctrine. One would be naive to believe that these people would be the destroyers of a system that had served them so well.

Fall 1995 •

The Sphinx A 7

College Days Trade Martin

"I DID IT OUT OF LOSS FOR MY FRIEND" Tracie Martin, "Miss Black and Gold" "I did it out of loss for my friend." Her friend was Reginald Broadus, a Texas A&M senior at the time of his unexpected death in an accident. "He was wonderful.

He led a life dedicated to service. He truly had the spirit of the Fraternity."

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he is an honor student in accounting, a profession to which she is attracted because she is "drawn to detail" and its technical preciseness.

Her career goal is to practice family law with a special concern for the welfare of children.

Along with her honors achievement in accounting, she sings, dances, writes poetry, and, yes, studies braille and sign language for the hearing and visually impaired.

Meet Tracie Martin, 1995 "Miss Black and Gold."

A native of Port Arthur, Texas, she is a senior at Texas A&M University and represented Pi Omicron in the "Miss Black and Gold" competition.

When she was a freshman at Texas A&M four years ago, Alpha men "more than enthusiastically took me under their wings," Tracie recalls. She too has been impressed with the Fraternity's emphasis on scholarship, leadership, and community service.

But while she participated in service projects with Pi Omicron and became increasingly attached to the aims of the Fraternity, Tracie says she was reluctant to accept their invitation to participate in the "Miss Black

8 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

and Gold" Pageant. Why? Fear, she admits.

And whyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or howâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;did she overcome that fear?

"I did it out of loss for my friend." Her friend was Reginald Broadus, a Texas A&M senior at the time of his unexpected death in an accident. "He was wonderful. He led a life dedicated to service. He truly had the spirit of the Fraternity."

Like Brother Broadus, Tracie is also dedicated to service. Her career goal is a plan of service as opposed to a plan of work. Her interest in family law, for instance, stems from a concern for children.

"The problems of young children today begin at home," she believes. They (the children) receive material things, but the emotional support is absent." oo many children involved in family separations are not placed in loving and caring homes, Tracie reasons. "I want to be in the courtroom to see that children are put in safe and secure homes."

Trade's interest in braille and sign language is also related to her interest in children and the service she would like to provide them. "I don't want to be limited in the kind of children, nor the n u m ber of children I can reach," she says.

Understanding the hearing and language impaired provides an opportunity for larger service, Tracie adds.

She also sees a bit of wisdom coming from persons with impairments that may not be so evident among many with normal functions. "People who are blind can see a lot better than those of us who have the visual ability to see," she says.

"I am drawn to what they feel about life, especially those who are very positive about life." She

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is inspired, Trade says, by diose who see their impairments as "stepping stones and not stumbling blocks" in life.

The 41,000 students enrolled at Texas A&M competes with the size of her hometown in Port Arthur, Texas. But Tracie was never awed by the size of the school. Indeed, it was her first and only choice.

She has always been impressed by die university's spirit. "I enjoy the Aggie spirit. It is just like a home away from home. Aggies help each other, so if I need anything, it is here," Tracie insists.

Participation in "big events" is a joy. She has helped paint a house for those who couldn't afford to do so. And she has done gardening for community residents. "There are a lot of traditions here," she says.

In addition to the traditions she found at Texas A&M, Tracie will also receive credit for establishing traditions at the university.

She planned and hosted the first AfricanAmerican women's tea on campus, and has since planned a Black Women's Retreat. nder the theme of "Empowering Ourselves by Enhancing Womanhood," the tea-program focused on sisterhood amongst African-American women, sexism, selfrespect, and the "Role of the African Woman Today."

There is a breakdown in sisterhood among African-American women, Tracie maintains. And while there is no one contributing factor to this breakdown in relationships between AfricanAmerican women, Tracie believes it has a lot to do with the focus on "independence."

She is not opposed to being independent, but says "no man is entirely unto himself. While there is always room for independence, Tracie says it should not be to the extent that it negatively impacts sisterhood—relationships between African-American women.

Because of this breakdown in sisterhood between African- American women, Tracie says the breakdown between women and men is heightened.

Self-respect? It's lacking. "We are disillusioned" as to the true meaning of selfrespect, Tracie says.

"Sometimes we carry ourselves in ways that call for disrespect. We wear anything, say anything, and do anything, but we say we have self-respect. That is very contradictory. If you have selfrespect, you are limited in where you go, what you wear, and what you say."

As Tracie explains it, self-respect is earned "What you give is what you get."

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The retreat she planned for this school year was an "opportunity for African-American females to get away for a weekend to discuss diings"—to look at ways to enhancing womanhood and increasing sisterhood. mong the retreat workshop topics: "What happens when women pray?"

"Loving him, not losing myself?"

The 1995 Miss Black and Gold shared the stage this year with: Sharon Warren, Stillman College; Tajah Blackburn, DePauw University; La'Tasha L. Price, Hampton University; Alisa Early, San Jose State University.

Miss Warren is an accounting/Latin major widi plans for law school and a career as an underwriter for a major corporation.

Like Miss Black and Gold, service is high on her agenda. She works at an abuse shelter, sharing time with drug addicted infants. Her extensive community service, Ms. Warren maintains, makes her a part of the solution (to the problem) rather than part of the problem.

As a thoracic surgeon, Ms. Blackburn would like to devote special attention to the "underserved, underrepresented, and economically challenged." A certified aerobics instructor, she wants to help fellow African-Americans "realize their potentials."

Ms. Price sings, models, dances, plays die piano, and enjoys public speaking. A first place winner in two Mississippi pageants, she wants one day to be a participant in the Miss America Pageant. The mass media major also has plans to own a child development center.

Ms. Early would like to become a judge after practicing law a few years. Meanwhile, she augments participation in debate, reading, hiking, and singing with extensive church work. A senior, she is the first in a family of seven to graduate from college.

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Miss Black and Gold Contestants (from left) are: Alisa Early, San Jose State; Sharon Warren, Stillman College; Tracie Martin (seated) Texas A&M; Tajah Blackburn, DePauw University; and La'Tasha L. Price, Hampton University.

Fall 1995 •

The Sphinx A 9

College Days 1995 College Brother of the Year

'You Have to Bring Something to the Organization'

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uscaloosa, AL - Tyrone Quarles defies the notion that African-American males are a dying breed. His academic achievements are also an indication that faith, determination, and guidance are essential elements of success.

Growing up in Camden, AL, Quarles was never bothered by what he did not have and what the school system may not have provided.

Instead, he took advantage of the resources that were available and supplemented them with enrichment programs. Every system has its strengths, Quarles maintains, and students must find these strengths and take advantage of them, he says.

He was the valedictorian of his Wilcox County Central High School class, completed his engineering degree with honors at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and is currently enrolled in law school at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Quarles is also 1995 College Brother of the Year.

Fraternity, according to Quarles, is represented by a group of young people with similar goals and interests who organize themselves to pursue those goals and interests. But one of the key ingredients in fraternity life, as it is in life in general, is an "open mind"â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a willingness to listen. "Sometimes listening will reaffirm your ideas, and sometimes listening will open your eyes to new ideas," Brother Quarles reasons.

Members need a sense of brotherhood before joining a fraternity, Quarles maintains. "You have to bring something to the organization. You have to be a working, functional part of it." Fraternity life "flourishes out of brotherhood...being able to live with your fellowman" and "treating other people as you want to be treated."

"God has blessed me with so many people who have guided me," Brother Quarles remembers with appreciation. His mother raised Quarles and a younger brother in the church, kept them off the street, and always put high emphasis on the value of education.

10 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

"She is one of the strictest persons I know, but I understand it now and love her for it," the honor student says.

It was his mother's advice as a child that helped shape his philosophy of life: " Success in life won't necessarily be determined by what happens to you, but rather how you react to what happens to you.

Always do your best and be the best person you can; and regardless of what happens to you just keep faith in God and always know that everything is going to be alright."

He calls his grandparents the "wisest people I know," remembers the emphasis his agribusiness teacher placed on civic and community service, the school librarian and yearbook adviser who helped polish his personality, and his college adviser who was always available to help him with problems and "provide that extra motivation."

While he values having had caring mentors, Quarles is quick to note that the key to growth and development is "listening" to the mentors. "Anybody can tell you something if you only listen. A child can tell you something. Listen to everybody." Academic knowledge alone will not get one through life, he insists.

don't see what is going on, or we re. If we did, we would have more ng people going to college, more young people involved in youth programs."

Brother Quarles is as committed to service as he is to academic achievement. As a high school student, he was associated with a group of young men who visited nursing homes and shared fruit baskets and they each adopted grandparents. "You don't forget those experiences," he says.

He is concerned about helping people, as he says he has been helped, but Quarles has a special and admitted affection for senior citizens. He thinks they are too often ignored. They are forgotten, he adds. In addition to the conventional wisdom they provide, he sees senior citizens as leaders who fought battles to make possible opportunities many now take for granted. "The struggle is not over. A very large number of us have gotten content. That is dangerous," Quarles says.

"We don't see what is going on, or we don't care. If we did, we would have more young people going to college, more young people involved in youth programs." t troubles him that the "new youth movement has not emerged. Our focus is on athletics and entertainment as opposed to education." He is not opposed to either athletics or entertainment, but they should not take priority over other opportunities.

He wants to see youth manifesting as much interest in politics and business as they seem to be focusing on the "one in a million chance" of making it in the NBA. It is not just the plight of senior citizens that concerns him, but Quarles also laments proposed program and budget cuts and their implications for all who will be affected. He does not condone welfare, Quarles says, but neither should welfare recipients be denied programs they need without the benefit of alternatives.

"You can only replace a problem with a solution," Quarles maintains. And he believes the government, through proposed program and budget cuts, is favoring society's middle class instead of those in most need.

Brother Quarles is founder of the Wilcox Summer Youth Recreation program which involved more than 120 young people; he was a youth mentor and mathematics instructor in the Bama Kids Summer Enrichment program; and was a coordinator and coach in the Bama Kids Summer Youth Basketball League which served young people from 8 to 18 years old.

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"Fraternity life is what you make it," Quarles notes. "The more you get out of it, the more you want from it."

1H

1995 College Brother of the Year, Tyrone Quarles

Quarles is proud of the time he spent in Wilcox County between sessions at the University of Alabama at Huntsville developing and participating in youth programs. "You've got to give these kids some positive things to do. If they are not involved in positive things, they will turn to alternatives," Quarles believes. And then he asks: "Who's at fault if they don't have positive alternatives" in which to become involved?

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 11

College Days "You would be amazed at how it makes these young people feel just to know that somebody is interested in them. You can't reach all of them but you can reach some of them."

Instead of returning to Wilcox County during three of the four summers he was in college, he could have found employment with some corporation or taken an internship in Huntsville, as he did in his

"You would be amazed at how it makes these young people feel just to know that somebody is interested in them. You can't reach all of them but you can reach some of them." senior year, but "I saw the need to go home and work with the kids. There was a greater need at home."

The 1995 College Brother of the Year has provided leadership in Rho Chi through membership on the Miss Black and Gold Committee, Education, Social and Tutorial Committees, and the Bone Marrow, Blood Donor, Voter Registration, and Senior Citizen projects. he Twenty Distinguished Men of Huntsville honored Brother Quarles with the 1995 Collegiate Leadership Award. He was a Student Ambassador at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, vice president of the National Order of Omega, International Fraternity Council representative, Student Government Association Advisory Board member, and treasurer of the National Society of Black Engineers.

"Fraternity life is what you make it," Quarles notes. "The more you get out of it, the more you want from it." His expectations of fraternity life are being met, Quarles allows, but at the same time he is not satisfiedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;he is not content with fraternity life. "If I accomplish one thing, I always think I can do better. I still see room for improvement."

During attendance at state, regional and national meetings, Quarles said he did not find alumni Brothers as hospitable to college Brothers as he expected.

"When you are in the company of so many prosperous men, you expect some of their success to rub off (on aspiring college brothers)," the Wilcox County native noted.

He would like to see improvement in "networking" between Brothers, between alumni and college

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12 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

Brothers particularly. "We need to reach down and touch one another more than we do," Brother Quarles says. He wants alumni Brothers to tell college Brothers the secrets of their success. He applauds the alumnicollege Brothers networking session General President Milton Davis initiated as a part of the General Convention agenda. n addition to more dialogue between alumni and college Brothers, Quarles also wants college chapters to be more creative and aggressive in program development. "We have wonderful national projects, but chapters should also have their own programs and not be content" with national mandates. As Brother Quarles sees it, the National Office can benefit from chapter initiatives.

Quarles completed his engineering degree with the support of a Delta Theta Lambda Hobson Scholarship, MacMillan Bloedel Scholarship, and a WCEA Scholarship. He was a Presidential Scholar for four years, earned a UAH Greek Scholarship for four years, was named to the Honors & Honors Scholar's List for four years, and was a NASA and Simpson Foundation Scholar. He is attending law school with die support of a University of Alabama scholarship. hy engineering and then law school?

How do engineering and law relate?

Brother Quarles will pursue a legal career as what he calls an "intellectual property" attorney, focusing on patents, copyrights and other property matters. And although it may be a little difficult, he will stay connected with his roots in Wilcox County.

He will not always be at home to implement ideas, but he can always pass his ideas along to someone who can, Quarles reasons. As he moves into practicing law, his connection with Wilcox County may not be "hands on," but he would like to remain "a resource." He will also continue to speak before civic, school and church organizations as often as he is invited and his time permits. "Whatever time you can spend at home is better than none at all," he says.

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College Days

YOU MUST HAVE SELFDETERMINATION /

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hey were unanimous in their conclusion.

Self-determination is real. Indeed it is necessary, particularly for African-Americans in a society that is "constantly and continuously trying to break us."

"Kujicbagulia" was the theme of the Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Contest and the speakers were consistent in advocating its value.

Forceful in their presentations, they were all good.

But first place honors went to Brother Nerrick Jackson, Beta Nu, Kentucky State; Brother David Hartfield, Jr,

San Jose State University in the Western Region won second place; and third place honors went to Brother Elvin J. Dowling of Gamma Iota Chapter, the Eastern Region.

Brother Hakim Kokayi, Mu Nu, Southwest Texas State, and Brother Tommy Aaron Morris, Tougaloo College, were also participants in the Lawson Oratorical Contest. Brother Morris aspires to become, he says, "one of die youngest presidents of a historically black college or university." And watch for Brother Kakayi to own a "mega publishing company" which, he

Fall 1995 â&#x20AC;˘

The Sphinx A 13

College Days

says, "will be an instrument operated by God." "The time has come for us to stand up to all the "Racism is prevalent now more than ever; naysayers and negative thinkers within our comthe system as a whole is corrupt, and the world just seems to be in a state of constant chaos," munities and let them know that, come what may, Brother Nerrick Jackson observed. "You have to be self-determined and exercise your kujichagiilia we are determined to achieve our goals. Come just to make it."

Jackson used Martin Luther King, Jr, what may, we are determined to change our comMahatma Ghandi, Malcolm X, George munities by moving just a little bit farther."

Washington Carver, Nelson Mandela, and Rosa Parks as examples of national leaders who evidenced self-determination in their lives. Brother Jackson credited Rosa Parks with teaching "a determination should evidence that belief by becoming black nation how to stand up by sitting down." active in their communities, participating in mentoring Mandela spent the best years of his life behind prison programs, "feeding the hungry, visiting the sick. Those bars but is today his country's president, Jackson noted. in favor (of self-determination) stand up for what is And there was self-determination in Ghandi's "nonright and just. Those in favor, stand and be counted. violent protest" in the pursuit of peace and justice, Those opposed, continue as you are."

Brother Jackson added.

You must want success as much as you want to Brothers Dowling and Hartfield agreed that levels breathe, Hartfield suggested. Change in communities of achievement are largely influenced by one 's selfmust be sought with the same priority given to breathdetermination. ing. "When you scratch for justice, claw for righteous"Don't allow people to impose limitations on what ness, and fight for equality with every ounce of your we can do or become," Brother Hartfield suggested. being, then you will attain it," Brother Hartfield "People rise no higher than their expectations. If we promised. amised expect little or nothing from ourselves, we should not elf-determination is one of the principles that be surprised if we amount to just that." has helped African-Americans "make hinThose who believe in the value and power of selfdrances stepping stones to success," Brother

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14 A The Sphinx â&#x20AC;˘

Fall 1995

Elvin Dowling said. "The time has come for us to stand up to all the naysayers and negative thinkers within our communities and let them know that, come what may, we are determined to achieve our goals. Come what may, we are determined to change our communities by moving just a little bit farther."

As Brother Dowling explained, African-Americans must first examine themselves before tackling obstacles that stand in the way of change and success. "We must

"People rise no higher than their expectations.

If we expect little or nothing from ourselves, we should not be surprised if we amount to just that." first take an introspective look within, for we have seen the enemy and the enemy is us," he maintained.

African-Americans must "put up or shut up," Dowling added. African-Americans must be "determined enough within ourselves to change our community, or bold enough to change our addresses."

"Every time the president of a majority university orally articulates his negative views regarding natural intelligence, the education system has failed us. Every time we march down somebody's street because a brother or sister has been stepped on, beaten down, and locked up, the system has failed us," Brother Dowling went on. Yet, he maintained, self-determination can change the systems that fail AfricanAmericans.

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ope and faith are both encompassed in self-determination, Dowling said. The speaker warned of times when "it seems as if the entire world is against you..." And there would also be times when it seems that "every time you take one step forward you are knocked two steps back" But he encouraged the use of "self-determination" when life has dealt you its toughest blow....when you are standing face to face with racial prejudice and political injustice."

After completing his military commitment as a U. S. Army commissioned officer, Dowling will continue networking that is expected to set the stage for him to become a U. S. Congressman.

Brother Dowling has already completed an internship with the Congressional Black Caucus.

He is recipient of the Palm Beach (FL) Post Pathfinder's Award for community service and was a radio talk show host, "Teens Taking it to the Streets."

Brother Hartfield has been recognized by Ebony magazine as one of the "Thirty Leaders of the Future."

"My interest is in helping youth as someone helped me...to somehow let the light of Jesus come forth and draw all unto Him," the San Jose State senior nutritional science major says.

After completing his degree in business administration at Kentucky State, Brother Nerrick Jackson has joined The GAP, a retail clothing corporation. But his position as distribution manager with The GAP is expected to be temporary. He says the ministry is his "first love," his "calling in life."

Brother Jackson plans to earn a Master of Divinity degree before formally launching his career in the ministry.

Collegiate Scholars Bowl Winners The Southwestern Region Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 15

President's Address

STATE OF THE FRATERNITY ADDRESS Delivered by General President Milton C. Davis at the 89th Anniversary Geneml Convention,Orlando, Florida

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o our Past General Presidents, Brother T. Winston Cole, Brother Walter Washington, Brother James R. Williams, Brother Ozell Sutton, Brother Charles C. Teamer, Brother Henry Ponder—God has blessed us and favored us to have all of our living General Presidents with us today. I extend my fraternal greetings to all of my Brothers who have come from the four corners of the nation and across the world to Orlando, Florida.

I see the faces of so many good Brothers who have come to enjoy the excitement, fellowship and substance during these days of convention. Some Brothers from my hometown of Tuskegee — Brother John J. Johnson whose work is so crucial in the success of our Sphinx Magazine. Brother Robert Davis, the President of Alpha Nu Lambda Chapter, my home chapter. Brother Charlie E. Hardy, my friend and able presidential assistant I see Brothers who inspired me to join Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity over 27 years ago. Brother Jock Smith, a fellow attorney, in Tuskegee, Alabama, and Brother Dock Anderson, now a lawyer in San Diego, who while we were both students at Tuskegee University walked over a mile with me home from the campus one day trying to convince me to join Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. I finally took his advice. I see Brother Precel Kirk, a Brother with whom I was initiated at Tuskegee University. Brother Kirk always knows when to come to my side in support of my efforts. I thank these Brothers and others who have surrounded me and helped make this administration successful.

Some chairs will be empty at this Convention.

Brothers now claimed by Omega Chapter are no longer

16 A The Sphinx •

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with us. Among them a Brother who had become known and admired by us at these conventions, Brother Ralph Bell, former President of Beta Kappa Chapter at Langston University, a 4.0 scholar, a contestant in this year's oratorical contest and a member of the collegiate scholars' Bowl Team was tragically killed in an automobile accident just two weeks ago. We remember him today and those who mourn him. We also remember all those other Brothers who have passed on.

For the 81st time in our 89-year history the supreme governing body of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is formed. For the third and final time for this administration, it is my magnificent privilege and signal honor to stand before you and render my constitutional responsibility as the 29th General President and report on the State of the Fraternity.

Oh, what a difference 12 small, swiftly passing months make. When I last stood before you in Chicago during the 88th General Convention: — There was no perceived threat from a "Contract With America" to the vital interests of AfricanAmericans in this country.

— The United States Supreme Court was still viewed as a haven of last resort and refuge for minorities seeking justice in this nation.

— African-Americans were celebrating their gains in Congress and legislatures across the country as a result of newly redrawn district voting lines.

— Hardworking parents and students had optimism and hope that by working hard, saving their money, and getting good grades in school the federal government would continue to allocate some small portion of the vast federal resources for student financial assistance for college education. hen we met in Chicago last August, we did not detect the gathering blitz krieg attack against civil rights gains fought for and earned through 400 years of slavery, the post reconstruction American segregationist apartheid system and consecrated by the blood of the martyrs of the modern civil rights movement.

Nor did we have any idea that these precious gains could be taken so easily with scarcely a whimper or even

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symbolic resistance from the African-American community.

Little did we know how weakened our premier civil rights organization, the NAACP, had become.

But we found out its condition when we saw that the NAACP was unable to even offer token resistance. If we stand before the mirror of truth, open our eyes and strictly scrutinize ourselves, we would simply have to say to ourselves; "We missed it, we blew it, we failed."

Indeed that indictment may be read against almost every AfricanAmerican organization in this nation.

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h, what a difference 12 months, just 365 days make in the life of a nation, the plight of a people, the history of a fraternity. I am compelled to place us as a fraternity in context with our time, but I must also hasten to add that during these same 12 months, these same 365 days, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has taken several strategic actions to raise itself up, dust itself off, focus its manpower and resources and take several giant steps into an optimistic and positive future.

Internally: â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Our chapter assessment tool, which initially was heavily debated, improving to be an effective and much needed instrument in gathering knowledge about our chapters, their assets, programs, members and needs. The chapter assessment proved to be a device for linking brothers and leadership together at every level. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Several chapters have met and exceeded their membership recruitment goals set out by the General Office. A short sampling of these chapters include: Alpha Lambda - Lexington, KY 100.0% Gamma Lambda - Detroit, MI 100.6%

President Davis Says TIME HAS BROUGHT ABOUT CHANGE..SO GOOD, SOME NOT SO GOOD During the 12 months since the 1994 convention in Chicago, time some devastating blows to the African-American community, General President Milton C. Davis told the 1995 Convention in Orlando. But in that same time, President Davis reported progress within the Fraternity.

The "Contract with America" is threatening the vital interest of America, the U. S. Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action will no doubt slow some of the gains African- Americans were enjoying, and cuts in student financial aid will mean fewer African-Americans going to college.

"Little did we know how weckened our premier civil rights organization, the NAACP, had become, President Davis observed. "But we found out its condition when we saw that the NAACP was unable to even offer token resistance."

Davis told the convention-goers: "We missed it, we blew it, we failed.

Indeed that indictment may be read against almost every African-American organization in this nation."

But there were positive development over the last 12 months, he adde Among them:

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"The chapter assessment tool is providing much-needed information about the assets, programs, and needs of chapters.

'The new Executive Director, Brother Darryl Matthews, and the General Office staff receive high marks for their performance.

'Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity is now a part of the World Wide Internet.

'The Fraternity's archives have been officially established at the Moorland Spingarn Archives, Howard University.

President Davis also announced the formation of the Fraternity's World Policy Council, a "group of distinguished Alphas whose work would include addressing issues of both domestic and international importance, publishing and disseminating their findings and recommendations to the widest audience possible." The World Policy Council will be chaired by Brother Edward Brooke, who has already invested $5,000 to help organize the body, and co-chaired by Brother Ambassador Horace Dawson.

Others named to the seven-member World Policy Council include: the President of Morehouse Medical College, Brother Louis Sullivan; Brother Arty. Clinton C. Jones, senior legal counsel to the U. S. House of Representatives Banking and Commerce Committee; Brother Dr. Cornelius Henderson, president of Gammon Theological Seminary; and Brother Richard Arrington, mayor of Birmingham, AL. President Davis has designated August 1996, as the first Alpha Education Foundation Weekend and Brother Brooke will deliver the first Charles H. Wesley National Lecture.

The General President asked the Brothers to devote "quality prime time" to the work and mission of the Fraternity. "No idle small talk, but profound, focused, deliberate thinking is needed...," President Davis said.

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 17

President's Address Xi Lambda - Chicago, IL 121.3% Upsilon Lambda - Jacksonville, FL 116.7% Alpha Alpha Lambda - Newark, NJ 110.0% Beta Delta Lambda - Daytona Beach, FL 113.3% Gamma Phi Lambda - Berkeley, CA 116.0% Delta Alpha Lambda - Cleveland, O H 114.1 % Alpha Chi - Fisk University 100.0% Beta Kappa - Langston University 108.0% Gamma Pi - Benedict 113.3% Theta Upsilon - Arkansas State University 133.3% There are many other chapters, I only name a few.

We have a new Executive Director, Brother Darryl Matthews. His performance, productivity and results tlius far have been outstanding. We can be justly proud of die dedication and commitment of our Executive Director, Brother Matthews, as well as die work of BrotJier Lover High and Brother Seaton White and the clerical and administrative staff.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity is now on line witli the World Wide Web. Alpha has a home page and can now be accessed on computer around die world.

A complete demonstration of our capabilities was performed for the Board of Directors at its meeting during this convention. We have the capability of using government sponsored networks and services.

- We now have a Computer Bulletin Board - A Job Search Feature - Resume Posting Feature - The capability of accessing fraternity forms of various kinds, filling diem in and filing diem instantly.

Our fiscal officers may now remain at their homes or offices in Montgomery, Alabama or Chicago, Illinois, access our financial data base and update fiscal reports and utilize information. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity is a part of the world wide Internet. The possibilities and die future are enormous for us with this new capability.

Our historical archives are being officially established at the Moorland Spingarn Archives at Howard

University. Our artifacts and memorabilia will be carefully and professionally prepared, categorized, stored and preserved for our use and diat of serious scholars who seek knowledge of the world's first black collegiate fraternity.

Again for the third consecutive year Alpha shall host a major reception in Washington, D.C. during the Congressional Black Caucus Weekend. This event creates valuable networking opportunities widi our Brothers, members of Congress, federal government leaders and visiting individuals. Alpha's image at die federal level has never been greater nor more positive and effective tiian it is right now. We shall build on tins base. ufficient groundwork has been laid, and it is now time for us to build the memorial to Brother Martin Luther King, Jr. Let tins symbolism of courage, scholarship and leadership serve as a catalyst for renewing a sense of unity, purpose and commitment to civil rights and human justice. You will hear more about this effort.

I have appointed two new chairmen of our foundations. Brother Hebrew Dixon shall serve as chair of the Building Foundation and Brother Christopher Womack shall serve as Chair of the Education Foundation. New members of these foundations have also been named.

— My charge to the Building Foundation is to take the land in Chicago where the old Headquarters was located and develop it for some useful purpose immediately—that is either 1) Build a rental facility 2) A business facility 3) A housing facility We own the land, pay taxes on it and we must use it for the benefit of others and ourselves.

The Education Foundation is charged with developing a weekend national scholarship fund-raiser. In those years in which no General Convention is held, the

ot the critic wht counts. It is not tlthe man who points out he strong man stumbled

or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit ngs to the man who is actualhe arena, whose face is marred by sweat and dust and id. Who strives iantly, who errs and comes short again and again. For it is he who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause..."

18 A The Sphinx •

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President's Address Education Foundation shall have a national gathering where Brothers, chapters, corporate partners and others shall raise funds through a black-tie gala banquet, reception and colloquium weekend. During this weekend, we shall commission a scholar to publish a paper on an issue vital to the African-American community.

This document would be first unveiled during the Weekend at the Charles H. Wesley National Lecture.

The findings and recommendations developed in this paper would receive wide publication and dissemina-

Alpho's place has always been in the arena providing leadership and service so that our people and our families and we as individuals shall know the triumph of high achievement

tion. All funds raised at this event would be given to the Foundation to endow Scholarships.

Alpha must be a part of the solution to the difficult problems facing our community and our nation. I have established the World Policy Council—a group of distinguished Alphas whose work would include addressing issues of both domestic and international importance, publishing and disseminating their findings, and recommendations to the widest audience possible. I am happy to report that former U.S. Senator BrotJier Edward Brooke has consented to chair this most distinguished panel of scholars and leaders. Brother Brooke although extremely busy thought so well of the idea that he sent me a check for $5,000 to further the work of this council.

I have appointed Bro. Ambassador Horace Dawson to serve as Vice Chairman. I have also invited as members Brother Chuck Stone; Brother Clinton C. Jones, Senior Legal Council to the U.S. House of Representatives Banking and Commerce Committee; Brother Dr. Cornelius Henderson, President of Gammon Theological Seminary; Brother Huel Perkins.

One position on this panel of seven remains vacant at this moment. This World Policy Council of Alpha shall also employ a paid research associate, a senior undergraduate or graduate student whose part-time job would be to provide research and drafting for the work of this Panel. Brother Brooke has indicated that this Commission shall be prepared to report and publish its first work by August 1996.1 have designated August, 1996 as the first Alpha Education Foundation Weekend and Brother Edward Brooke shall deliver the first

Charles H. Wesley National Lecture. This weekend shall take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Bro. Mayor Marc Morial has already assured me that the key to the city and the full welcome of New Orleans and its Mayor await Alpha.

During the past few months I have had the pleasure of visiting with our Brothers across the country and also in Europe as the guest of Theta Theta Lambda Chapter in Frankfurt, Germany, and in Nassau the Bahamas as die guest of Iota Epsilon Lambda Chapter. Brothers of Beta Chapter at Howard University participated in a student cultural visitation program in Soweta, South Africa, and in addition to interacting with the young people of that country performed step routines and learned African steps from the local residents.

Alpha sponsored an official representative of the fraternity to the recent African/African-American Summit held in Dakar, Senegal and a brilliant report of that meeting is in the current issue of the Sphinx. This report written by Brother Derrick Cogburn, our representative, clearly demonstrates the value of our Fraternity being proactive both in domestic and international policy matters.

This summary listing of events and accomplishments clearly demonstrates that our Fraternity has taken some giant steps forward, but more, much more needs doing and the urgency of the times and the risks to our communities require Alpha Phi Alpha to provide even greater leadership and service.

Brothers, we simply must devote more than just haphazard spare time, minimal spare change and idle small talk to the mission and work of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Our gains are rolled back, our communities are faltering, our people are in despair and there is no place else to look for light and hope, leadership and service except to the men of Alpha Phi Alpha.

Not spare time, Brothers — but quality prime time needs to be devoted to our work and mission.

Not idle small talk — but profound, focused, deliberate thinking is needed, delivered and expressed with articulation and clarity.

At this Convention, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity shall set the pace: I am asking this convention to raise the sum of $20,000 and authorize me to present it to Mrs. Myrlie Evers- Williams - Chair of the NAACP on Sunday during the pubic program. I am asking each brother to donate at least $100.00 during the collection at the Ecumenical Service and the Public Program. We have invited Myrlie Evers-Williams here to honor her bravery, courage and intellect in being a proactive leader in civil rights for decades and for being tenacious and steadfast in bringing her husband's murderer to justice.

Fall 1995 •

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President's Address We also shall honor our lifelong commitment to the NAACP, an organization that needs us now and we need it. In addition to this Convention's Donation, I would ask this Convention to adopt during the legislative session a resolution calling on each of our chapters to purchase a $500.00 Life Membership in the NAACP. Don't tell me you purchased a life membership 30 years ago.

That money is gone. We need to start over again with renewed resources.

What we did five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago won't help us now. We need to do it again.

I have appointed Brother John Williams to lead our Special Projects Committee. I am asking the Convention to adopt a revitalized version of our "A Voteless People is a Hopeless People" campaign. I have commissioned him to produce hundreds of thousands of door hangers for all our chapters to place throughout their communities reminding and encouraging our people to register and vote. In addition, radio and television community service announcements are also being produced for distribution. e shall continue to build bridges with our college brothers. The life membership breakfast shall inaugurate a new initiative. The College Brother of the Year named at this convention and at each succeeding convention shall receive from the life members a fully paid life membership in Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Our Convention Agenda is exciting. The leadership of the African American community is converging on Orlando this week for the Alpha Convention.

Reverend Brother James Forbes, the Senior Pastor of The Riverside Church, New York, shall be our Ecumenical Speaker on Sunday. Brother Forbes is absolutely spellbinding and is renowned as one of the greatest preachers in America. The Public Program shall bring to us one of the greatest scholars of the 20th Century and the greatest historian in the world, our Brother Dr. John Hope Franklin. Brother Franklin shall also autograph copies of his books after the Public Program. The Alpha Shop shall have copies of Brother Franklin's books on sale for your convenience.

The Public Policy Forum on Monday morning shall bring to us Brother Hugh Price, President of the National Urban League, Brother Delano Lewis, President of National Public Radio, Brother Marc Morial, Mayor of New Orleans, Brother Chuck Stone, journalist and commentator, the Honorable Corrine Brown, member of Congress. The Fraternal Luncheon shall bring to us Brother Richard Arrington, Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama and the Dean of African American Mayors in this country.

Brother Arrington now has the longest seniority of

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any sitting black mayor in the country. On Monday night, our International Festival shall feature a troupe of performers from the Bahamas who shall entertain us royally. Tuesday begins with our International Policy Forum led by Brother Ambassador Horace Dawson.

Our community outreach project at the Boys and Girls Club shall follow that event and we shall conclude our convention with a truly elegant and glittering formal Black and Gold Banquet. Brother Bill Gray, President of the United Negro College Fund, shall be with us at the banquet. his shall be the final time that I shall have the magnificent honor of appearing before a General Convention as the General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and I wish to conclude my report to you today with the same words I used to conclude my Inaugural Address to you in 1993.

These words which were favorites of both Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T Washington are also favorites of mine and they have inspired and motivated me and my administration in service to you.

"It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by sweat and dust and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again. For it is he who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause and who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." lpha's place has always been in the arena providing leadership and service so that our people and our families and we as individuals shall know the triumph of high achievement; and if we should fail on the journey on occasions our place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. This thought has been at the foundation of all our efforts in this administration and has motivated my heart as your General President. I have done my very best for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and I shall continue to do so during the remaining year of my term.

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May God bless all of you.

ALPHA YOUTH VISIT WITH DISNEY CHARACTERS DURING CONVENTION

Alpha Youth of all ages had plenty to do during the 89th Anniversary Convention, including this photo session with none other than Mickey Mouse and Company. Movies, games, storytelling, theatr bowling, disco, and an ongoing hospitality suite kept the young people constructively involved.

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 21

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bu should have been there. If you were there, you know what I mea

T h e r e was something there for ev, one. N o matter what level of inspiration you brought, you had to leave even more inspired.

If there was ever any doubt about the substance of the Alpha Renaissance, the 1995 General Convention in Orlando, F cleared that up. It is difficult to single oui aa highlight as there were highlights every nigni day.

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22 • The Sphinx

Fall 1995 • -fs.

The Sphinx • 23

Milton Christopher Davis (left to right), Brother John Hope Franklin, Mrs. Myrlie Evers-Williams, Mrs. Myrtle G. Davis, President Davis, and Warren Davis

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Brother Dr. Jomes Forbes

Brother Dr. Cornelius Henderson

President Milton C. Davis gave the keynote and opening address, Brother James A. Forbes electrified the Ecumenical Service, Brother John Hope Franklin received a deserving standing ovation for his Public Program address, and Brothers Marc Morial, Hugh Price, Delano Lewis, and Chuck Stone were right on target at the Public Policy Forum.

Brother Richard Arlington sounded the call for leadership during the Fraternal Luncheon; we ed refreshing views on self-

Pianist Lilitte Jenkins Wisner

determination during the Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Contest; the "Miss Black and Gold" contestants were all charming in the presentation of their various talents; the Southwest Region made it clear they wanted—and they deserved it—the Collegiate Scholars Bowl honors; and, of course, discipline was most evident in the Step Show competition which annually is an entertainment "must see."

The International Night Program. Outstanding. First Class.

Entertainment was provided by the

Brother James R. Williams.

Munning Brothers, led by Brother Frederick Munning. The Joncunnu Review presented a Bahamian cultural explosion which featured dancers and singers of traditional song and dance.

The Careers Exposition was a success. The Alpha Shop did brisk business.

Brother Leonard E. Ingram, the 1995 Convention chairman, Brother LeVester Tubbs, president of Delta Xi Lambda, and the Brothers of Delta Xi Lambda rolled out the gold carpet for us in Orlando.

The young people were especially attentive and showed considerable interest in Brother Jock Smith's entrepreneurial approach to motivation. Scoring on the field is not enough, he told the young people. The most important scores in life are the points scored off the field. He used the successes and failures—the ups and downs—of sports figures to make his point. And he made it well.

Brother Dr. John Hope Franklin, with more than 100 honorary degrees to his credit, maintained that "the spirit of our Jewels lives on and provides a solid base for establishing and maintaining the highest possible standards of dignity and selfrespect that all of us can emulate."

Wc live in difficult times, times no less difficult than they were in the days of our Founding Jewels, Brother Franklin observed. But as our Jewels were hopeful, we too must be hopeful.

M

n

rother Forbes' Challenge to Youth Top Right Convention Principals (from left): Brother Astronaut Winston Scott, Brother Dr. James Forbes, Brother Dr. John Hope Franklin, NAACP Chairwoman Myrlie EversWilliams, General President Milton C Davis, Former General President Brother Charles C Teamer, Sr., and Former General President Brother Ozell Sutton.

Bottom Right Former General President Charles C Teamer, Sr., received the Alpha Award of Merit.

"They (the Jewels) hoped fi better tomorrow, not only at Cornell University but at every university in the land, in every community in the land, and in every organization in the land," Brother Franklin maintained.

The Jewels, the Charlie Houstons, the Whitney Youngs, and the Martin Luther Kings "gave everything they had so that we could live in dignity and hope. a hope based on the secure knowledge that those who preceded them and us and laid the best possible foundation on which we can build."

Keeping hope alive we must, but it would not be easy, Brother Franklin admitted, "...the slight gains that African-Americans have made over the past 30 years being vigorously hacked away by those who are going about it as systematically as though the ng their way through a jungle," he observed "These gains are not eroding; they are being attacked by those who are determined that a racially exclusive society is more in keeping with traditionally American society than one that is inclusive."

As Brother Franklin explained it: "The struggle of AfricanAmericans to secure a place in the American political scheme of

il!

With Brother Astronaut Winston Scott (center) are Southwestern Regional Vice President Harry E. Johnson and Southern Regional Vice President Robert Willis.

things has been long, difficult, and :ly discouragir However, Alpha Phi Alpha "should not flinch because of the odds that so many seek to stack against us," Brother Franklin said.

Rather, Brother Franklin called on the Fraternity to "regar< 1 siege as a challenge and the effort to create new obstacK tation to climb the new obstacles to new heights of succ< If we are to fight off the si Brother Franklin sug{; ions,

tiding fraternities, to wage i

New Orleans Mayor Brother Marc Morial

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 25

2Q&

I I i Alpha Singers Directed by Brother Peter Felder

Brothers Marc Morial (from left), Delano Lewis, Chuck Stone, Milton Davis, John Hope Franklin, and Hugh Price.

1 devoting more attention to families and children.

Brother James A. Forbes, Jr, ted the Brothers to service in a ministry that he said "is so desperately needed. The spirit of Ami need of healing." the Rev. Brother Dr. Forbes noted. As evidence of the "mean spirit" the country, :d the church tinned people diagnosed as HI\ md the "

on

He called these times an of perplexity" buttons Its." The ng : sense of "poweriot knowing what butuish to get the results they ph

â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘

get what they have. "People ycame to where

Could America have AIDS? Dr. Forbes wanted his Ecumenical audience to think about it.

If we fail to act, AfricanAmericans will be accused of being the cause of "the malaise" in our society, Brother Forbes suggested. African-Americans will become the scapegoats for what is wrong with the society, he said.

"Don't just sit around and complain." You and I are all called on to get up and make arrangements for the health of America."

We cannot "sit there and wait to see what Newt Gingrich is going to do."

Rather, the Rev. Brother Forbes issued a plea for the cultivation of trust. "Tell the truth.

America cannot be free unless it tells the truth about oppression.

There can be no contract with America without a covenant." And he told the Brothers and their families to "become a part of the covenant of America." Indeed, Brother Forbes called for "covenant conversations" in every community where Alpha men live.

"We Shall Overcome."

Perhaps. But, as Brother Dr. Forbes explained it, correcting what's wrong with this society will require an "action plan." "It's got to be more than a state of mind," he added.

Brother Richard Arrington called on the Fraternity to step forward as leaders. "Leadership asks not only 'why' about problems but it asks 'why not' about solutions to problems," Brother Arrington noted.

In African-American communities, Arrington reasoned, "It's time to dream things that never were and to ask ourselves, why not make them true?"

The nation's senior AfricanAmerican mayor, Brother Arrington cited a need for support of the institutions from which African-Americans have traditionally drawn strength in efforts to make life better. "If we fail to strengthen the few institutions we control, we can hardly expect to develop others. If we fail to support the NAACP which has

International Night Festival

Headstart Alpha Workshop Luncheon Participants

helped our progress, we are guilty of failure to strengthen bridges which brought us across."

Be careful of "illusions" in the struggle for freedom, Mayor Arrington warned. "What a pitfall for a people who still have miles to go in freedom's journey to be under die illusion of moving when, in fact, they are standing still."

"Pointing to what he called the "unused assets" of die AfricanAmerican community, Brodier Arrington observed: "We have a sizable black middle class which represents a great resource to draw upon for leadership, providing it remembers where it came from and how it came. ' W e cannot achieve our dreams without changing our consumer mentality," Brother Arrington noted. "If we as a people own nothing, control nothing, people will think of us as nothing," he added, noting that too much money passes through the AfricanAmerican community and too litde stays. Arrington also suggested Bahamian Entertainers

that African-Americans should do a better job of exercising the right to vote. In an impromptu show of support for his re-election as mayor of Birmingham, Alpha Brothers gave Brother Arrington more than $6,000.

During the Public Policy Forum, National Urban League President Hugh B. Price offered five commandments for an "Inclusive America."

"If our multi-ethnic society is to work and our economy is to hum at peak productivity, inclusion must become standard operating procedure in America's opportunity structure," Price maintained.

His commandments: "The goal must be genuine inclusion," "Only the qualified should be included. Selection should be based on a broad understanding of what 'qualified' and 'merit' mean in the real world."

"Inclusion is morally virtuous, economically advantageous, and demographically inevitable," and "those who allocate opportunity

should take many factors into account, among them geography, gender, ethnicity, economic status and cultural diversity."

As African-Americans prepare to participate fully in the mainstream of American life, Brother Price called for the elimination of crime and violence which he says "destroys community and disrupts the bonds between people."

He also called for an obsession with development "of ourselves and our children, our institutions and our businesses."

The obsession with development Brother Price had in mind included support of businesses to create more jobs and wealth, support of institutions "that have been vital to our survival and success," and "using all the economic muscle we possess to advance our interests with those who covet our purchasing power."

And, of course, he emphasized the critical need to develop African-American youth which he called "our destiny."

"We must make absolutely certain that our children learn to read and write, reason and compute. That they can express themselves in mainstream parlance and solve problems. That they're computer literate. That they acquire die people skills to get along gracefully with supervisors, coworkers and customers."

As parents and as AfricanAmericans, Price insisted, "we must pursue this campaign to develop all of our children with the focus and fervor of the civil rights movement of old."

Public Policy Forum panelists Marc Morial, Mayor of New Orleans, National Public Radio President Delano Lewis and former White House correspondent Chuck Stone also examined the challenges facing AfricanAmericans as we approach die 21st

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The Sphinx • 29

Gallery

Newly elected Regional Vice Presidents are (from left): Samuel G. Wilson, Eastern Region; James B. Blanton III, Midwestern Region; Chester A. Wheeler, I I I , Southern Region; and Kenneth Venoble, Western Region; General President Davis.

Appropriate congratulatory awards were presented by General President Davis to Convention Chairman Brother Leonard E. Ingram (top) ond Delta Xi Lambda Chapter President Brother LeVester Tubbs (below). Brother Darryl R. Matthews, Sr. is Executive Director.

Brothers from Theta Theta Lambda Chapter received the Fraternity Award for traveling the longest distance to the convention. How about Frankfurt, Germany?

Brother J.C Rawls, Life Member #21, Chairman of the Life Membership Committee.

Mickey Mouse and Pocahontas were among the 89th Anniversary Convention attendees thanks to a special invitation from Brother Thomas Flewellyn (left), director of Minority Business Relations, Waft Disney World Company, Lake Buena Vista, FL

30 â&#x20AC;˘ The Sphinx â&#x20AC;˘

Fall 1995

President Davis (second right) made a special salute to members of the Corporate Staff (from left): Brother Seaton White, communications; Brother Al F. Rutherford, director of General Convention; Executive Director Brother Darryl R. Matthews, Sr.; and Brother Lover High, membership coordinator

Convention Chaplains (from left): Brothers Sylvester Shonnon, Rodney McCalister, Joseph Ratliff, and John N. Doggetl.

General Counsel Tyrone Means led convention discussion on "Intake" changes.

m

Genera|

President Davis (center) are (from left): Former

General Presidents James R. Williams, T. Winston Cole, Sr., Charles C. Teamer, Sr., ond Ozell Sutton.

Brother Frank A. Jenkins III (left) was installed for a second term as comptroller.

Newly elected Assistant Regional Vice Presidents include (from left): Kevin Speed, Southwestern Region; Rasheed Meadows, Eastern Region; Solomon Davis, Midwestern Region; and Justin Gray, Southern Region. Justin Gray's father, Brother William "Bill" Gray, is CEO of the United Negro College Fund and was on hand to congratulate his son.

Former General President and Life Membership Breakfast Speoker James R. villiams

Alpha Phi Alpha members presented NAACP Chairwoman Myrlie [vers Williams with a check for the Fraternity's Golden Life Heritage Membership during the Convention in Orlando, Florida. The $20,000 check was increased to $31,000 soon after the presentation. Pictured (from left) are: General President Milton C. Davis, Executive Director Darryl R. Matthews, ST., Mrs. Even. Williams and Presidential Assistant Brother Charlie E. Hardy.

Fall 1995 â&#x20AC;˘

The Sphinx A 31

Gallery

CONGRATULATIONS AND lirilC IIADU A LI

Hats off to Brother Rufus Norman of Beta Psi Lambda Chapter.

Why? He was the oldest Brother attending the 89th Anniversary Convention. He celebrated his 93rd birthday two days after the Convention closed on August 10. Congratulations Brother Norman. You are an inspiration to us all. With Brother Norman 50 Year Brothers are Brother Darryl Matthews and Brother Milton Davis.

32 A The Sphinx â&#x20AC;˘

Fall 1995

1995 Convention • •

H

e tells them, some say he convinces them, that they must score in life off the field as well as they score on the field.

The most important points in life, he tells young people, are the scoreboards they light up off the field.

Brother Jock Smith is the braintrust behind Scoring for Life, Inc. and a keynoter on the youth program during the General Convention in Orlando.

Scoring for Life, Inc. is designed to help young people "develop principles based on self-awareness, ethics, spirituality, and hard work." Brother Smith uses his million dollar sports collection to "demonstrate that many sports figures are where they are today because they managed to conquer defeat on and off the field." He wants his audiences to understand the successes of athletes but he also wants them to be mindful of their errors. Some players who have scored well on the field have not faired as well off the field—where scoring really counts.

"I have always felt that sports is life in a microcosm and that it represents the very best our society has to offer in terms of the advancement of brotherhood, teamwork, and overall race relations," Smith says. A Tuskegee University graduate with a law degree from Notre Dame, Smith's youthful audiences are his jurors and he

addresses them with the force of closing arguments he makes in the courtroom. is Alpha Convention audience listened with amazement as Smith put in perspective the life and lifestyles of Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Ervin "Magic" Johnson, Dwight Gooden, and Doug Williams, among others.

Doug Williams of Grambling State in Louisiana is the only African-American quarterback to win a Superbowl,

H

felt that sports is life in a ocosm and that it represents the very

k

iety has to offer in terms of the tent of brotherhood, teamwork,

wall race relations

Smith tells his audience. "We have to overcome the misconceptions and obstacles that the society places upon us." Williams won Superbowl XXII for the Washington Redskins.

Fall 1995 •

The Sphinx A 33

1995 Convention Be careful, he tells them, about social relationships.

"It can happen to anybody," he says, referring to "Magic" Johnson's retirement from basketball after it was determined he was HIV positive. One wrong turn can end a career, he emphasizes.

Dwight Gooden was "Mister Everything," Smith remembered. He won die Cy Young Award by age 20 years old and had been on the cover of Time magazine and appeared on the CBS program 60 Minutes. He had only a fast ball and a curve ball. But even if you knew which was coming, you still couldn't hit it, Smith says.

But he made a wrong turn—drugs. "The most awesome pitcher in baseball" had failed to score off the field, Smith tells his young audience.

"We are there to empower and encourage youth," Smith says about his motivational presentations. Too many young people, he says, think wealthy athletes who are successful on the field have no problems off the field.

"If you don't maintain good morals and social practices and be responsible, you can lose the points you score on the field" to errors you make off the field, Smith goes on.

He tells the young people to "be careful with whom you associate. Peer group pressure can bring you down," he warns. Indeed, Smith believes it may have been the influence of hometown friends "off the field" that got Gooden suspended several times from baseball and ultimately out of the sport in which he formerly excelled.

There is no need to err in life, Smith says. "You can reach the top of your game and stay at the top of your game." Basketball's David Robinson is his example.

Smith calls Robinson a "model citizen", one of the greatest centers in basketball who manifests Christian values—on top of his game on and off the basketball court.

Athletes and their life and lifestyles—that's Brother Smith's presentation. But he does more—much more.

He introduces them to the athletes. He lets the young people feel the athletes. "We use authentic sports memorabilia to illustrate and teach the fundamental principles that enable one to score in the only game that matters, the game of life," he says.

And so as he talks, the young people can see—and feel—the robe Muhammad Ali wore in his fight against George Foreman in Zaire. The Jock M. Smith Sports Collection includes over 500 game-worn uniforms, professional autographs, cards, bats, helmets, and other memorabilia. Jerseys worn by Eric Dickerson, Tony Dorsett, O.J. Simpson, Franco Harris,Jim Brown and Walter Payton are part of the Smith collection.

Smith's youthful audiences may also see and feel a jersey from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry

34 AThe Sphinx T Fall 1995

Bird, Jerry West, W i t Chamberlin, Bill Russell, Julius Irving, Michael Jordan, or Isiah Thomas.

Baseball? You bet. How about uniforms and/or jerseys of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Hank Aaron, Erine Banks, Wllie McCovey, and among others, Frank Robinson.

Scoring for Life, Inc. can be booked—in your community.

Brother Smith grew up in N e w York, practices law in Tuskegee, AL, and lives in Montgomery, AL.

Feature Remember the times in class when your teacher told you to stop taking notes and pay attention? Remember when the teacher directed that you watch and listen as a point was being made and sometimes demonstrated? You knew with certainty that you were about to experience a powerful moment in die classroom discussion.

Alpha Phi Alpha's Community Outreach Mentoring Project at the Boys & Girls Q u b of Central Florida in Orlando was one of those powerful moments.

Except at the Boys & Girls Club, no one needed to tell the nearly 100 youth who assembled at the invitation of the Alphas to put down their note pads and listen. The teens and preteens easily gave their attention as the men of Alpha Phi Alpha identified themselves as journalists, lawyers, doctors, educators, engineers, businessmen and professionals in various other fields.

Such a gathering of professional AfricanAmericans—especially men—is something youth at the center seldom see, according to directors of the Boys & Girls Club.

Several hundred youth utilize the center each week. Many take part in after school activities at the Boys & Girls Club while others are enrolled in special courses offered by the center.

The message to the young people was clear and singular. Get an education. They were told to begin now setting professional goals and that they needed a "solid education" to meet their goals.

The mentoring session began with youth dispersed around the center's gymnasium finding seats at desks and on the floor. They first listened to a group presentation from the Alpha Brothers who organized the mentoring activity. They later broke into small groups where they dialogued with Alpha Brothers grouped by profession.

The youth had probing questions, wanting to know how to invest money, how to cover news stories, and what requirements were necessary to become a teacher?

The Alpha attorneys held a mock trial. One youth was selected to be a defendant. Her peers attempted to clear her of automobile-related charges. The excitement of the mock trial was enough to encourage some of the youth to start thinking about careers in the legal field.

And what a better way to end the nearly four hours of mentoring than with pizza and cold drinks. The activity was covered by the local media—television and newspaper.

Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc. has since made a $1,500 donation for equipment at the Orlando Boys & Girls Club.

Alpha Brothers To

Youth...

"Get An Education"

Feature

Alpha South Leadership Changes Wheeler Assumes Vice Presidency of Southern Region

A

mid a standing ovation for outgoing Vice President Robert Willis, Brother Chester A. Wheeler, III assumed the Vice Presidency of the Southern Region acknowledging he would have to follow a "path that is not easy," fill some "footprints that are large, deep and well defined."

He had done only one thing, Willis said before turning the gavel over to Wheeler— "I did what you elected me to do. I enforced the Constitution and I enforced the standing orders."

In doing so—enforcing the Constitution and standing orders, General President Milton Davis called Willis his "strong right hand."

Wheeler, meanwhile, said he was grateful for the opportunity to provide leadership during a time, he added, which called for "creativity, challenge, and responsibility."

In addition to Wheeler being installed as Southern Region Vice President, Justin Gray was named Assistant Southern Region Vice President. Gray replaced Maurice Spence on the Board of Directors.

Brother Gray called on the college Brothers to "come out of the hallways and onto the committees."

It was time to stop being "one-issue oriented," Gray maintained, noting that too much time was being spent on Intake.

The new Assistant Southern Region Vice President noted the need for change. "It's time to bridge the gap between graduate and undergraduate Brothers."

Wheeler said he would recommend reducing the size of the board from 40 to 12 members, he would ask for term limits, call for "consistency" in program activities, sponsor leadership retreats, and develop

36 A The Sphinx •

As Alpha South Goes, So Goes Alpha is a history of the Southern Region written by Brother Herman "Skip" Mason (left). Proceeds fivm the sale of the 388-page book will go to the Southern Region. Receiving copies of the Southern Region history are (from left): General President Milton C. Davis, outgoing Southern Region Vice President Robert Willis, and new Southern Region Vice President Chester Wheeler. Brother Mason called it a "missed opportunity'''' for the chapters that did not provide historical summaries for inclusion in the book. In addition to being sold, the book will be placed in the Library of Congress and college libraries.

Fall 1995

political strategy to address contemporary, public issues.

College Brothers would receive committee assignments, Wheeler promised, but College Brothers would have to play their role "they will have to deliver." And there was too much talent in the Fraternity for Brothers to serve indefinite appointments, Wheeler maintained.

"We need to take advantage of all who want to work," he said in support of term limits.

Wheeler promised consistency in program development so that chapters administer programs in a "uniform manner."

The uniform approach to program development, he added, would

also apply to selection of Directors and Assistant Directors. His selection process would not allow the outgoing Directors to automatically "tap" the incoming Directors, Wheeler said.

Leadership retreats will be annual although not during conventions, Wheeler said, and he called for a team of political strategists "who know how to make things happen."

Editors Note: Other Regional Vice Presidents and their programs will be highlights in future issues.

Feature

A Legacy Continues: Brother of The Year Brother Lynwood P. Randolph Brother Lynwood P. Randolph, Ph.D., had hardly arrived back at his home in Suitland, Maryland, after receiving the Fraternity's 1995 Alumni Brother of the Year Award in Orlando, Florida, when he was called to travel again.

This time, he went to Atlanta, Georgia, where he is embarking on a project that could enhance the future for the country's historically black colleges and universities and keep the doors open at minority schools facing hard times.

Brother Randolph—who for the past 20 years has worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington, D.C. in productivity and quality management—has been tapped to establish and direct a pilot program at Clark Atlanta University designed to help the school solve its quality management problems. In addition, the pilot program will provide quality management training for historically black and minority institutions of higher learning around the country.

The NASA operated Total Quality Institute program at Clark-Atlanta will be the first of its kind at a historically black school. Similar programs have existed at some white colleges and universities around the country for the last five-to-ten years. The philosophy behind Total Quality Institutes began with major corporations around the world and in the federal govern-

ment, Brother Randolph says. NASA began its involvement in productivity and quality management in the early 1980s.

Brother Randolph has worked with Total Quality Institutes at the University of Maryland and Virginia Polytechnic Institute where programs were established about ten years ago. He also has represented Total Quality Management on several boards and committees, including the Maryland Productivity/Quality Awards Committee where he served at the request of Maryland Senators Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski and as chairman of Alpha Phi Alpha's National Quality Management Committee.

Clark Atlanta was chosen as the site for NASAs pilot program for a minority school after the university was selected by IBM as one of eight institutions to participate in its Total Quality Management Program.

More than 200 universities and colleges applied for the IBM grant when applications were accepted about four years ago. Clark Atlanta was the only black school selected for the grant. NASA later selected Brother Randolph, a senior aerospace executive with the agency, to serve as director for the intergovernmental-personal assignment.

What you can expect from Clark Atlanta and the other institutions that participate in the program is more customer focus and more service and products in

Fall 1995 •

The Sphinx • 37

Feature response to customer needs, says Brother Randolph.

The program will help the schools address a number of problem areas such as financial management, classroom registration, budget allocations and proposal development, he said.

Brother Randolph's activities outside of NASA have included serving as an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at Howard University and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of the District of Columbia. In addition he serves as a lecturer and role model for minority and engineering and science students.

Brother Randolph serves on several boards, including tlie Board of Advisors for the National Productivity Review; Board of Judges of die International Who's Who in Quality; Editorial Advisory Board of die Quality Observer International News Magazine; Iota Upsilon Lambda's Executive council; and the Board of Directors for the Black Ski Club of Washington, D.C. He also helped found die Alpha Skiers in 1993.

His fraternal duties this year include serving as Second Vice president and Director of Communications/Associate Editor to the Sphinx for Iota Upsilon Lambda Chapter in Silver Spring. He also served on die chapter's 25th Anniversary Committee, as chapter chaplain and as national judge for die Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Contest.

Just a few short days after moving to Atlanta, Brother Randolph gave the reclamation speech for an affair hosted by Eta Lamda chapter. The event was attended by about 150 Brodiers, including the current and former Southern Regional Vice Presidents. He plans to continue his affiliation with Iota Upsilon Lambda Chapter while also joining a chapter in Adanta. He has received invitations to affiliate with several different area chapters.

Brother Randolphâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;husband and father of three surviving childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;attended Virginia State University where he was initiated into Beta Gamma Chapter in 1956. He is Fraternity Life Member No. 6411. Brother Randolph was sponsor for his son, Lemuel Preston Randolph, who was initiated into Iota Upsilon Lambda in December 1991. The family legacy was begun with his father, Samuel I. Randolph, who was initiated over 60 years ago at Gamma chapter, Virginia Union University.

After receiving a B.S. degree in physics and mathematics at Virginia State, he attended Howard University where he received die M.S. in physics. He later received a Ph.D. in solid state physics from Howard. He was an M.B.A. candidate at the University of Maryland and attended die Harvard Business School Program for Management Development.

His military history includes serving as Commander for the Ammunition Supply Company

38 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

supporting the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He was a distinguished ROTC graduate.

In 1992, Brother Randolph was selected by his chapter as Brother of the Year. He also won the award that year on the district and regional levels. He was runner-up for the national alumni Brother of the year Award in 1992. After winning the award this year, he says, "I benefited from the (1992) experience."

The competition was different this year, says Brother Randolph. Different criteria was used for judging and the interview process was different, he says.

The thing that sticks out most in his mind when he looks over his accomplishments in 1995 is his work with Iota Upsilon Lambda's Christmas in April project, he says. The joy of refurbishing a home for a needy family in Montgomery County, Maryland and sharing in their happiness was the kind of experience you do not forget, he says.

Brother Lynwood P. Randolph Alumni Brother of The Year

Feature

E

•rother Eugene Jackson, World African ietwork CEO, and General President Milton '. Davis at the Congressional Black Caucus Upha Reception

brother Charlie E. Hardy, Executive director Darryl R. Matthews, General ^resident Milton C. Davis, Congresswo?nan Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, Congressman brother Robert Scott of Virginia.

ven in the nation's capital where dignitaries and celebrities in limousines with tinted windows are a regular sight, it was clear that something important was occurring at the Grand Hyatt Washington Hotel; and it was. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was hosting a reception to recognize members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The area surrounding the hotel suddenly became crowded with government limousines and escort cars.

Officials were swept through the hotel lobby and down escalator steps by those who had accompanied them. Once on the reception level, they were moved through the corridor and into a majestic ballroom where Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity General President Milton C. Davis was the first to greet them.

Legislative, business, community and civic leaders and otliers of prominence in the African-American com-

munity converged on Washington in great numbers this September for the Congressional Black Caucus' 25th Annual Legislative Conference. his was not the first time Alpha had osted the reception in connection with the Conference.

But there was an underlying urgency to this year's Conference— more this year than in years past.

Those attending knew how devastating the impact of a Republican-controlled Congress could be on African-Americans, poor people, and people of color. This year's conference was a time for AfricanAmerican leaders to develop strategies that would address die impact of proposed program and budget cuts.

The crowd inside the Fraternity reception had swelled to capacity as Brothers and leaders from across die country came to hear what Alpha Phi Alpha—the only Greek-letter organization to host such a reception— would say to the conference.

"Oh, what a difference twelve mondis makes," General President Davis said, comparing the nation's current political climate to last year before the Republican-led Congress began its attack on affirmative action and social programs for the underprivileged.

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 39

Feature The White House representative was followed at the microphone

by Congresswoman Corrine Brown of Florida who had also attended the General Convention of Alpha Phi Alpha in Orlando, Florida. Other legislators and national leaders in attendance included: Virginia Congressman Brother Robert C. Scott, Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, Louisiana Congressman William J. Jefferson, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Donald M. Payne of New Jersey, Detroit Mayor Brother Dennis Archer, former Los Angeles Urban League President Johnny Mack, and World African Network CEO Brother Eugene Jackson.

The long list of Fraternity members who came from across the country to attend the CBC recep^^^m tion included former General Presidents James R. Williams, Ozell Sutton, and "We are here to show our supCharles C. Teamer, Sr. Brother Christopher port of those who carry out our Womack, chairman of the agenda—the members of the Fraternity's Education Foundation, was on hand to Congressional Black Caucus/' said represent the Alabama Power Company which has the General President, stirring up sponsored the reception for the past three years. Brother and rekindling the Fraternity's comWomack is the Alabama mitment to leadership and service.

Power Company Senior Vice President. Deborah Harper represented Browning-Ferris Industries, this top levels of government.

Brown encouraged the gathering year's co-sponsor of the reception.

Don't confuse BFI—the nation's to work with law enforcement offilargest recycler of paper—with cials and legislators to rid our comFBI—the law enforcement agency, munities of illegal narcotics. He Ms. Harper joked. applauded the Fraternity for its conThe Congressional Black tinued leadership and participation Caucus Annual Legislative in efforts to advance the AfricanConference is a five-day event which American community and encourincludes a series of issue forums, aged our continued support of black workshops and congressional brainleaders. "The members of the trusts. The agenda for this year's Congressional Black Caucus are conference included four days of doing a tremendous job and they workshops and panel discussions have a great battle to fight. They from which African- Americans need our help," Brother Brown said.

"We are here to show our support of those who carry out our agenda—the members of the Congressional Black Caucus," said the General President, stirring up and rekindling the Fraternity's commitment to leadership and service.

"The men of Alpha Phi Alpha stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the members of the Congressional Black Caucus." he said.

A response to the General President's message came quickJy from the White House in the form of Alpha Brother Lee P. Brown, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for the Clinton Administration. Brother Brown, speaking on behalf of President Clinton, told the reception that as an African-American he represented the President's promise to involve more members of our community at the

Brother Charlie Hardy, Deborah Harper, BFI, Brother Dennis Archer, Jr., Congressman Brother Bobby Scott, General President Milton C. Davis, and Detroit Mayor Brother Dennis Archer

Brothers Elliot McKinney, Hanley Norment and Past General President Ozell Sutton

Executive Director Darryl R. Matthews and Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of Georgia

General President Milton C. Davis, Congressman William Jefferson of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Brother Charles C. Teamer, Sr.

40 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

Feature

Notables attending the Alpha Phi Alpha Congressional Black Caucus Alpha Reception included (from left): Bishop J. Clinton Haggard, Bishop F.C. Cummings, Presidential Cabinet Member Brother Lee Brown, General President Davis, Congresswomon Corrine Brown, and Brother Christopher Womack, Director of Alabama Power which was a corporate sponsor.

planned a concerted response to the Republican take over of Congress. The agenda also called for voter registration and greater efforts to ensure that registered voters vote on election day.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was among the more than 400 businesses, major corporations, and government and social agencies featured in the Annual Legislative Conference's Exhibit Hall display. Alpha Phi Alpha—again the only Greek-letter organization represented at the exhibition—used the exhibit to promote congressional legislation the Fraternity had introduced in support of a memorial to Brother Dr. Martin Luther Kingjr, to be erected on federal land in Washington, DC. General President Davis called on Brothers, congressional leaders, and citizens across the country to support the legislation, saying that it was time for a memorial to the civil rights leader in the nation's capital.

The weekend did not end for General President Davis after the Alpha reception. Brother Davis was presented at receptions sponsored by the 100 Black Men and the Georgia Delegation of Congressmen Sam Bishop and John Lewis and Congresswoman Cynthia

McKinney President Davis was also among the special guests attending the formal Black Caucus Award Banquet where President Clinton was the keynote speaker.

Brother Davis and Executive Director Darryl Matthews represented Alpha Phi Alpha on a Congressional Black Caucus seminar panel which focused on the "Impact of Fraternities and Sororities on Social Issues." The panel was convened by Congressman Brother Earl Hilliard.

Davis and Matthews addressed the use of telecommunications as a means of information dissemination— to organizations and communities at large. Alpha Phi Alpha is believed to be the only Greek-letter organization on the Internet.

While in the nation's capital, President Davis met with the presidents of Alpha chapters in the Greater Washington, DC and Maryland areas about plans for the 1997 National Convention. During a breakfast meeting, President Davis and the Regional Vice Presidents talked about implementation.

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 41

Alpha on the Move / /

SOMETIMES YOU DON'T MEET THE CHALLENGES, BUT YOU DON'T GIVE UP" -Brother Davi "We are not here to take from, but to add to. That is what education is all about—adding to one's experiences. You can't really like something unless you have been exposed to it. You can't say you don't like Bach if you have not been exposed to Bach.

"A lot of time judgments are made without our knowing" the bases of the judgments. Or at least tliey are based on what someone else has said.

Like die different foods they may or may not like, "I ask diem to at least taste it and see. Give it a chance."

David F. Oliver is talking to his music appreciation class at Morehouse College where he is Artist-in-

"We are not here to take from, but to add to. That is what education is all about—adding to one's experiences.

You can't really like something unless you have been exposed to it.

Residence and College Organist. He has been O N T H E MOVE since his grandmother introduced him to organ music at age six. A native of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, he has been trained at Wheaton College,

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Illinois, the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, under the tutelage of Yuko Jayaski, at the Eastman School of Music under die tutelage of the late Russell Saunders, at Westminister Choir College in New Jersey, and at die University of Kansas.

A concert career is important to him, but "I don't see myself separating from higher education at all," he maintains. Teaching at Morehouse College, as it was at Barber Scotia College, is part of his giving something back to the African-American community. "You take something out when you are born and raised up in it (die black community)." Although he did not attend a historically black college or university, Brother Oliver says he still feels the need to make a contribution to the larger African-American community.

So in his case, die contribution is made with some degree of sacrifice which he does not regret nor lament.

His focus is on classical music widi which the current generation does not identify. But he finds gratification in the role of helping his African-American students understand that being a college graduate means being well rounded, "being able to adapt to any given situation," being exposed to all music.

Regardless of the career choice, he maintains that everyone should have some exposure to music. "Music is an international language," he explains. "It transcends racial barriers, religious barriers...it's something that can't be confined to one country, race or creed."

Alpha on the Move like jazz, but then it is not. perform the "concert of his career?"

African-Americans should be Improvising is very special to That might have already taken especially understanding of "the Oliver. And he demonstrates it with place, he believes. He was the first contributions we have made to great skill. He compares improvisAfrican-American to do an organ music," Oliver insists. Jazz, he ing in music with extemporaneous concert in the famous Mormon observes, "came out of the black speaking. "You have to give yourself Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, in community. You find jazz in gospel, to the moment. It is an art that is February 1995. His steller perforyou find jazz in blues, and you find not easily mastered," he admits. "It mance drew several "call backs and jazz and blues in classical." Oliver requires your total self in a way that a standing ovation." Pleased? You wants his students to understand (playing) written music does not." bet. The concert was part o f the how music from the black commuMormon Tabernacle's Temple nity has influenced other Square Concert Series. music.

He is a member of Phi Mu And, he is not at all Improvising is very special Sinfonia Fraternity, the opposed to his white colleagues American Guild of Organists, teaching and performing jazz as to Oliver. And he demonand has served as organist and/ much as they do, but he admits or choirmaster for a number of to being troubled that many strates it with great skill. churches. He is the recipient of more African-Americans are several scholarships, grants and not teaching and performing He compares improvising in fellowships. jazz—the music that originated music with extemporaneous Oliver's special gift is in in the black community. music, so his community serIn addition to his grandspeaking. "You have to give vice is largely in music. But he mother's influence, Oliver grew up in the AME church. "That's yourself to the moment. It is does take time, when he can find the time, to offer himself what you got—hymns, as an example for young adults anthems, and spirituals. an art that is not easily to follow— to talk with young Classical music draws my mastered/' he admits. "It adults about what is expected of attention. I enjoy gospel music. them as citizens.

I just can't play it." requires your total self in a "Whenever you can be an But he does play classical; example of black manhood, well. And it is also likely that way that (playing) written that is community service," he he plays gospel too, even if not says. "Young adults are very music does not." with the force of classical. keen. They watch what you do His first compact disc is and not what you say." already on the market, a Brother Oliver's example of recording made at the First black manhood is a strong (Scots) Presbyterian Church in sense of what he calls "inner His experience is extensiveCharleston, South Carolina. He strength.

Your inner strength is performances at the Lincoln and plans a second in February or unconquerable in that there is no Kennedy Centers for the March and this time from the such thing as failure.

You take one Performing Arts.

He has toured Morehouse College Chapel. day at a time and you meet the chalacross the United States, Europe The first compact disc includes lenges; sometimes you don't meet and the British Isles with perforRalph Simpson's "Swing Low, the challenges, but you don't give mances in New York's St. Thomas Sweet Chariot," Mark Fax's "Three up."

Church, Trinity Church, Copely Pieces for Organ," and works by Square in Boston, Bach, Mendelssohn, Vierne, The spirit of Oliver's black Massachusetts,Washington Hindemith and others. His second manhood says: "Nothing is going to National Cathedral, the University compact disk will feature Africanconquer me.

I am always learning of the South, the College Church of American organists and "improvisaand always growing.

You take your Wheaton, the Notre Dame tions of my own." talents and pass them on to others."

Cathedral in Paris, Grossmunstrer Alpha Phi Alpha National in Zurich, the Maurice Ravel Convention-goers are familiar with Brother David F. Oliver.

Brother Oliver's improvisations—his Auditorium, Lyon, and the Temple An Alpha On the Move.

Church in London. composing at sight, "creating pieces Note: Brother Oliver's Compact And where would he like to right then and there." It is almost Disc is reviewed on page 49.

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The Sphinx A 43

Historical Moment Brother Thomas D. Powlev

Honorary Memberships

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arly in its history the Fraternity began the practice of inducting honorary members from among esteemed citizens of the community in which the chapters were located who had completed their formal education. Alpha Chapter established the tradition when it initiated two local citizens as honorary members. On April 26, 1907, George Fletcher, a former law student, was initiated. According to Dr. Charles Wesley, "Brother Fletcher was the first honorary member and the custom of later years was begun with his admission (History - 44). The following year Rev. E. A. Brooks, a graduate of die Cornell University Law School, became die second honorary member. On May 15, 1909, the Chapter decided not to initiate additional honorary members because "(it) deems it wise in its present stage of development not to admit (them)." (History - 45).

Meanwhile, Beta Chapter, after receiving the official sanction of President Thirkfield of Howard University, reported to Alpha Chapter that it was seeking honorary members among the faculty. One such inductee was the distinguished scholar Dr. Kelly Miller

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who addressed die First Annual Convention in 1908 "giving very wholesome advice to the fraternity for the building of its future" (History - 49). Another early inductee was the eminent Dr. W.E.B. DuBois who was initiated into Epsilon Chapter while visiting the University of Michigan in 1909. He was the spiritual inspiration for Alpha Phi Alpha.1 These early honorary members were all college graduates and with the exception of Brother DuBois, local residents. They were admitted into the largely undergraduate brotherhood â&#x20AC;&#x201D;chapters composed of students. At the Second Annual Convention at Richmond, Virginia, in December 1909, one of the subjects discussed was direct taxation of honorary members. Although we do not know what action was taken we can infer that honorary members were not being required to pay dues and that there were enough of them to cause the five existing chapters at this "split" convention to be concerned. : For more dian a quarter of a century thereafter the induction of honorary members into the Fraternity was sanctioned.

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onorary memberships were designed to honor distinguished persons and to enhance the local chapter's public image.

But far from being mere adornments these brothers were actively involved in fraternal affairs on both the local and national level. In 1912, two of them, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and Assistant District Attorney C. V. McDougall were among those petitioning for an alumni chapter in New York City.

Brother Emmett J. Scott, Exalted Honorary Member, was a speaker at the public session of the General Convention at Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago in 1919. Exalted Honorary Member Isaac F. Bradley delivered the welcome address to the Convention in 1920 in Kansas City. In 1922 Exalted Honorary Brother Aaron E. Malone spoke on "Alpha Phi Alpha's Relation to the Public" and Exalted Honorary Brother E. P. Roberts spoke on "The Ideals of Alpha Phi Alpha" at the Convention's public session in St. Louis. (History - 145)

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n 1920 the General Convention made two significant changes in the constitution regarding memberships. One mandated "'No undergraduate member of Alpha Phi Alpha shall be a member of another intercollegiate fraternity.' It was also to be required in the future that 'all candidates for exalted honorary membership, before being initiated by the chapter must meet the approval of the General Organization.'" (History 130). This new policy was apparently enforced. Dr. Wesley cites the following in support of this view: "Years earlier the Sphinx announced, 'The Fraternity is fortunate in unanimously accepting the proposal of chapters to initiate the following Exalted Honorary Members...""

(H.A.C.-120).Atthe General Convention of 1921 in Baltimore, one of the speeches delivered during the closing banquet was entitled "The Relationship of Honorary Members to the Fraternity." (History - 138) Two years later in Columbus, Ohio, the General Convention acted again.

"Safeguards concerning the Brother Pawky admission of Exalted Honorary

Honorary membership was also the subject of convention legislation and discussion on several occasions. In 1919, a special procedure for the initiation and reception of honorary members was presented to the General Convention dividing them into two classes, active and exalted. "The active honorary members were to meet the same educational requirements as the undergraduate members but tney were to have the status of alumni members. The exalted honorary members were to include those who had achieved distinction in some particular field of activity." (History - 104) Further action on the subject was taken at the Cleveland General Convention in 1918, providing for the election and initiation of honorary members. "It was provided that active honorary members should be elected and initiated by the chapters and exalted honorary members should be elected and initiated by the chapters subject to the approval of the General Organization" (History- 116).

Members were adopted." (History -150).

As late as 1925 they were still being initiated. In that year Alonzo Herndon, a prominent businessman in Atlanta, Georgia, and Dr. A. M. Curtis, a physician and professor of the Harvard University Medical School were inducted. (H.A.C. - 120). By 1930 there were three classes of membership in the Fraternity, viz, undergraduate, active graduate and honorary. The title "Exalted" had been dropped. At some point in the 1930s the Fraternity ceased to admit honorary members. Sporadic efforts to revive the practice have been turned down by the General Organization. 4 One of the most controversial inductions was that of Frederick Douglass as an Exalted Honorary Member of Omega Chapter in 1921. This took place during a pilgrimage to Douglass' home during the General Convention. Afterwards, the Fraternity was accused of "robbing the grave." Brother Charles Wesley respond-

Fall 1995 â&#x20AC;˘

The Sphinx â&#x20AC;˘ 45

Historical Moment ed to this accusation saying, "...this criticism is not justified, for Douglass belongs to the present as well as the past. In another sense, Douglass typifies in a special way the ideals of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity."

(History - 136). Today he is Honorary Life Member #1.

Less controversial but still causing some raised eyebrows was the awarding of an Honorary Life

Highly regarded members of a community are sometimes initiated as active members of Alumni chapters if they have not already embraced the black and gold.

Membership to the then Vice President of the United States, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, at the conclusion of his address to the General Convention in Chicago in 1965. Brother Humphrey was generally admired by the Brothers for his strong stand on civil rights. It came as a surprise only because there had been no prior announcement or approval by the General Convention.

The furor was short lived, however, and former General President Belford Lawson would subsequently bring greetings from H.H.H. to a General Convention commenting, "Brother Humphrey knows the grip better than I do." He is Honorary Life Member #2.

Two former General Presidents and a Nobel Laureate complete the list of honorary life members, viz. Roscoe C. Giles, Frederick H. Miller, and Martin Luther King, Jr.*

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lpha Phi Alpha no longer awards honorary memberships. Outstanding achievement by those who are not Brothers is now recognized by the presentation of the Alpha Award of Honor. On the other hand, highly regarded members of a community are sometimes initiated as active members of Alumni chapters if they have not already embraced the black and gold.

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Works cited: Henry Arthur Callis Life and Legacy by Charles H. Wesley (H.A.C.).

The History of Alpha Phi Alpha: A Development in College Life. Fifteenth Printing, by Charles H. Wesley (History).

End Notes 1. In a letter to Brother C. Anderson Davis, Editor of the Sphinx, dated December 23, 1964, Founder Henry Arthur Callis wrote the following: "Also the next issue of Freedomways will be in memory of Brother W.E.B. DuBois . He was the inspiration for Alpha Phi Alpha."

(H.A.C. -121).

2. Delta Chapter was not represented at the convention which met first for three days in Richmond and later for two days in New York City. In 1913 there were 40 honorary members. The total number of members was 466. Beta and Epsilon Chapters reported ten each.

(History - 92).

3. Those accepted were: Rho Chapter: E. C. Brown of Philadelphia; Delta Lambda Chapter: Bishop John Hurst of the A.M.E. Church; Nu Chapter: Dr. M. F. Wheatland of Newport, R.I., Dr. E. P. Roberts of New York City; Dr. J. F. Cotton, Patterson, NJ. 4. At least one chapter defied the ban and initiated into active membership a Brother who did not qualify but who would have qualified as an honorary members because of his achievements Today this Brother is among the most esteemed in the pantheon of distinguished Alpha men. *Editor's Note: Brothers Giles, Miller, and King were initiated into the Fraternity as Members. They were later made Honorary Life Members.

•

Leisure

Reflections of An Affirmative Action Baby...Must Reading...

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eflections of An Affirmative Action Baby by Stephen L. Carter (Basic Books, 253 pages) is written, according to Carter, "to spark debate." As such, the book, an indispensable benchmark for discussion of the heated debatable issue of affirmative action, is divided into three parts: (1) On Being An Affirmative Action Baby, (2) On Being A Black Dissenter, and (3) On Solidarity and Reconciliation, each part connected by the author's unabashed, clarion support of affirmative action.

In Part I, Carter presents an overview of his personal experiences as a member of that group of Blacks who represented the first large scale beneficiaries of affirmative action at the university and college level.

While steadfastly supporting affirmative action, Carter presents this part with mixed feelings. On one hand, he recognizes the program's benefits to the strongest, most industrious, and particularly the brightest—including himself—but on the other hand, he views with mixed feelings including this group Brother Judge Charles F rice of Blacks as beneficiaries when clearly many of them are as potentially geared not as good as the best white minds. This same kind of to success and achievement as their white counterparts. labeling persists with affirmative action, with a large Carter notes, for example, he was the recipient of the number of people thinking that black students at preNational Achievement Scholarship (a scholarship prodominately white universities and hired in the job secgram for blacks) even though his score on a particular tor cannot compete with non blacks even though blacks college board test was the second highest in his are required to do the same work as whites. school—a predominately white high school in Ithaca, Beneficiaries of affirmative action should, through New York; he was not considered for the National their actions, rhetoric, etc., refute racial stereotypes.

Merit Scholarship as were some of his white classmates. Moreover, once doors are open, blacks must insist on The author rightly questions why black students not being treated any differently than anyone else. He do not gain respect and recognition for their intellectuconcludes Part I by insisting that blacks must see themal and scholarly ability in the same way as whites. selves as beneficiaries of affirmative action and not as Further, black intellectuals and achievers are referred to victims of it. as "best blacks." This kind of labeling assigned black In Part II, Carter asserts that issues and ideas that achievers by both black and white people is demeaning, affect blackness in particular seemingly must be meaespecially when the core of it suggests black minds are

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Leisure sured against ideas and issues permeating from the Civil Rights Movement in general, and from civil rights "leaders" in particular. Black intellectuals, whose ideas and issues differ from those proposed by such "leaders," are viewed as dissenters who should be silenced. As Carter contends, unfortunately—but perhaps understandably—the black community is one in which dissent is often stifled. One reason he offers is dissenting suggests an absence of solidarity, especially if diose dissenting voices suggest "causes and cures" counter to those proposed by civil rights "leaders."

However, die audior views the issue of affirmative action too seriously, affecting too many, for one group of thinkers to provoke another group of thinkers. N o black loyalty test should be imposed—"more black tftan tfrou" or die most "authentic black." Further, black dissenters should not face ostracism, expulsion, or official death. After all, purging is, according to Carter, a denial of the right to think. The author insists that by this point in history, black people should have learned a lesson about the importance of permitting, encouraging, and even cherishing, critical thinking. By encouraging open and robust debate about the problems confronting the black community, all can march upward toward a better community.

In his teaching position at Yale, Carter frequently interacts socially with bright, talented, black students.

He notes how different their views are from his, but he does not want to stifle their views. How sad it would be, notes Carter, to box them, to silence their views and label tfrem simply because their views are radically different from his own. Black and white dissenters of affirmative action must be allowed to discuss their views in intelligent, rational ways, not allowing whites to use this issue for political gains and not allowing black traditionalists to box and label dissenters.

In die third and final part of the book, Carter says that if solidarity means the common transformation of black people from die diought of being victimized to the tfrought of a people taking its fate into its own hands, dien solidarity is what black people need. If, on die otfrer hand, the term is used to suggest tfrat all black people should be of tfre same accord in tfreir ideas and actions, then racial solidarity is not the solution.

Carter furtfrer suggests a reconciliation with those black intellectuals who feel threatened by dissent, and move to stifle it. There must be an attempt at reconciliation between tfrose established leaders who view middle class, suburbanite, financially secure blacks as having been defeated and assimilated totally into tfre "white" culture and those blacks who are middle class, professional intellectuals.

The most beneficial kind of solidarity in tfre black community must be, according to Carter, recognized in valuing one another, in rooting for each other, and in

48 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

feeling each other's pain. This kind of solidarity is what marks black people as special—not better, not richer, not more valuable than other groups. Just special.

This emphasis on solidarity and reconciliation should not lead black people to believe that racism has been eliminated. Carter asserts that it still "lurks in shadowy corners, but it is no longer the all-encompassing force it once was, and it no longer holds the entire black race in desperate thrall." Finally, Carter offers intellectuals and leaders what he sees as tfre product of a "loving solidarity." He believes that, in tfre end, we will see tfrat tfre role of a leader is to articulate the interest of his people; the role of the intellectual is to stand back and support the articulations that seem "sensible" and to offer opposition to those ideas tfrat seem wrong. In otfrer words, intellectuals analyze the articulated ideas of leaders. If there is this "loving solidarity" between the two factions, then maybe, as Carter suggests, "We can begin to work together rather than against each otfrer to help move the Race."

The author correctly concludes that affirmative action, as we know it, will end. The black community, rather tfran establishing a hierarchy of "correct" or "more valuable" black view, we should be having conversation, not monologue and certainly not this bitter argument over affirmative action that now exists. The black community should seek to build a world in which an appreciation of our differences, tfre attitudes and visions tfrat make black people unlike one another, is tfre focus of our efforts to recreate ourselves and society.

Reflections of An Affirmative Action Baby is a must reading for anyone who wants to gain an unbiased and unemotional understanding of diis subject from a black intellectual viewpoint and from one who has benefited from affirmative action. The autfror is bold and forthright in expressing his appreciation for and benefits from affirmative action programs. After all, he is not ashamed to say he benefited from Yale Law School's affirmative action program, a university where he now sits as a tenured Professor of Law. Recommended Reading.

Brother Charles Price is a Circuit Judge, 15th Judicial Circuit, in Montgomery, AL, where he is a m e m b e r of Alpha U p s i l o n Lambda Chapter. Brother Price and his wife Bernice reviewed the Carter book before the Academy of Aspiring Scholars at T u s k e g e e University.

Leisure Brother Alfred C. Duckett, Jr.

"Great Job, My Brother"

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et me open this review by saying that I am a musician, not a music critic. Indeed, I despise most critics. Well, let me rephrase that...I despise critics who don't say good things about me. What follows, then, are my impressions, not a critical review, of this recording of solo organ works. I want to encourage the Brotherhood to purchase Brother David Oliver's debut Compact Disk. I enjoyed listening to it, and look forward to many future listenings.

Brother Oliver's CD, recorded at the First Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, is stunning. One of the most important elements in the performing success of an organist is the quality of the organ.

The organ in this case was primarily designed by Alan Ontko and Edna Young.

Parts for the construction ot this organ from various existing instruments, an interesting element of this organ. I am most impressed with the voicing of the instrument and despite some unwanted distortion (mostly at the forte level and mostly due to the recording process), it is a most enjoyable recording.

The CD opens with two works by J. S. Bach. Bach wrote Piece d1 Orgue (Piece for Organ) late in his career.

Oliver plays with confidence at the opening of this piece, yet the presentation is not overdone. For this listener, the brilliance of the treble voice could possibly be more. The articulation and rhythmic vitality is quite skillfully displayed.

Bach wrote 45 chorales for the purpose of teaching his children how to play the organ. The prelude heard in this recording is part of that collection.../^ Rufzu dir, Herrjesu Christ (I call to thee, Lord Jesus Christ). The musical atmosphere is rather calm and relatively free of excessive ornaments.

Brother Oliver plays it with great skill, never interrupting the deeply spiritual emotion. The cantusfirmus (melody) is in the top voice and will be evident to you. It is reminiscent of the oboe lines often heard in the cantatas by J. S. Bach.

Listen carefully for that very simple middle voice. Brother Oliver delivers it with extreme eleganceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an elegance tinged with nobility and at the same time with solemnity.

Composer Felix Mendelssohn lived during the Romantic period. Yet most of his compositions are Classical in nature. Thus he is commonly referred to as

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx â&#x20AC;˘ 49

Leisure a neoclassical composer. The Prelude and Fugue (a Baroque form) in G major, Op.37 is crafted in the mold of the great Prelude and Fugues of J. S. Bach.

Mendelssohn was a great lover of Bach's music and did his share of performing it. An interesting side note is that in 1829 Mendelssohn conducted a performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion. This great work had not been performed since Bach did so in 1750. \he Prelude is reminiscent of Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and in fact begins with similar thematic material. It is properly played...not taken too seriously so as not to overshadow the Fugue. Brother Oliver's delivery of the Fugue is most impressive. Especially notable are the moments in which the bass voice ceases to play, leaving the upper voices to speak on their own. Also rather striking is the powerful pedal point at the close of the work.

The next selection on this disc is the Negro spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot arranged by the AfricanAmerican composer Professor Ralph Simpson, who teaches at Tennessee State University. Quite frankly, it

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I look forward to hearing much more from this committed artist. It is so gratifying to know that he is an African-American Brother and also a Brother in Alpha. took me several listenings to enjoy Simpson's arrangement of this popular spiritual. I have grown so accustomed to hearing artists such as Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, and Jessye Norman sing it in its most simple fashion. On the surface, the harmonies seem somewhat vague.

However, after further listening I realized that the simple tonic-dominant relationship was the anchor of this piece ("Out of the darkness â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Came the light"). I grew to like it so much that I attempted to notate and play it on the piano.

Max Fax is the other African-American composer represented on this recording. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and the Eastman School of Music.

Three Pieces for Organ is written in three movements: Chant, Allegretto and Toccata. This is an interesting work, and Brother David Oliver's playing is insightful and inspiring. The work is cyclic in form, meaning that each of the three movements is based on the same thematic material. The most effective moment of this work comes in the Toccata. The virtuoso playing style required of the performer is not only met but is indeed

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surpassed.

Dietrich Buxtehude was a great organist in his own right. The highly acclaimed J. S. Bach once walked 200 miles to hear him play. The chorale prelude Nun Bitten (Now Pray We of the Holy Spirit) is more simple than the Bach prelude heard earlier in this recording.

Especially impressive is the composer's exquisite voice leading. Brother Oliver again plays with exquisite beauty. I was most impressed with Oliver's complete understanding of the phrase structure. Also to be noted is the care Brother Oliver takes when playing pedal notes.

These notes are not just stomped out; they are caressed and given the care that the music deserves.

The remainder of the CD is music of the German composer Paul Hindemith, whose centenary is being celebrated this season, the French composer/organist Louis Vierne, and the blind French composer/organist Jean Langlais. Their works are played with a great sense of understanding. Again, Brother Oliver demonstrates striking drama and artistry.

I look forward to hearing much more from this committed artist. It is so gratifying to know that he is an African-American brother and also a Brother in Alpha.

Great Job, My Brother.

"06"

Brother Dr. Alfred C. Duckett, Jr. is o n leave from his position as Professor of Music/Director of Orchestral Studies at Syracuse University's School of Music. While o n leave, Brother D u c k e t t is Director of Fine Arts, Greenville (South Carolina) County School District.

Leisure Brother Dr. James Jackson

"For Colored Girls Wl M i • c J P G e r e c T ^ H B I H B U e Rainbow is Enuf" Presented at the Saint Louis Black Repertory Theatre September 15, 1995

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ack in 1978, two years after studying theatre at South Carolina State University (formerly South State College), I had the pleasure of seeing die original production of Ntozake Shange's "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf on Broadway. At that time I was thoroughly impressed to see how Oz Scott, the original director, had taken elements of theatre and produced a thought-provoking and stunningly beautiful depiction of what it meant to be a black woman in America. While I could scarcely relate to how the seven female characters in the choreopoem could feel—my being male and all—I could certainly identify with them because of a wonderful and loving education gained from my mother and sisters. You see, those women, in their individual ways, experienced the same anguish, hope, disappointment, joy, fear, anxiety, and

happiness found in the females of this play. Like the women in the production, my mother and sisters survived to find solace in spirit, songs, movement, and each other. ecently, my past was revisited when I saw the St. Louis Black Repertory's production of Shange's "For Colored Girls..." Like the New York experience, I walked away impressed. Ron Himes, the director, has painstakingly assembled a cast of the "most impressive divas" of the Midwestern regional theatre. He provides the St. Louis theatregoer a vision of "black womanliness" at its best. His selection of actresses provides a steady helping of "food for thought" and enjoyment as they use their skills as actresses to serve a full plate of talent in the interpretation of Shange's work. Vivian Anderson-Watt, as the Lady in Brown, leads the cast in talent as she works

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Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 51

Leisure both as a character in the play and doubles as the choreographer. While her interpretation of the poem's dark phrases competed with the "good music" of bassist Jeff Anderson and the glorious singing voice of Denise Thimes (the audience was almost forced to pick and choose between the poem, the playing, or the singing) she was nevertheless a consummate professional in every sense. Her movement and choreography placed the audience on edge with anticipation. She was spellbinding—playing several characters convincingly—and made her "sisters-in-theaters" share in the splendor.

Denise Thimes, the Lady in Green was equally impressive. Her captivating voice, personifying melody at its best, was never enough—you always wanted more.

She was amusing with her rendition of "somebody walked ojfwid alia my stuff." Her importance to the ensemble is felt throughout the production. However, the impact of her presence is really seen when she gives the voice of song at the end of Linda Kennedy's, the Lady in Red, interpretation of "a nite with beau willie brown."

"A nite with beau willie brown " is perhaps the most "emotionally draining" of the evening. Ms. Kennedy's telling of life with a dreadfully abusive and mentally deranged man who ultimately throws her two children from a high-rise apartment window forces even the "hardest of hard" hearts to tears. One is left to wonder, "How do some women go on after so much?"

A lighter moment of the evening comes when Tracy Holliway, the Lady in Orange, speaks of her love and the discovery of that love in Toussaint. She exhibits freshness of youth in seeking her love for Toussaint black hero from afar. She is convincing throughout, and displays great expertise in presenting her various characters.

Cathy Simpson, the Lady in Purple, adds class and sophistication to the ensemble. Her interpretation of "sechita" about a river traveling carnival dancer allows the audience to experience a polished and well trained actress. Marsha Cann and Jennifer Beavers complete the cast of women. Cann, as the Lady in Blue, was emotionally centered and funny in her presentations.

She seemed to embody the pain that comes from having an abortion in abortion cycle; while mocking with hilarious and devaluing sarcasm the way some men apologize to women without apologizing in sorrow.

Beavers, the Lady in Yellow, is exuberant in her vivid description of a "graduation nite." While one may assume that the ladies in this play represent women at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, the Black Rep places them at all levels; and presents them as artistic creations, each having its uniqueness and beauty.

52 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

Daryl Harris, as the costume designer, dressed each actress in basic black with a color panel on each skirt and matching slashes in the knit tops to represent a particular rainbow color. He opens the show with the women in enveloping, hooded capes that are also in each color of the rainbow. He adds various pieces to aid actresses in changing their visual character throughout the show. Arthur Riley, the set designer, places the actresses on a set that is both dramatic and elegant; but simplistically composed of intersecting and diagonal white lines. John Wylie's lights provide perfectly unobtrusive illumination and enhance the beauty of the set and rainbow colors. Of course Ron Himes' direction and Vivian Anderson-Watt's choreography helped to pull these ladies and this production to a level that many theaters have yet to reach. As a start for the Black Rep's 1995-96 season, "For Colored Girls..." has given this marvelous company a winner. Other productions scheduled for the 1995-96 season include: In White America (January 3 -January 28); Home (February 7 -March 3); The Ninth Wave (March 13 -April 7); Fear Itself (April 17 -May 12); and Urban Transitions (May 22 -June 16).

Brother Dr. James Jackson is a regular c o n tributor in the Sphinx. H e is a professor at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.

Legacy

- AMERICA'S OLDEST AMERICAN BUSINESS

I

t is an amazing story. A Story of Alpha Men. An Alpha legacy. It started in 1881 or 1883— there are two different accounts—with Charles H. James selling trinkets door-to-door in West Virginia. By 1916, the story goes, James had developed his business into a thriving fresh fruit and vegetable distribution company.

Today, Charles H. James & Company is the oldest African American business in America, a $20 million-plus food wholesaler headed by James' greatgrandson, Charles H . James III. T h e Alpha connection? T h e Alpha legacy.

Charles James II, the retired Chief Executive Officer of C. H . James & Company, was initiated into Alpha Zeta Chapter at West Virginia State. Eddie James, his brother, was also initiated into Alpha Zeta Chapter. The current president and chief executive officer of the company, Charles H. James III, is also an Alpha. Brother James III is a Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha and was

president of Alpha Iota Lambda Chapter for four years—1972 - 1976. He holds a master's degree from the Warton School of Finance.

Charles H. James II attended West Virginia State and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania Warton School of Finance.

Although retired after selling the James Company to his son, Brother James II was named (February 1995) interim vice president for finance at West Virginia State College.

This 114-year-old legacy has not been without i n t e r r u p t i o n . T h e Depression sent the company into bankruptcy in 1929.

C. H. James, Sr, E. L. James, C. H. James, II, and C. H.James, III. Editor's N o t e : Special thanks to Brother Adolphus Young, Jr., Welch, West Virginia, and a Life M e m b e r of Alpha, for bringing this legacy to our attention.

other Jerome 0.

Guilford, Sr, Kappa, '50, and Brother Jerome 0. Guilford, Jr., (son), Koppn, '86.

er (son), Nu Psi, '81; Brother Charles C Teamer, Sr., former General ident, Alpha Phi, '51; and Brother Charles C. Teamer, Jr. (s umbdo '80.

-

Fall 1995 •

The Sphinx A 53

Legacy

Francis (center), Alpha Xi Lambda, '48 and sons from left: Brother Albert D. Francis, Alpha Rho Lambda, '85; Brother Michael W. Francis, Alpha Rho Lambda, '88.

Nephews, Brother David E. Young, Epsilon Alpha, '84; Brother Nathaniel J. Young, Epsilon Alpha,'81.

z

liam C.

r., Alpha Xi Lambda, '48 d Brother Or. William C. Bryant,

and I

54 A The Sphinx

Legacy

Brother Ronald Pettaway, Epsilon Alpha, '68, and Brother Kenneth Pettaway (nephew), Epsilon Alpha, '95.

Brother C Brian Brown (son), Epsilon Theta, '89 and Brother Cleophus Brown, Epsilon Alpha, '69.

II, Delta Xi, '59, and Brother Jason Hill (son), Zeta Alpha,'92.

Floyd M. Hitchins (left), Alpha Xi Lambda, '53, and Brothe Brother Flo

Alpha Lambda,

Fall 1995 •

The Sphinx • 55

Legacy

Brother Michael D. Easley, Eta Lambda; Brother Todd B. Easley, lota Lambda; and Brother Eddie V. Easley, President of Alpha Pi Lambda—all Life Members.

ith, Gumma Phi, '56 and ' Hugh Griffith, Apha Xi nbda, '85 (brothers).

56 • The Sphinx

International Forum

BROTHERS ASKED TO SPEAK OUT FOR U.S.AFRICAN PARTNERSHIP Brother Ambassador Horace G. Dawson, Jr., Advisor to General President Milton C. Davis on International Affairs, introduced Ambassador Dane F. Smith, Jr. at the With General President Milton Davis (center) are Brother AmbassadorInternational Forum of the 89th General Horace G. Dawson, Jr., advisor to the General President on Convention. Following is a brief excerpt from International Affairs, and U.S. Ambassador Dane F. Smith, Jr. Brother Dawson's introduction.

President Davis, former General Presidents, other officers and officials of the Fraternity, honored guests, family, friends, men of Alpha...

I am pleased to cite our annual forums at these conventions, including the one today. As a result of these forums, our appeals in The Sphinx, and personal contacts since I came into this position, more and more of our collegiate Brothers are applying to the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies.

This is a welcome development.

Let me take a moment, before introducing the guest speaker, to revisit briefly some of the comments I made last year and add a few footnotes.

Alpha's involvement in foreign affairs is of long standing. Members of this body recognized early on that United States relations with other nations around the world would impact us and, therefore, they wished to be contributors and to have some influence in the process.

Brother W.E.B. DuBois was among the first Americans to attack the evil of colonialism and to explore, as scholar and activist, the implications of American ties with Britain, France and Belgium in relation to this grim reality. In more recent times, Alpha's concern and influence on the domestic side has been carried on politically by such men in the House of Representatives and in the Senate as Brother Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Brother Edward Brooke, and Brother Charles Rangel. These men have fought not

only for an enlightened U.S. foreign policy, particularly as regards Africa and the Caribbean, but also for a larger representation of African-Americans in the Foreign Service of the United States.

As regards Alpha men as professionals in the diplo-

Alpha's involvement in foreign affairs is of long standing. Members of this body recognized early on that United States relations with other nations around the world would impact us and, therefore, they wished to be contributors and to have some influence in the process.

matic service, I took a quick calculation a short time ago and came up with statistics that might interest you.

In the entire history of the United States, there have been 68 African-Americans appointed to the rank of ambassador. Of this number, ten have been women. As for the 58 remaining, 15 of them have been Men of Alpha.

Fall 1995 â&#x20AC;˘

The Sphinx A 57

International Forum The first person to be appointed a United States Ambassador was an Alpha man, Brother Edward Richard Dudley. This pioneer was named to head the U.S. diplomatic mission in Liberia in 1949. Dudley replaced in Liberia another Alpha man, Raphael O'Hara Lanier who was serving at the time in Liberia as Envoy Extraordinaire and Minister Plenipotentiary.

Brother John Howard Morrow became in 1959 the first American Ambassador to Guinea, followed closely

by Brother Franklin Hall Williams as the first African American to head the U. S. diplomatic mission in Ghana. During the same period, Brother Samuel Adams of Houston, Texas, became U.S. Ambassador to Niger.

Brother John E. Reinhardt was the first African American to be named Ambassador to Nigeria. He went on to become Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and later, Director of the United States Information Agency. As well, there are Brother O. Rudolph Aggrey, who served as Ambassador to Senegal, the Gambia, and Romania; and Broeher Terence A. Todman, a man who has achieved singular distinction for having served six times as United States Ambassador—to Chad, to Guinea, to Costa Rica, to Spain, to Denmark, and to Argentina. Brother Clarence Clyde Ferguson was originally the U. S. Special Envoy dealing with the Nigerian civil war of the sixties and early seventies and later United States Ambassador to Uganda.

Another scholar/diplomat to be cited is Brother Leonard Spearman who has served twice as U.S. Ambassador—first, to Rwanda, and then to Lesotho.

Brother Andrew Young was our Ambassador to the United Nations; and Brother William Gray, III quite recently served as President Clinton's Envoy (with the rank of Ambassador), promoting the peace process in Haiti. Brother Howard K. Walker, who recently retired from Foreign Service to become Deputy Director of the NATO War College in Rome, was Ambassador to Togo and later to Madagascar. Those mentioned here were all chiefs of missions.

By any standard, this is an impressive record of leadership for a single organization, and once again Alpha has reason to be proud. Word has it—but we can make no official announcement at this time—that an Alpha man will become soon the United States Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa. I feel confident that we shall soon hear of the appointment of Brother James Joseph to that important post.

Thus far, I have failed to mention the name of one other Ambassador, Brother Walter C. Carrington, our Brother currently serving as United States Ambassador to Nigeria. He was to be our guest speaker here today.

Unfortunately, developments in Nigeria—and they are

58 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

serious—have caused the Department of State to require Ambassador Carrington to remain at his post.

Until the very last minute, Brother Carrington held out the prospect of some improvement in the situation so that, among other things, he might make it here.

Unfortunately, diere has been no improvement.

The substitute speaker for Brother Ambassador Carrington, Ambassador Dane F. Smith, Jr., is a graduate of Harvard and holds master's and doctorate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer with service in Ethiopia and has also served as: Agency for International Development Liaison Officer in the African Bureau; Chief of the Food Policy Division in the Economic and Business Bureau, State Department; Deputy Chief of Mission in Botswana and also in the Sudan; Director of the African Economic Policy Staff in the State Department; and U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea.

Ambassador Smith urged the Alpha Brothers to "make clear to the members of Congress that you oppose efforts to move Africa to the sidelines of U.S. foreign policy.

Despite lingering wars and conflicts in some countries, the decline in Africa's share of world trade, and Africa's inability to feed itself, Smith saw signs of hope.

Indeed, he saw Africa as a "more hopeful place than the media and the Afro-pessimists would have us believe."

Ambassador Smith cited South Africa as an example of what he called "the triumph of enlightened leadership over fear and the victory of negotiation and conciliation over the gun."

"It is important that we work together to keep this important partnership between Africa and America alive and well and growing." Ambassador Smith said.

"It is important that you make your views known to the Administration, and that you make sure the White House and State Department leadership are aware tfrat you follow Africa's fortunes with interest," Ambassador Smith added. Alphas, and the members of other organizations to which they belong, should let it be known that tfrey want to be sure that "Africa is getting its fair share of attention."

Ambassador Smith spent 1993-94 at Howard University where he, along with Brother Ambassador Horace Dawson, established an International Affairs Center. He has since returned to the Department of State as Country Director for West Africa. He is also Special Presidential Envoy for Liberia.

Chapter News

EASTERN IOTA UPSILON LAMBDA CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF SERVICE....SIXTH LARGEST ALUMNI CHAPTER WITH 130 ACTIVE MEMBERS The 130 members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity's sixth largest alumni chapter, 15 of them charter members, is celebrating 25 years of service this year. The anniversary theme is "Shaping O u r F u t u r e While Honoring Our Past."

During its 25 years of service, Iota Upsilon Lambda (IUL) has established an impressive record of public service, educational programs and community leadership, and fraternal brotherhood.

In addition to purchasing an N A A C P Golden H e r i t a g e Life Membership, IUL has raised funds to assist the NAACP in its fight against injustice; it helped organize the Black Voters League and repeatedly protested the actions of "ultra-conservatives on the local school board in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Chapter has over the years spoken out against the small e n r o l l m e n t of AfricanAmericans at the University of Maryland, and called upon state and university officials to improve the conditions for those who were enrolled. The Chapter also makes contributions to the National Urban League and the United Negro College Fund.

Iota Upsilon Lambda has published a county-wide Black Business Directory, sponsored programs for Black business leaders, conducted voter registration/education programs, crime prevention programs, sponsored financial aid workshops, lobbied on behalf of the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday, and initiated an annual Dr. Martin L u t h e r King, Jr. Memorial Breakfast.

In conjunction with local churches, Iota Upsilon Lambda cosponsors youth tutorial programs which are supported by chapter funds and corporate grants. Six stu-

dents were sponsored participants in the Fraternity's Eastern Region Leadership Development Institute at Howard University. Student achievers are regularly honored with awards in the names of Brothers Paul Robeson, Jesse Owens, Martin Luther King, Jr., Duke Ellington, and VV.E.B. DuBois.

After contributing to tutorial assistance and reinforcement of school children at all levels, IUL gives 10 scholarship each year to college-bound students. Indeed, Iota Upsilon Lambda has given more than $110,000 in scholarships.

T h e Alpha Wives Club of Montgomery County, Maryland, is an integral part of the Iota Upsilon Lambda history. Its activities include the annual Ebony Fashion Show, a Cloth-A-Thon Drive for District of Columbia children, and cultural enrichment for AfricanAmerican community projects. The ladies have also purchased two

NAACP Golden H entage memberships.

Iota Upsilon Lambda includes among its m e m b e r s the former chairman of the M o n t g o m e r y C o u n t y Council, Brother Isiah Leggett; Circuit C o u n t y J u d g e Brother D e L a w r e n c e Beard; Superintendent of Public Schools Brother Dr. Paul Vance; former Police Chief Brother Clarence Edwards; former NAACP President and founder of the African American Festival of Academic Excellence B r o t h e r Roscoe Nix. Brother Hanley Norment, Vice President of the Maryland State NAACP, 12 members of the 24member Executive Board of the Montgomery County NAACP chapter, and the president of the Montgomery County SCLC chapter, Brother Dr. James Moon, are also members of Iota Upsilon Lambda.

Iota Upsilon Lambda has the distinction of winning Alumni

IUL "Christmas in April" Project

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 59

Chapter News Chapter of the Year honors seven times in an 18-year period—1974, 7 5 , 7 6 , 7 7 , 7 8 , '90, and '91.

The 25th Anniversary year started with a Founder's Day program which featured Brother Joshua Smith, president of T H E MAXIMA CORPORATION; the Honorable Eric Holder. Jr, U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, addressed the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Breakfast in January 1995; and The Black Heritage Program highlighted the achievements of the Tuskegee Airmen and African-Americans from all branches of die military service on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The Soiree at La Maison de Francaise for wives

and sweethearts featured a commemorative concert with music by Howard University faculty and students.

IUL also continued its participation in the "Christmas in April" Project, a national program which provides volunteer services to residents—including rebuilding and refurbishing homes.

The Black Youth Achievement Awards Program honored over 700 elementary and high school students and the annual Scholarship Ball raised funds to support eight college-bound students.

The 25 th Anniversary Year culminated with a banquet on November 17, featuring General President Milton C. Davis as keynote speaker.

Sigma Boston, MA This is the 18th Anniversary of Sigma Chapter, and the Brothers plan a special reunion during the weekend of December 1 - 3 , 1995. Information on Sigma Chapter alumni should be mailed to Brother Douglas Miller, 806 Parker Street, 1st Floor, Roxbury, MA 02120.

Meanwhile, the 1994-95 year was a busy one for Sigma Chapter....clotliing and food drives; several walka-thons in support of Project Bread and the March of Dimes; monthly feeding programs for the homeless; symposia which focused on the "Black Man's Role in

Society" and "Stereotypes in the Media"; and two public programs which appropriately acknowledged the birthday and assassination of Brother Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In conjunction with Rho Nu Chapter, Sigma Chapter sponsored "A Night on the Nile," a jazz semiformal featuring Brother George McAllister, II and his ensemble. And, Rho Nu and Sigma Chapter were declared winners of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Iota Gamma Chapter, step show competition— dieir second consecutive first place finish.

Omicron Eta Lambda Washington, DC Student achievement is being promoted and recognized t h r o u g h Omicron Eta Lambda's partnership with Edward Paul Junior High School in the nation's capital.

N i n e awards, each in h o n o r of the Fraternity's Seven Jewels, recognized Edward Paul Junior High School students for all-around performance, academic achievement, citizenship, special talent, school service, athletics, and motivation.

This year's awards went to: Chester Maddox, Henry Arthur Callis Ail-Around Student; Jason Stribbling, Nathaniel Allison Murray Academic Achievement; Mario Comacho and Sean Desgraves, Eugene Kinckle Jones Citizenship; Sean Shannon, Vernier Woodson Tandy Talent; Marcus Front Row (left to fight): Chester Maddox, Marcus Dudley, Dudley, George Biddle Kelley Athletics; Marcus Gooding, Jason Stribling. Back Row (left to right); and Ronald Rollins and Ricky Winston, Sean Shannon, Ronald Rollins, Ricky Winston. Not Pictured: ft lark Comacho, Sean Desgraves Robert Harold Ogle Motivation.

School teachers and administrators nominated the award recipients.

60 A The Sphinx •

Fall 1995

Chapter News

MIDWESTERN Alpha Xi Lambda Toledo, O H Five deserving students shared $5,000 in scholarships given by Alpha Xi Lambda last spring. The scholarships were made possible with proceeds from the Chapter's Ebony Scholarship Ball, Scholarship Golf Tournament, and the Martin L u t h e r King, Jr., Scholarship Breakfast.

T h e C h a p t e r has plans to expand Project Alpha and youth programs.

Also, Alpha Xi Lambda commissioned Brother Marvin Vines to paint a portrait of the late Brother Thurgood Marshall. The painting of Brother Marshall, along with a photograph of Brother Vines, hangs in the Toledo Board of Education Administration Building which has been named in honor of Brother Marshall.

itPI

i > k k\

' 11 â&#x20AC;˘

Brother Marvin Vines with his Portrait of Brother Thurgood Marshall

Mu Mu Lambda Chicago, IL

Eta Eta Western Illinois University Macomb, IL Among the other contributions they made at Western Illinois University, Brothers Randy D .

Twilley and Silton Williams are credited with founding Eta Eta Chapter. Twenty-five years after its founding, Eta Eta continues to makes its presence felt in the Macomb, Illinois, c o m m u n i t y t h r o u g h the P.O.W.E.R. Youth O u t r e a c h P r o g r a m , the annual Sweetheart Ball, drug and alcohol awareness programs, fund drives, and many educational forums.

The "Apollo" Talent Show is a major campus attraction as are: the Founder's Day Weekend activities, the " C o t t o n C l u b " Affair, the "Black and Gold Week" , and the annual Greek Picnic and Step Show.

Black and Gold Week this school year is set for April 21-26, 1996.

Mu Mu Lambda Chapter's Beautillion "Young African-American Males: Continuing the Quest for Excellence" was the theme for Mu Mu Lambda's 13th annual Beautillion held this year at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Rosemont, IL. More than 1,300 persons (a record) were on hand to see sixteen of the Chicago area's most outstanding African-American males receive scholarship awards. T h e Beautillion marked the culmination of an intensive nine-month program which included lectures and

workshops on career planning, college selection, grooming and etiquette, and participation in culturally enriching activities.

In addition to four Naval Academy scholarships, the Beaus received more than $30,000 in scholarships. T h e y will attend North Carolina A&T University, Oberlin, Dartmouth, Morehouse!

Purdue, and the Savannah School of Art. Proceeds from the Mu Mu Lambda Beautillion exceeded $110,000.

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 61

Chapter News

SOUTHERN Omicron Kappa Lambda Sumter, SC Saturday, July 29, 1995, was an exciting and fun-filled day for many Sumter area children and the Brothers of O m i c r o n Kappa Lambda. This was the first annual Summer Picnic for KIDDIES sponsored by Omicron Kappa Lambda.

More than 60 children, 6 to 12 years old, were on hand for the recreational and educational outing at Sumter Swan Lake Garden. This was the first time many of the children had visited Swan Lake.

Brother T J. Wilson called the outing "a new beginning for our Alphas and little friends at annual picnic Brothers pictured from left, to Fraternity in the Greater Sumter right: Ivory Canty, James Blassingame, and Irvan Wright, Jr. area." Referring to the young people the outing targeted, Brother Wilson added: "If we can get them at an early age, we can redirect their aggressive, negative behavior by establishing an after school mentoring program and workshops during the summer."

The Swan Lake outing had the special support of Mt. Zion Baptist Church and Emmanuel United Methodist Church, both of Sumter, South Carolina.

Iota N u University of Alabama at Birmingham Five of the nine awards presented during the 1994 - 95 Greek Banquet and Awards Ceremony went to members of Iota Nu Chapter. The awards included: The Student Life Excellence Award; the Presidential Award for Excellence; highest overall fraternity gradepoint average; highest individual gradepoint average; and the Outstanding Philanthropic Achievement Award.

The highest individual gradepoint average award went to Brother Christopher Ellis.

Iota Nu Brothers are also playing major roles in

the student government at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. One Brother was president for the 199494 school year, a Brother is the current president, and nine Brothers are in various other positions with the SGA. Service remains a priority for the Brothers of Iota Nu. They are participants in Red Cross/Donor Drives, the March of Dimes Walk-a-thon, and they hold clothing drives to benefit the homeless. Iota Nu also continues to volunteer at the Firehouse Homeless Shelter, tutor elementary school students in conjunction with the Caring Helps Another Make Progress program, and sponsor Project Alpha and Go to High School Go to College programs at several local schools.

Sigma Delta Elon College, North Carolina The 1994-95 "Stomp" hosted by Elon College Black Cultural Society was declared a big success likely because Sigma Delta won first place. But that was not the highlight of the Chapter's program year.

T h e highlight was instead the Fourth Annual Alpha Week programâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"Vision for our Black Men." In addition to public presentations on the t h e m e , the week included a m o v i e , "Sugar Hill," support of

62 A The Sphinx T Fall 1995

the Special Olympics at Elon College, and a special focus on the plight of the homeless.

In addition to food, clothing and other items collected, the Brothers of Sigma Delta organized a "sleep out" to show their concern for the problems of the homeless.

The Rev. Dr. Bernard Curry was the keynote speaker for the Alpha Week activities.

Chapter News Beta Delta South Carolina State Orangeburg, SC Beta Delta Chapter represented the District of South Carolina and the S o u t h e r n Region in the National Collegiate Scholars Bowl in Orlando, FL, this summer. And while Beta Delta was competing in the National Collegiate Scholars Bowl, Brothers Jermaine Hampton and Michael Gailliard were participating in the National Undergraduate Plasma Physics and Fusion Engineering program at P r i n c e t o n University. Brother

Hampton is also a member of the South Carolina State Academic Challenge Team which won a berth in the Honda Campus Ail-Star Challenge competition in Los Angeles, CA. South Carolina State has recognized Beta Delta for public service and high academic achievement among all fraternities and sororities on the campus.

Congratulations and best wishes from Beta Delta to Brother Dr. Carl Clark who left Southi Carolina State to accept the physics department chairmanship at Morgan State University.

Delta Theta Lambda Huntsville, AL Some 20 m e m b e r s of Delta Theta Lambda were registered for the 1995 General Convention in Orlando. Good support.

High on Delta Theta Lambda's agenda for the current fraternity year is the strengthening of relations with Delta Gamma, Alabama A&M, and Rho Chi, die University of Alabama in Huntsville, and concentration of national programs.

Delta Theta Lambda will continue to make annual scholarship awards to Brothers in both Delta Gamma and Rho Chi.

WESTERN Teen Center Honors Brother Tracy Wilson The City of San Jose, California, has named a teen center in honor of Brother Tracy Wilson who passed to Omega Chapter in November 1993. Brother Wilson was Youth Specialist for the City of San Jose for 13 years. Brother Wilson is reported to have gained the respect of all ethnic groups because he "spoke their language, respected their culture and actively participated in their daily lives."

Brother Wilson directed Eta Sigma Lambda's Project Alpha program in its early years, and provided the leadership for launching, among many other programs, "Project Olympus" for disadvantaged youth and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom Left to Right; Rich Ten-ell, Juan Cooper, Jeff Moore, Mayor Susan Hammer, Tom Schumake, George Penn, Norvell Wright, Train.

Brother Wilson is reported always to Bobby Gasper have offered himself "beyond the call of duty" and sometimes placing his life at risk.

Brother Dr. Penn is director of Neighborhood Present when the Teen Center was named in Services which conducted die Teen Center dedication honor of Brother Wilson were (from left): Brothers ceremonies. Eta Sigma Lambda gives a scholarship in Rich Terrell, Juan Cooper, Jeff Moore, San Jose Mayor honor of Brother Wilson.

Susan Hammer, Brothers Tom Schumake, George Penn, Norvell Wright, and Bobby Gasper.

Eta Sigma Lambda San Jose, CA Volunteerism played a major role in tiie Eta Sigma Lambda 1994 program year. Eta Sigma Lambda

Brothers volunteered more than 2,000 hours of community servicein support of the Fraternity's national programs, Project Alpha, Go To High School Go to College, and Boy Scouts; U N C F Walk-A-

Thon, March of Dimes Walk-AThon, and the San Jose Mercury News Runs for Literacy. Brothers offered themselves as role models and took part in mentoring activities through the Royal Ambassadors

Fall 1995 â&#x20AC;˘

The Sphinx A 63

Chapter News Boys Club, the Rites of Passage Program, Pop Warner Football, and Adopt-A-School (Shule Mandela). Eta Sigma Lambda also supported the 1994 AKA Debutante

Ball, the NAACP, the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, the Senior Citizens Christmas Luncheons, and Adopta-Family at Christmas. On average

each Brother volunteered a little over 67 hours of community service.

SOUTHWESTERN Omicron Psi Lambda Morgan City, LA Like their Brothers in many other chapters across the nation, Omicron Psi Lambda members are also making concerted efforts to set positive examples for young African-American males in the three parishes they serve. Scholarships to deserving young men, tutoring programs, and field trips to area events enable the Brothers of Omicron Psi Lambda to "reach out to local youth" in their respective communities.

Alpha Brothers Among Pan-Hellenic Council Honorees Nassau, Bahamasâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;During the Founder's Day observance of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Inc., Alpha Brothers honored included: Brother Marvin Dames, National Achievement Award in Criminal Justice; Brother Fred Munnings, Jr., fcÂŤ Distinguished Citizen Award; and Brother Ricardo P. Deveaux, Distinguished Past President.

The National Pan-Hellenic Council, Inc. was organized at Howard University in 1930. The Nassau, Bahamas Council was organized in 1981 and officially chartered in February 1995. Brother K. Peter Turnquest received the Meritorious Service Award for his leadership as a Past Council President.

Seated (left to right): Distinguished 1' His Excellency Sir Orville Turnquest, William Wallace, ConGovernor-General of the Commonwealth of the Excellency Sir Orville Turn Bahamas, received the Council's 1995 Lifetime Achievement Award. Sir Orville Turnquest chal- Turnquest, Distinguished Pn lenged the fraternity and sorority members to and Lorraine Kmrwles, Hoi become surrogate mothers and fathers to under- Distinguished Citizen and Natioi privileged children.

Recipients.

Brother Deveaux promised that the PanDEADLINE SPHINX Hellenic Council would continue to "assist the down trodden, the sick and the poor," as well as Please forward story ideas and chapter news for conteenage mothers, fathers, and delinquent youth. sideration at this time. We would like to have materials

r\ '/%

i 64 A The Sphinx T

Fall 1995

on hand for consideration by January 10,1995.

However, don't wait for the deadline. Mail material for consideration NOW. If you miss the the January 10 deadline, or any deadline for that matter, mail the material anyway.

The next issue of The Sphinx will be published in Jan/Feb 1996.

We have a special interest in receiving photos that depict "chapter program activities." However, avoid snapshots. Photos showing involvement in national programs of the Fraternity are of particular interest.

Send material to: The SPHINX, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. 2313 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD 21218-5234.

.2

a Chapter

BROTHER GOODE SET A PIONEERING EXAMPLE MAL RUSSELL G O O D E , SR, was 87 years old when he died in September 1995. A native of White Plains, Virginia, and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Brother Goode was first a Probation Officer in Pittsburgh and later a YMCA worker. While in the latter capacity, he joined other YMCA volunteers in a protest that eventually ended discrimination in Pittsburgh branches of the YMCA. He served on the board of the Pittsburgh NAACP throughout the early 1950s and fought job discrimination and police brutality through volunteer associations and his various career positions.

It was in journalismâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mass communicationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; that he would make his mark. In 1948, Brother Goode joined the Pittsburgh Courier staff, then the largest African-American newspaper in America. He launched a twice-weekly radio commentary later before starting a six-year stint as a newsman with W H O D .

He joined ABC News in 1962 where he was initially assigned to cover the United Nations.

Outside the UN, Brother Goode covered Democratic and Republican Conventions, the Poor Peoples March from Marks, MS and Washington, DC, the funeral of Brother Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and a one-hour documentary of the City of Atlanta entitled, "It Can Be Done."

Brother Goode's colleagues named him President of the U . N . C o r r e s p o n d e n t s Association and President of the Association of R a d i o - T V News Analysts.

BROTHER J. WILBUR WALKER, a

life member of Alpha, was affiliated with Gamma Lambda Chapter for over 52 years. His professional career included untold hours of n u r t u r i n g , m e n t o r i n g , leading, tutoring and disciplining generations of students. During his distinguished career in education, Brother Walker changed the workforce for many African-American professionals in the School District

In addition to being recipient of the Alpha Award of Merit, Brother Goode's commendations were numerous, including keys to over 50 cities, several honorary degrees, and recognition by the Capitol Press Club, former President Jimmy Carter, and the Schools of Journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Pitt.

He retired in 1973 but continued to work as a correspondent and consultant for the National Black Network.

of G r e e n v i l l e County, South C a r o l i n a . H e received many awards for his work in community service, including the founding of the Gower Neighborhood Association.

BROTHER ROBERT F. YOUNG

was

a native of Asheville, N o r t h Carolina, a life member of Alpha Phi Alpha, and past president of Gamma Lambda Chapter. Retired

from the School D i s t r i c t of G r e e n v i l l e , South C a r o l i n a , B r o t h e r Young earned degrees from South Carolina State and the University of South Carolina. In addition to the positions he held with the Greenville County School District, Dr. Young was also an adjunct professor at Limestone College, Gaffaney, SC. A past president of the Greenville Branch of the NAACP, B r o t h e r Young

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 65

Omega Chapter received many citations, commendations, and awards for his community work.

BROTHER BRANSON

DR. HERMAN was a p r o d u c t

R. of

Virginia State U n i v e r s i t y and earned the doctorate degree from the University of Cincinnati. He was founder of the N a t i o n a l Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, a trustee of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship F o u n d a t i o n , and a member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Branson also served on the National Advisory Panel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Council of the National University of L e s o t h o , and the N a t i o n a l Research C o u n c i l . A native of Pochontas, VA, Brother Branson received 10 honorary degrees during his career and published some 100 papers in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology.

BROTHER

DR. JOHN

WAYNE

DlGGS was vice p r e s i d e n t for Biomedical Research at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Washington, DC. Prior to that appointment, he had an illustrious 35-year career as a researcher and health science administrator with the National Institutes of Health ( N I H ) and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. A native of Weakley County, T N , Brother Diggs held degrees from Lane College and Howard University. His commendations included two Presidential Meritorious Executive Awards, the Public Service Superior Service Award, the Distinguished Senior Professional Award from the International Personnel Management Association, and the Lane College and H o w a r d University Distinguished Alumni Awards.

A c h a r t e r m e m b e r of Iota

66 A The Sphinx â&#x20AC;˘

Upsilon Lambda, Brother Diggs was his chapter's president for four years d u r i n g which time Iota Upsilon Lambda was selected Alumni Chapter of the Year two consecutive years. Dr. Diggs was chairman of the Board of Trustees of M o n t g o m e r y C o l l e g e in Maryland, active with Blacks in Government, and conducted workshops on cultural diversity for county employees.

BROTHER

DR.

BIRCHARD

E.

GOODALL, a life member of Alpha and a charter member of Kappa Theta Lambda, New Jersey, was a native of Scranton, PA. A graduate of H o w a r d U n i v e r s i t y D e n t a l School, Dr. Goodall had the distinction of being the first AfricanAmerican life m e m b e r of the American Dental Association. An accomplished pianist, B r o t h e r Goodall was also an avid bowler and golfer and played in many Black National Tennis Association tournaments.

BROTHER

ADRIAN

GARRET

HlNTON, J R , a native of Peoria, IL and a charter member of Epsilon Kappa Chapter, was a graduate of Bradley University. T h e first African-American to serve on the Peoria Park District Board (1984), Brother Hinton spent more than 33 years in various positions with the City of Peoria public schools and was named "Educator of the Year" in 1992. He was a former member of the Community Action Agency Board, a member of the Carver Center Board of Directors, the T r i - C o u n t y U r b a n League C o m m i t t e e on Male Youth Responsibility, the NAACP, and Peoria Rotary Club. A United Way volunteer, Brother Hinton was also a member and trustee of the Heart of Illinois Special R e c r e a t i o n Association.

B R O T H E R M A U R I C E L E E was a

native of Lexington, KY, and a life

Fall 1995

member of Alpha. A graduate of M o r e h o u s e College and the University of Southern Illinois, Brother Lee was a charter member of Kappa Omicron Lambda chapter, Vallejo, CA. He was a 2 2-year veteran of the U. S. Air Force with service as a pilot in Vietnam, E u r o p e , Asia, N e w Zealand, Australia, Antarctica, and South America. He taught mathematics at Vallejo Senior High School after retiring from the military.

BROTHER PORTER

DR.

GILBERT

L.

held degrees from Talladega College, the University of M i c h i g a n , and O h i o State University. His career in education spanned more than 60 years. He held teaching and administrative positions first in Sarasota and later Tallahassee, FL. Brother Porter was the first African-American Ph.D. appointed to a high level position in the Dade C o u n t y School System when he served as Special Assistant Deputy Superintendent and Assistant to the Superintendent. For 11 years, Brother Porter served as Executive Secretary of the African American T e a c h e r s ' c o m p o n e n t of t h e Florida State Teachers Association and co-authored a book chronicling his experiences as an advocate for African-American teachers. Gilbert P o r t e r Elementary School in Dade County is named in his honor as is an annual award given to the h i g h e s t academic achiever. Brother Porter served Alpha Phi Alpha at local, state, regional and national levels for many years.

BROTHER T E R R E N C E SINGLETON

was initiated into T h e t a Zeta Chapter in 1981. A determined Brother, his g r a d u a t i o n from Dartmouth College was delayed two years as he gallantly fought Sickle-Cell Anemia. A native of Queens, NY, Brother Singleton was a m e m b e r of the D r a g o n

Omega Chapter Society (an h o n o r s group) at Dartmouth. He focused on computers only because his doctors advised him against the pressures of medical school. B r o t h e r Singleton was a systems officers with Citibank at the time of his passing.

Brother Clifford M. Prince, a lifelong resident of Pasadena, CA, served Alpha Phi Alpha and Eta Pi Lambda chapter for more than 50 years. He was a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Pharmacology and operated his own pharmacy for some 30 years.

BROTHER WADDLETON

PRESTON

T.

was a native of Webster, T X , and a graduate of Texas College. He spent most of his career in W a s h i n g t o n , D C , where he was a teacher, realtor, and entrepreneur. He taught school in Gilmer, T X , W a s h i n g t o n , D C , Wheaton and Silver Spring, M D .

H e o p e r a t e d Action Fuel Oil Company for more than 25 years in Washington, DC, and also operated Action Limousine Company.

One of his limousines was featured in the movie "True Lies." Brother Waddleton was a member and officer of Israel C . M . E . C h u r c h , Washington, DC. and life member of the Montgomery County, M D NAACP chapter, and recipient of the Texas College "Outstanding Alumnus Award." A life member of Alpha, Brother W a d d l e t o n was c h a p t e r historian when Iota Upsilon Lambda C h a p t e r won "Chapter of the Year" honors.

BROTHER JOSEPH L. TURNER was

a native of Morgan City, MS. He attended Hampton Institute, and West Virginia State College, and received bachelor's and master's degrees in music education from the University of Illinois, C h a m p a i g n - U r b a n a . He taught school in M a c o n , GA, and St.

Joseph, MO, completed two years in the U. S. Air Force, and spent 33 years on the faculty at Bluefield State college, several years as Dean, before r e t i r i n g . Brother Turner was member of the John Stewart United Methodist Church where he was a church officer and a member and officer of Alpha Upsilon Boule.

Brother Wiley served on the staff of Riverview and Monmouth (NJ) Medical Centers.

BROTHER RUSSEL GRAVES was

a

native of Alberta, Virginia. He was initiated into Delta Tau Chapter at St. Paul's College where he earned his bachelor's degree. He studied at Columbia University in New York and earned the MBA degree from Loyola College. In addition to his 30 years with the Social Security Administration, Brother Graves taught for two years in East Africa and held teaching positions with the Baltimore City School System.

Brother Graves's nephew, Brother Lover H i g h Jr, is D i r e c t o r of M e m b e r s h i p , Alpha Phi Alpha General Headquarters.

BROTHER RALPH COURTNEY BELL was a past president of Beta

Kappa chapter. Under his leadership Beta Kappa c h a p t e r won District, Regional, and National Fraternity honors. Brother Bell was himself the Southwest Region representative in the Belford V. Lawson Oratorical Contest before his untimely entrance into Omega Chapter. A native of Galveston, TX, Brother Bell served two tours of duty in Vietnam and worked as a research technician for Exxon chemicals before b e g i n n i n g a career in academe in 1991. An exemplary student, Brother Bell was a Life M e m b e r of Alpha, served as vice-president of the Student Government Association, President of the Student Senate, the Social Science Club, Foreign Languages Club and the Psychology.

O m e g a Listings T h o m a s Adams Delta Zeta Lambda Christopher C. H o u s e M u Lambda J e s s e L. Lofton Rho Lawrence E. Price O m i c r o n Mu Lambda

BROTHER HERMAN O. WILEY, a

native of Bronx, NY, was a graduate of Virginia State University and H o w a r d U n i v e r s i t y Medical School. A World War II veteran, Brother Wiley was a charter member of Zeta Upsilon Lambda Chapter and had been active in Alpha for 62 years. His many commendations included the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity "Man of the Year" award and the Kiwanas Westside "Man of the Year." He was on the Red Bank, NJ, Board of Education for 18 years, serving at one time as its vice president; a member of the New Jersey Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and the National Guardsmen, Inc.

Charles Scott G a m m a Phi Lambda Lurrie V. Taylor Alpha Zeta Lambda Percy E. Terrell Alpha Zeta Lambda Dr. H e r m a n O. W i l e y Zeta Upsilon Lambda

Fall 1995 T The Sphinx A 67

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1995

Convention

STATE OF THE FRATERNITY ADDRESS

by Genera] President Milton C. Davis at the 89th Anniversary General Convention, Orlando, Florida

To our Past General Presidents, Brother T. Winston Cole, Brother Walter Washington, Brother James R. Williams, Brother Ozell Sutton, Brother Charles C. Teamer, Brother Henry Ponder—God has blessed us and favored us to have all of our living General Presidents with us today. I extend my fraternal greetings to all of my Brothers who have come from the four corners of the nation and across the world to Orlando, Florida.

I see the faces of so many good Brothers who have come to enjoy the excitement, fellowship and substance during these days of convention. Some Brothers from my hometown of Tuskegee — Brother John J. Johnson whose work is so crucial in the success of our Sphinx Magazine.

Brother Robert Davis, the President of Alpha Nu Lambda Chapter, my home chapter. Brother Charlie E. Hardy, my friend and able presidential assistant. I see Brothers who inspired me to join Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity over 27 years ago. Brother Jock Smith, a fellow attorney, in Tuskegee, Alabama, and Brother Dock Anderson, now a lawyer in San Diego, who while we were both students at Tuskegee University walked over a mile with me home from the campus one day trying to convince me to join Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. I finally took his advice. I see Brother Precel Kirk, a Brother with whom I was initiated at Tuskegee University. Brother Kirk always knows when to come to my side in support of my efforts. I thank these Brothers and others who have surrounded me and helped make this administration successful.

Some chairs will be empty at this Convention.

Brothers now claimed by Omega Chapter are no longer with us. Among them a Brother who had become known and admired by us at these conventions. Brother Ralph Bell, former President of Beta Kappa Chapter at Langston University, a 4.0 scholar, a contestant in this year's oratorical contest and a member of the collegiate scholars' Bowl Team, was tragically killed in an automobile accident just two weeks ago. We remember him today and those who mourn him. We also remember all those other Brothers who have passed on.

For the 81st time in our 89-year history the supreme governing body of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is formed. For the third and final time for this administration, it is my magnificent privilege and signal honor to stand before you and render my constitutional responsibility as the 29th General President and report on the State of the Fraternity.

Oh, what a difference 12 small, swiftly passing months make. When I last stood before you in Chicago during the 88th General Convention: — There was no perceived threat from a "Contract With America" to the vital interests of African-Americans in this country.

— The United States Supreme Court was still viewed as a haven of last resort and refuge for minorities seeking justice in this nation.

— African-Americans were celebrating their gains in Congress and legislatures across the country as a result of newly redrawn district voting lines.

— Hardworking parents and students had optimism and hope that by working hard, saving their money, and getting good grades in school the federal government would continue to allocate some small portion of the vast federal resources for student financial assistance for college education.

When we met in Chicago last August, we did not detect the gathering blitz krieg attack against civil rights gains fought for and earned through 400 years of slavery, the post reconstruction American segregationist apartheid system and consecrated by the blood of the martyrs of the modern civil rights movement.

Nor did we have any idea that these precious gains could be taken so easily with scarcely a whimper or even symbolic resistance from the African-American community.

Little did we know how weakened our premier civil rights organization, the NAACP, had become.

But we found out its condition when we saw that the NAACP was unable to even offer token resistance. If we stand before the mirror of truth, open our eyes and strictly scrutinize ourselves, we would simply have to say to ourselves; "We missed it, we blew it, we failed." Indeed that indictment may be read against almost every AfricanAmerican organization in this nation.

Oh, what a difference 12 months, just 365 days make in the life of a nation, the plight of a people, the history of a fraternity. I am compelled to place us as a fraternity in context with our time, but I must also hasten to add that during these same 12 months, these same 365 days, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has taken several strategic actions to raise itself up, dust itself off, focus its manpower and resources and take several giant steps into an optimistic and positive future.

1995

Internally: — Our chapter assessment tool, which initially was heavily debated, improving to be an effective and much needed instrument in gathering knowledge about our chapters, their assets, programs, members and needs. The chapter assessment proved to be a device for linking brothers and leadership together at every level.

— Several chapters have met and exceeded their membership recruitment goals set out by the General Office. A short sampling of these chapters include: Alpha Lambda - Lexington, KY 100.0% Gamma Lambda - Detroit, MI 100.6% Xi Lambda - Chicago, IL 121.3% Upsilon Lambda - Jacksonville, FL 116.7% Alpha Alpha Lambda - Newark, NJ 110.0% Beta Delta Lambda - Daytona Beach, FL 113.3% Gamma Phi Lambda - Berkeley, CA 116.0% Delta Alpha Lambda - Cleveland. OH 114.1 % Alpha Chi - Fisk University 100.0% Beta Kappa - Langston University 108.0% Gamma Pi - Benedict 113.3% Theta Upsilon - Arkansas State University 133.3% There are many other chapters, I only name a few.

We have a new Executive Director, Brother Darryl Matthews. His performance, productivity and results thus far have been outstanding. We can be justly proud of the dedication and commitment of our Executive Director, Brother Matthews, as well as the work of Brother Lover High and Brother Seaton White and the clerical and administrative staff.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity is now on line with the World Wide Web. Alpha has a home page and can now be accessed on computer around the world. A complete demonstration of our capabilities was performed for the Board of Directors at its meeting during this convention.

- We have the capability of using government sponsored networks and services.

- We now have a Computer Bulletin Board - A Job Search Feature - Resume Posting Feature - The capability of accessing fraternity forms of various kinds, filling them in and filing them instantly. Our fiscal officers may now remain at their homes or offices in Montgomery, Alabama or Chicago, Illinois, access our financial data base and update fiscal reports and utilize information. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity is a part of the world wide Internet. The possibilities and the future is enormous for us with this new capability.

Our historical archives are being officially established

Convention

at the Moorland Spingarn Archives at Howard University.

Our artifacts and memorabilia will be carefully and professionally prepared, categorized, stored and preserved for our use and that of serious scholars who seek knowledge of the world's first black collegiate fraternity.

Again for the third consecutive year Alpha shall host a major reception in Washington, D.C. during the Congressional Black Caucus Weekend. This event creates valuable networking opportunities with our Brothers, members of Congress, federal government leaders and visiting individuals. Alpha's image at the federal level has never been greater nor more positive and effective than it is right now. We shall build on this base.

Sufficient groundwork has been laid, and it is now time for us to build the memorial to Brother Martin Luther King, Jr. Let this symbolism of courage, scholarship and leadership serve as a catalyst for renewing a sense of unity, purpose and commitment to civil rights and human justice.

You will hear more about this effort.

I have appointed two new chairmen of our foundations. Brother Hebrew Dixon shall serve as chair of the Building Foundation and Brother Christopher Womack shall serve as Chair of the Education Foundation. New members of these foundations have also been named.

— My charge to the Building Foundation is to take the land in Chicago where the old Headquarters was located and develop it for some useful purpose immediately—that is either 1) Build a rental facility 2) A Business facility 3) A Housing facility We own the land, pay taxes on it and we must use it for the benefit of others and ourselves.

The Education Foundation is charged with developing a weekend national scholarship fund-raiser. In those years in which no General Convention is held, the Education Foundation shall have a national gathering where Brothers, chapters, corporate partners and others shall raise funds through a black-tie gala banquet, reception and colloquium weekend. During this weekend, we shall commission a scholar to publish a paper on an issue vital to the AfricanAmerican community. This document would be first unveiled during the Weekend at the Charles H. Wesley National Lecture. The findings and recommendations developed in this paper would receive wide publication and dissemination. All funds raised at this event would be given to the Foundation to endow Scholarships. Alpha must be a part of the solution to the difficult problems facing our community and our nation. I have established the World Policy

1995

Convention

Council—a group of distinguished Alphas whose work would include addressing issues of both domestic and international importance publishing and disseminating their findings and recommendations to the widest audience possible. I am happy to report that former U.S. Senator Brother Edward Brooke has consented to chair this most distinguished panel of scholars and leaders. Brother Brooke although extremely busy thought so well of the idea that he sent me a check for $5,000 to further the work of this council. Bro. Brooke has consented to serve as Chairman of this distinguished panel. I have appointed Bro. Ambassador Horace Dawson to serve as Vice Chairman. I have also invited as members Brother Louis Sullivan, President of Morehouse Medical College and Former U. S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Brother Attorney Clinton C. Jones, Senior Legal Counsel to the U. S. House of Representatives Banking and Commerce Committee; Brother Dr. Cornelius Henderson, President of Gammon Theological Seminary; and Brother Mayor Richard Arrington, Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama. One position on this panel of seven remains vacant at this moment. This World Policy Council of Alpha shall also employ a paid research associate, a senior undergraduate or graduate student whose part-time job would be to provide research and drafting for the work of this Panel. Brother Brooke has indicated that this Commission shall be prepared to report and publish its first work by August 1996. I have designated August, 1996 as the first Alpha Education Foundation Weekend and Brother Edward Brooke shall deliver the first Charles H. Wesley National Lecture. This weekend shall take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Bro. Mayor Marc Morial has already assured me that the key to the city and the full welcome of New Orleans and its Mayor await Alpha.

During the past few months I have had the pleasure of visiting with our Brothers across the country and also in Europe as the guest of Theta Theta Lambda Chapter in Frankfurt, Germany and in Nassau the Bahamas as the guest of lota Epsilon Lambda Chapter. Brothers of Beta Chapter at Howard University participated in a student cultural visitation program in Soweta, South Africa and in addition to interacting with the young people of that country performed step routines and learned African steps from the local residents.

Alpha sponsored an official representative of the fraternity to the recent African/African-American Summit held in Dakar, Senegal and a brilliant report of that meeting is in the current issue of the Sphinx. This report written by Brother Derrick Cogburn, our representative, clearly

demonstrates the value of our Fraternity being proactive both in domestic and international policy matters.

This summary listing of events and accomplishments clearly demonstrates that our Fraternity has taken some giant steps forward, but more, much more needs doing and the urgency of the times and the risks to our communities require Alpha Phi Alpha to provide even greater leadership and service.

Brothers, we simply must devote more than just haphazard spare time, minimal spare change and idle small talk to the mission and work of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Our gains are rolled back, our communities are faltering, our people are in despair and there is no place else to look for light and hope, leadership and service except to the men of Alpha Phi Alpha.

Not spare time. Brothers — but quality prime time needs to be devoted to our work and mission.

Not idle small talk — but profound, focused, deliberate thinking is needed, delivered and expressed with articulation and clarity.

At this Convention, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity shall set the pace: I am asking this convention to raise the sum of $20,000 and authorize me to present it to Mrs. Myrlie Evers-Williams - Chair of the NAACP on Sunday during the pubic program. I am asking each brother to donate at least $100.00 during the collection at the Ecumenical Service and the Public Program. We have invited Myrlie Evers-Williams here to honor her bravery, courage and intellect in being a proactive leader in civil rights for decades and for being tenacious and steadfast in bringing her husband's murderer to justice. We also shall honor our lifelong commitment to the NAACP, an organization that needs us now and we need it. In addition to this Convention's Donation, I would ask this Convention to adopt during the legislative session a resolution calling on each of our chapters to purchase a $500.00 Life Membership in the NAACP. Don't tell me you purchased a life membership 30 years ago. That money is gone. We need to start over again with renewed resources.

What we did five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago won't help us now. We need to do it again.

I have appointed Brother John Williams to lead our Special Projects Committee. I am asking the Convention to adopt a revitalized version of our "A Voteless People is a Hopeless People" campaign. I have commissioned him to produce hundreds of thousands of door hangers for all our chapters to place throughout their communities reminding and encouraging our people to register and vote. In addi-

7995 Convention

tion, radio and television community service announcements are also being produced for distribution.

We shall continue to build bridges with our college brothers. The life membership breakfast shall inaugurate a new initiative. The College Brother of the Year named at this convention and at each succeeding convention shall receive from the life members a fully paid life membership in Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

Our Convention Agenda is exciting. The leadership of the African-American community is converging on Orlando this week for the Alpha Convention.

Reverend Brother James Forbes, the Senior Pastor of The Riverside Church, New York, shall be our Ecumenical Speaker on Sunday. Brother Forbes is absolutely spellbinding and is renowned as one of the greatest preachers in America. The Public Program shall bring to us one of the greatest scholars of the 20th Century and the greatest historian in the world, our Brother Dr. John Hope Franklin.

Brother Franklin shall also autograph copies of his books after the Public Program. The Alpha Shop shall have copies of Brother Franklin's books on sale for your convenience.

The Public Policy Forum on Monday morning shall bring to us Brother Hugh Price, President of the National Urban League, Brother Delano Lewis, President of National Public Radio, Brother Marc Morial, Mayor of New Orleans, Brother Chuck Stone, journalist and commentator, the Honorable Corrine Brown, member of Congress. The Fraternal Luncheon shall bring to us Brother Richard Arrington, Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama and the Dean of African-American Mayors in this country.

glittering formal Black and Gold Banquet. Brother Bill Gray, President of the United Negro College Fund, shall be with us at the banquet.

This shall be the final time that I shall have the magnificent honor of appearing before a General Convention as the General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and I wish to conclude my report to you today with the same words I used to conclude my Inaugural Address to you in 1993. These words which were favorites of both Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington are also favorites of mine and they have inspired and motivated me and my administration in service to you.

"It is not the critic who counts. It is not the man who points out where the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by sweat and dust and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again. For it is he who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause and who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Alpha's place has always been in the arena providing leadership and service so that our people and our families and we as individuals shall know the triumph of high achievement; and if we should fail on the journey on occasions our place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. This thought has been at the foundation of all our efforts in this administration and has motivated my heart as your General President.

I have done my very best for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and I shall continue to do so during the remaining year of my term.

Brother Arrington now has the longest seniority of any sitting black mayor in the country. On Monday night, our International Festival shall feature a troupe of performers from the Bahamas who shall entertain us royally. Tuesday begins with our International Policy Forum led by Brother Ambassador Horace Dawson. Our community outreach project at the Boys and Girls Club shall follow that event and we shall conclude our convention with a truly elegant and

May God bless all of you.

SERVANTS OF ALL The Public Program Address

by Brother John Hope Franklin are central to the tenets and teachings of Alpha Phi Alpha, and I am among those who are most grateful, not only for what Alpha has done for me but also for what it has done for its ever-growing Brotherhood.

Even so, I must make a public acknowledgment for what Alpha did in very specific ways to assist me in the

I cannot imagine that there exists anywhere an Alpha man who is not enthusiastically grateful for what the Fraternity has done for him. There are, for example, the fraternal bonding, the inspiring of self-confidence, the stimulation and sharpening of the tools of leadership, the heightened sense of public and special responsibility. All of these

-5-

1995 Convention

Allright, we knew that we had our work cut out for us. We could empower ourselves through the intelligent and courageous use of the ballot or we could continue to suffer the degradation and humiliation that votelessness brings in its wake. It is no exaggeration to assert that by the time that Houston finished his address, everyone in the audience was ready to go out and do battle with the forces that conspired to keep black people down!

As I read the early history of Alpha Phi Alpha and as I recall from my own experience the vigorous campaigns for equal rights waged by the Fraternity five and six decades ago, I am greatly renewed in spirit and in hope. First, I can clearly see that the spirit of our Jewels lives on and provides a solid base for establishing and maintaining the highest possible standards of dignity and self-respect that all of us can emulate. It was my good fortune to have known several of the Jewels, but I know Jewel Henry A. Callis best.

Happily, he was still active when I joined the faculty of Howard University in 1947. I always enjoyed hearing him talk, sometimes in parables, but always with great wisdom.

In 1939 he gave the Founders' address at the General Convention which I was unable to attend, but he spoke there along the lines I heard him speak on several occasions later. He pointed out that the wealth of this country was "almost inexhaustible," with a scientific knowledge and scientific advance that leaves few practical problems unsolved.

"Yet," he continued, "100 million people belong to families whose total money income does not allow the level of a reasonably comfortable subsistence." He called it as he saw it; and he could well have been describing the situation in 1995!

very early stages of my career. While still an undergraduate I received from the Alpha Phi Alpha Educational Foundation, headed by Brother Rayford W. Logan, a scholarship to facilitate the completion of my studies at Fisk University. Incidentally, the other recipient that year was Ewart Gunier, later the first chair of the African-American Studies Department at Harvard University and the father of famed University of Pennsylvania law professor, Lani Gunier. When my doctoral dissertation, "The Free Negro in North Carolina," was accepted for publication by the University of North Carolina Press shortly after its completion, the only problem was that publication funds were low.

In 1942 there was no National Endowment for the Humanities to provide a publication subvention, no foundations to sustain university presses when they undertook to publish works of limited readership although deemed worthy of publication. At this juncture the American Council of Learned Societies and the Carnegie Corporation of New York joined with Alpha Phi Alpha to underwrite the publication of my first book. I do not know how many young scholars have been fortunate enough to have their careers given a great boost by our Fraternity, but none is more grateful than 1 am for the part it played in sending me on my way.

There are still other ways that the Fraternity assisted me. While still an undergraduate at Fisk University, the Fraternity gave me an opportunity not only to develop leadership skills but to become interested in some of the fundamental problems of our society â&#x20AC;&#x201D; problems that still plague our nation. In 1934, when I was president of Alpha Chi Chapter, I had the unforgettable experience of introducing Charles Hamilton Houston to the student body. Houston was returning from one of his regular life-risking visits into the deep South to encourage African-Americans to vote where they could and to demand the vote where they could not. He was also making some preliminary investigations into the extent of discrimination against African-Americans in higher education.

But there was hope. Callis had it as did the other Jewels. Otherwise, they could not have undertaken the daunting task of forming this organization that came into existence in the first decade of the century. They hoped for a better tomorrow, not only at Cornell University but as every university in the land, in every community in the land, and in every organization in the land. Their hope was fully justified, whether one views the work of the Charlie Houstons, the Whitney Youngs, or the Martin Luther Kings, all of whom were Brothers who gave everything they had so that we could live in dignity and hope. It is a hope based on the secure knowledge that those who preceded them and us laid the best possible foundation on which we can build.

But it is extraordinarily difficult to keep hope alive today when, all around us, there seems to be a determined effort to snuff out all hope. It has been said that today the black community is under siege; and such an observation is neither frivolous nor irresponsible. In the first place, the so-

Houston's principal thrust in 1934 was to urge AfricanAmericans to register and vote. He electrified his audience by painting a most vivid picture of what political empowerment could do to raise each listener to a level of equality with his or her bitterest adversaries. He spoke of the obligation of all of us to seize the moment, register and vote, and exercise the power that only the ballot could give. Already the Fraternity was beginning to repeat the phrase, "A Voteless People is a Hopeless People." On that date, a full decade before the white Democratic primary was finally outlawed by the United States Supreme Court in Smith v

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called scientific racism that we usually associate with the nineteenth century defense of slavery is alive and well today.

Witness, for example, the widespread interest in Charles Murray's latest discoveries that he published in his Bell Curve. The alacrity with which so many Americans followed his arguments and the absence of truly critical examinations of those arguments, specious as they were, were the most disturbing aspects of that dreary performance.

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Secondly, it would seem that the intimations of inferiority heaped on almost all discussions of the intellectual performance of African-Americans deeply and tragically affects any semblance of equal opportunity for them in the workplace. Consequently, the unemployment figures for African-American males are essentially the same today as they were at the end of World War II. What happened to Equal Economic Opportunity in 1995 when the unemployment rate among young African-American males hovered around forty percent? And don't let anyone tell you that the figures are high because black males will not work. The unemployment figures are based entirely on a census of men looking for work; that is, men who are actively in the work force! And the prophecy of those who claim that African-American men will not work is fulfilled by those who see to it that they are denied employment opportunities to work.

The struggle of African-Americans to secure a place in the American political scheme of things has been long, difficult, and largely discouraging. The opposition to their having a place of any consequence in the political world has been unremitting, bitter, and largely bigoted. When the white Democratic primary was outlawed in 1944, there seemed to be some reason to hope that the political playing field would be more level than it had been. But behind the scene maneuvering as well as continued opposition was followed by white defections from the Democratic Party that left that party splintered across the South, followed by a Southern Republican Party that looked more like the lilywhite Democratic Party of the olden days than anything else. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought to build into the system some guarantees for equality of political opportunity, but alas, the opponents of equality began almost immediately to frustrate the purposes of the act. They challenged each African-American candidate, and sought to defeat him or her by fair means or foul. Thanks to the determination of African-Americans to make their political strength felt and thanks also to their white friends who believed in equality of political opportunity, they began to gain strength on local levels where an increasing number of African-American councilmen and women appeared together with AfricanAmerican mayors of cities large and small.

In the third place, the slight gains that AfricanAmericans have made over the past 30 years are being vigorously hacked away by those who are going about it as systematically as though they were hacking their way through a jungle. These gains are not eroding; they are being attacked by those who are determined that a racially exclusive society is more in keeping with traditionally American society than one that is inclusive. One need not look far to see the determined effort on the part of some of the so-called most respectable elements in society to turn the clock back to the "better situation" of pre-World War II America! When some institutions set aside scholarships for African-Americans, opponents to such arrangements immediately raised objections. It was un-American and discriminatory, they cried. Have you ever heard these same proAmericanists cry out against scholarships that are regularly and traditionally and unblushingly and unequivocally set aside for athletes? The United States Supreme Court said last spring that the Benjamin Banneker Scholarships for African-American students at the University of Maryland were unconstitutional, but to my knowledge no one has ever challenged the constitutionality of scholarships set aside for the quarterback, fullback, forward, guard, or tackle on the University of Maryland football team.

When the Voting Rights Act provided that state legislatures examine their congressional districts to make certain that they reflected the racial composition of those districts in their representatives in Congress, the opposition began to mount. It was truly remarkable how, all of a sudden, those who dreaded to see the significant increase in the number of African-Americans in the Congress, especially from Southern districts, began to organize their opposition. These new districts, they argued before the United States Supreme Court, were unfair to white voters who were not fairly represented. They created districts that were true monstrosities in shape with no real reason for existence except to give African-Americans seats in the Congress to which they would not be entitled. They ignored completely the fact that the first odd-shaped congressional districts were created in 1810 and were named for Elbridge Gerry a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. All of a sudden, just three years ago, opponents to the kind of redisricting that would increase the number of African-American members of Congress began to appeal to the Supreme Court to stop this obvious pandering to a particular racial group and declare these new districts unconstitutional. In 1994 the Supreme Court ordered the North Carolina legislature to reexamine its newly created districts and present a plan

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more in keeping with traditional principles of redisricting.

In 1995 it declared outright that a congressional district from which an African-American was elected to the Congress from Georgia was patently unconstitutional. It seemed clear in 1995 that if the assault on congressional seats held by African-Americans continued the membership of the African-American delegation in Congress would be reduced by a least 50 percent.

Since Affirmative Action that until recently was supported by a bipartisan coalition has become such a political football, it is scarcely possible to take seriously the arguments stated against it. It is difficult, in the dark cloud that now surrounds it, to remember that it was once the proud banner under which so many who believed in equality marched. The fact that at least four presidential candidates are using it today as a major argument to appeal to the whims and prejudices of the white majority and that a Reagan-Bush Supreme Court finds it invalid are insufficient grounds to desert a principle of fairness and justice that promised African-Americans for once an equal opportunity.

One can only conclude that with the assault on Affirmative Action from so many quarters and with so much venom and mean-spiritedness, the African-American population is truly under siege.

The members of this Fraternity, so strangers to injustice and discrimination, seasoned by their long history of struggle against incredible odds, should not flinch because of the odds that so many seek to stack against us. Indeed, we should regard the siege as a challenge and the effort to create new obstacles as an invitation to climb the new obstacles to new heights of success. We know that the arguments of scientific racism are as specious today as they were in the nineteenth (19th) century. Likewise, we know the discrimination in the workplace is a continuation of the effort to maintain African-Americans in a subordinate and dispensable place in the economic life of this country. And we surely know that those who harbor such views and feelings are abysmally ignorant of the role that AfricanAmericans have played in the life of this country and, indeed, how important they can be in its future economic growth and well being.

We cannot be dispirited by the cruel assault on our rights in the workplace, in education, in politics, and on our position in American society. If we accept these assaults as a challenge, which I earnestly hope that we will, we must commit ourselves to fight off the siege in at least two important ways. One is to gird ourselves to carry on the struggle by using our Fraternity and all of its links with

other groups to mount a program to use our enormous intellectual and economic resources to wage an all-out fight against those who would destroy us or hold us down. With some of our major civil rights organizations giving more evidence of weakness than we would like to see, with some of our educational leaders betraying the trust that we have confided in them, with some of our community and church leaders concentrating more energy on their own well-being than on the group, we need to pause and regroup in order to wage the battle we must wage. This is what Houston, Young, King, and the others were doing â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not for themselves or our Fraternity but for the entire African-American community.

Finally, we must give more attention to our families and to our offsprings. If we are to save ourselves in the long run, it must be through our children. There is so much that we can do in the way of bonding with them and mentoring them and parenting them. I am an annual visitor to St. Petersburg, Florida, where I found several years ago a program carried on by the graduate chapter of Alphas there that I found to be ideal, exciting, and encouraging. Each Saturday morning the members of the chapter assembled 40 or 50 high school students for just the kind of bonding and mentoring to which I have referred. They began with a period of inspirational conversation, followed by several hours of tutoring in fields such as mathematics, English, history, and the like. That was followed by a fellowship luncheon.

When I saw what was happening there, I told my friends that if we could duplicate that program a thousand times, we could solve any problem that would arise. I commend it to you with all the enthusiasm that I can summon.

Brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha, you have done much more for me than I deserve. For more than 60 years you have pushed me, encouraged me, financed me, and now you have given me this wonderful recognition and this warm expression of esteem and affection. I can only say thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I shall make every effort to be worthy of what you have said and done here on this occasion. I can only add that we must remain "'Servants of All."

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OUR CHILDREN = OUR DESTINY Public Policy Forum Panelist Brother Hugh B. Price

Let me begin by thanking Brother Milton C. Davis, the distinguished General President of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. When he invited me to address you back in May, I accepted instantly. I had several reasons for doing so.

To begin with, Eugene Kinckle Jones, a distinguished predecessor as President of the National Urban League, was one of the Seven Jewels who founded Alpha. I also felt duty bound to come because I'm one of those prodigal fraternity brothers who hasn't made a meeting in the past 20 years. I figured that if I came to confession at the convention, perhaps you wouldn't take me to the woodshed instead. I had more than my share of paddling during pledge.

What's more, your former General President, Charles Teamer, is one of my new bosses. He chairs the board of one of our great affiliates, the New Orleans Urban League.

When Charles says it makes sense for me to do something, I don't have to ask why. I instinctively know he is right.

Finally, I was eager to come because we have some serious family business to discuss about the state of our folk, especially our young people. Alpha is such a powerhouse movement with enormous potential still to be tapped for our people.

The Fraternity and my family go way back. My dad, Dr. Kline Price, pledged at Howard and was a proud member his entire adult life in Washington, DC. My brother Kline, also a physician, followed the same path. Both my uncle, Dr. Louis Schuster, and his son Lou are Alpha men from Ohio State.

Since there were hardly any brothers, much less sisters or black fraternities in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts where I went to college in the early '60s, I had to wait a while to join. Some years later, I pledged the graduate chapter in New Haven, Connecticut, known as Eta Alpha Lambda. Many of my best friends back then, like Ron Manning, Haywood Hooks, Russ Garris, Jim Boger and Lew Downing, to mention only a few, were fraternity brothers.

Jim Comer, another member of Eta Alpha Lambda, has been a lifelong friend and professional mentor. His work in child development and school reform has profoundly shaped my thinking and indeed the priorities of the National Urban League.

Jim Comer's pioneering work, like that of the Jewels who founded our Fraternity, has had widespread and lasting impact. As I skimmed my dusty copy of Charles Wesley's

The History of Alpha Phi Alpha: A Development in College Life, I was struck again by the awesome contributions of our Brothers over the generations. Just glancing at the table of contents and the index, names like W.E.B. DuBois, Rayford Logan, John Johnson, Martin Luther King, Ernest Morial, Channing Tobias and Paul Robeson leap off the pages.

Ours is a story that America and especially young African-American males need to know. I urge you to compile it, update it and tell it, if you haven't already. Tell it in print, on television and radio, through video and audiocassettes, on CD-ROMs and on Internet. Leave no mode unused.

Let me briefly tell you another story, namely the story of our remarkable Urban League movement. We were founded 85 years ago to help our folk make the transition from the rural South to the mainstream of Northern cities.

To this day people come up to me and gratefully tell me they got their first job or first house through the Urban League. I'm delighted that we've been joined today by Brother Francis Kornegay, the legendary former CEO of the Detroit Urban League, and by Dr. Shirley Boykin, president of our Orlando Urban League and a legend in the making.

Were you to take a guided tour of our movement today, here's a sampling of what you'd see. At Shirley Boykin's affiliate, you'd see an after-school program for 6 to 15 year olds that offers academic tutoring and motivational training. Just down the road in Fort Lauderdale, you would witness the moving induction ceremony for academically talented teenagers into our affiliate's McKnight Achievers Corps. In Louisville, you'd join me in touring the brand new single-family detached homes that the Urban League is jointly building in a historically black neighborhood that's now on the rebound.

Our reputation, which we've justly earned over 85 years of service, is that Urban Leaguers not only talk the talk, we walk the walk, we deliver the services, we build the buildings, day in and day out.

I've just concluded my first year in office. What an amazing year it has been. We're witnessing a sea change in American politics and domestic policy.

As we all know, affirmative action is the wedge issue of the year. And we're the folks who are about to get squeezed the hardest. Some detractors say affirmative action doesn't work. That's nonsense. The proof is found

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every day in the dramatically changed composition of college campuses and corporate workplaces. Back in 1961, 134.000 black students attended predominantly white colleges and universities around the country. Today the number is a stunning 1.2 million African-American undergraduates in such schools.

Much the same is true of the white collar labor market.

The workforce of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation is vastly more integrated today. Think back to what it looked like in 1954, the year of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that outlawed school segregation.

Women and minorities in big corporations back then seldom rose above secretary or messenger. Contract set-asides have spurred the growth of female and minority-owned firms operating in the mainstream economy.

potential, ambition and perseverance, in other words what Massachusetts Governor William Weld calls grit and determination. These attributes aren't easily detected on standardized tests, but they certainly are relevant to whether people perform successfully.

While I'm at it, let me address that so-called preference stigma. Earlier this spring I visited the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

While there, I was approached by an anxious AfricanAmerican first-year MBA student. She confided that a number of her black classmates were dismayed that they weren't doing all that well academically. They worried that the stigma associated with preferential admission was undermining their self-esteem. Was it really worth it, they wondered, to have been admitted in the first place?

These gains help explain the welcome growth in the black middle class. To those who see that the poor haven't benefited from inclusion, think again of that ten-fold increase in black students at majority colleges. As we Alphas know because, in the words of Pogo, "they are us," these ambitious young people didn't arrive on campus with silver spoons in their suitcases. They're largely the offsprings of working class and low-income families.

The same is true of the growing black middle class.

These families didn't descend there from miniscule black upper class. They rose up from more modest circumstances due to individual drive and higher educational attainment.

But thanks, also, to the determination of universities and employers to include them, and of corporations and government agencies to do business with minority firms.

When I asked whether she or any of her friends had flunked out, she said they hadn't. To which I replied that they therefore "belonged" at Wharton because they were doing the work. Only if they were in over their heads academically should they question whether they belonged there.

Next, I asked whether she thought any of the white students who were clustered around them in the class rankings were losing any sleep over whether they belonged. I couldn't imagine that they were. Nor could she. Why is it always only the black students who are said not to belong, who are labeled unqualified even though they are passing?

What about the white students there with them in the class rankings?

Some critics say the beneficiaries of affirmative action aren't qualified. Of course people should be selected solely on merit. The crucial question is what we mean by merit and how we go about judging who is meritorious.

The fact of the matter is that grades and gatekeeping tests like the Scholastic Aptitude Test may help spot who'll do well in the short term, but they don't predict the successful performers later in life. Indeed, a study of Harvard graduates who'd been out 30 years found that the most successful grads had lower S.A.T. scores and came from blue collar backgrounds. In other words, they were ambitious and hungry.

I believe universities and employers should set the qualifications bar at a point which reliably predicts that all those above it can do the work. That way everyone in the candidate pool will be qualified without question.

This would then enable those doing the admitting and hiring to select candidates of all ethnic and socioeconomic groups based on demonstrated ability, but based also on

Our students must resist this assault on their selfesteem, so that they aren't knocked off course and so that their psyches are toughened up for stresses and indignities ahead in the real world.

They should be armed with rebuttal evidence about the wide array of supposedly race neutral preferences that universities, employers and contracting authorities routinely use to favor whites. As Nathan Glazer of Harvard notes, they employ geography, alumni legacy, golfing friendship, fraternity and country club membership, family and social connections, wealth, seniority, nepotism, extracurricular activities, proficiency with the oboe, social class and such to tilt decisions toward white applicants. The beneficiaries of these preferences don't suffer any demeaning loss of self-esteem. Why should we?

If anyone persists in questioning their bona fides, our kids should cite the limited predictive power of gatekeeping tests and grades. And then tell their dubious classmates that they look forward to reconnecting at their 20th reunions to compare professional accomplishments, civic contributions and W-2 forms.

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If our multi-ethnic society is to work and our economy is to hum at peak productivity, inclusion must become standard operating procedure in America's opportunity structure. Far sighted employers see the bottom line benefits of inclusion.

Inclusion matters enormously in higher education as well. White male baby boomers have a deep stake in ensuring that women and minorities are as prepared as possible so that they earn as much money as possible. After all, it's precisely these workers who will inherit the burden of supporting the Social Security. Medicare and pension benefits of those baby boomers when they retire 20 years from now.

Yet if race and gender are ruled out entirely as considerations in college admissions, then the enrollment of qualified minority youngsters who can do the work because they've got that grit and determination will drop precipitously.

With the end of the millennium upon us, it's time for America to get on with its future. Instead of prolonging a war of sound bites, I prefer that we focus on the underlying goal of affirmative action, which is full inclusion of women and minorities in the mainstream. Let me therefore propose "Five Commandments for an Inclusive America" that I believe Americans who care about our country's future can embrace.

1. The goal is genuine inclusion. We do not condone quotas, but neither will we tolerate tokenism or total exclusion of any segments of American society from the opportunity structure.

2. Only the qualified should be included. Candidates who aren't qualified ought not be in the applicant pool. For those with potential who lack the requisite skills, let there be intensive remediation programs to help them get quickly up to speed so that they too can qualify some day soon.

3. Selection should be based on a broad understanding of what "qualified" and "merit" mean in the real world. Those who do the picking should be free to weigh traditional indicators, such as test scores and grades, along with intangible attributes like grit and determination.

4. Inclusion is morally virtuous, economically advantageous and demographically inevitable. Our population is diverse by definitionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;50 percent female, and more and more multi-ethnic by the day. Americans must accept this reality and incorporate it into the allocation of opportunities to learn, work, and do business in our society.

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tors, but they definitely should be among the criteria used to overcome exclusion and promote inclusion of all those who are qualified.

So far I've focused on society's obligation to keep the opportunity structure wide open. Let me turn now to what we must do, individually and as a people, to prepare ourselves to participate fully in the mainstream.

For starters, we owe our fellow citizens respect for the sacredness of one another's life and the sanctity of their space. Crime, especially the violent variety, destroys community and disrupts the bonds between people.

A Wall Street Journal survey of Mom and Pop merchants in the inner city reveals that many are reluctant to hire native-born black youngsters, partly because of the incessant images on the evening television news of violent blacks being hauled off to jail. The hopes of law-abiding kids are being imprisoned along with the hoodlums.

Beyond reinstilling that most basic respect for our people and for all people, we must acquire the competencies and build the capital base so that black folk are respected players in the main economic game, not spectators in the bleachers.

This requires that we cross a bridge in our thinking.

We've no choice but to cross it because the rules for surviving and thriving in our society are changing fundamentally.

The most basic rule of all is that if an individual, an institution, an enterprise or a people doesn't have something of value to put on the table, they simply won't be at the table in the 21st century.

There are no shortcuts to the mainstream. As effective as demonstrations and marches are, we must also do the meticulous, unexotic, day-in-day-out work of preparing ourselves to swim with the swift and turbulent currents of the mainstream.

That's why we must become obsessed with developmentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;of ourselves and our children, our institutions and our businesses. We must cast aside any contentment with dependence, at one extreme, and any inclination toward excess consumption at the other. The time has come, my fellow Alphas, for investment and development to become the guiding ethos of our existence. It's essential for our children's sake as well as our own.

By now you may be wondering exactly what this means.

An obsession with development means we must grow and support our businesses so that we create even more jobs and wealth. It means our children must be reared to understand what business is all about so that entrepreneurship becomes instinctive. We need thousands more entrepreneurs

5. To achieve inclusion, those who allocate opportunity should take many factors into account, among them geography, gender, ethnicity, economic status and cultural diversity. Gender or race needn't be the deciding fac-

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to follow in the footsteps of those daring and visionary folks who have ventured out on their own over the years.

It means we must support those institutions that have been vital to our survival and success. Our Alpha Phi Alpha and those other fraternities that shall go nameless. Our sororities, Eastern Star and Masons. Our churches and community organizations. The NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The Children's Defense Fund. And, I list us last only out of good taste; we must support our vibrant and indispensable Urban League movement that has served us so very well for so very long.

It means using all the economic muscle we possess to advance our interest with those who covet our purchasing power. African-Americans represent a $400 billion market, which is growing faster than other groups. We should use that leverage to our advantage.

This is why the National Urban League pulled its 1996 national conference in Los Angeles. I'm extremely proud that we were the very first national organization to do so.

We want to transmit a clear signal to California's tourism industry, probably the second or third largest industry in the state, that their Governor's opposition to affirmative action and thus his indifference to the inclusion of women and minorities in the California mainstream is simply unacceptable. In other words, we of the Urban League movement don't just bark, we bite.

I'm gratified that two other groupsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Blacks in Government and the National Bar Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;have since pulled their conferences from California. We must all let Governor Wilson know we're not going along with his program.

A dedication to development means exploiting our power politically by leaving no adult African-American unregistered. And, just as important, by voting in every election with an eye toward civicmindedness and self-interest. We have too much at stake to watch what's going on around us from the sidelines. It's high time we get back onto the field and play hardball like everybody else.

At 12 percent or so of the population, we potentially control the electoral margin between competing parties and candidates. If we fail to flex our political muscle, then we'll be marginalized politically.

Above all, being obsessed with development means making certain our children have the academic and people skills to compete in the 21st century. That's because our children are our destiny.

For starters, we must face up to the fact that the phenomenon of out-of-wedlock births has reached epidemic proportions and is undermining the viability of our commu-

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nity. We've simply got to persuade our young people that they ought not bring their own flesh and blood into this world unless they're fully prepared to love, nurture and provide for them.

Developing our children means that parents must assume personal responsibility for making certain their youngsters acquire the skills required to be successful. We parents must know what our children need and then see to it that their schools deliver.

More specifically we must make absolutely certain that our children learn to read and write, reason and compute.

That they can express themselves in mainstream parlance and solve problems. That they're computer literate. That they acquire the people skills to get along gracefully with supervisors, co-workers, and customers.

Developing our children means that we as parents and taxpayers must insist that there are safe and supportive havens for our teenagers after school and over the summer while we are off working. Our communities urgently need more constructive programs, not concrete prisons, for our youngsters.

In years past, local service clubs like the Lions and Rotary assumed responsibility for funding the Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCAs and such that operated youth development programs after school and over the summer.

But in many cities, their contributions have moved to the suburbs with their kids.

It's time we African-Americans who have made it step up to the plate to assume personal responsibility for assuring that our youngsters in the inner city aren't left behind.

Our fraternities and sororities, our Links and our lodges, our social clubs and Boule, must become today's equivalent of the Kiwanis and Junior League for our kids.

I know and you know that we Alpha men have the money. We wouldn't really miss $500 per year. Think of those $25,000 cars we buy. The fact is that we could buy the exact same car for $20,000. It might have only two Bose speakers instead of four, but we don't really need all of them unless we're hearing impaired. The car might come without alloy hubcaps. Don't worry; the wheels won't fall off.

Let's take the money we save and invest it in expanding valued programs like the Orlando Urban League's afterschool program and those church-based and communitybased programs that take our children off the streets, keep them out of the clutches of gangs, and place them in the hands of caring adults. That, my Alpha brothers, is the bottom line of what it means to be obsessed with developing our people.

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Developing our children means instilling in them a sense of self-worth based on deep knowledge of themselves and pride in our people. This way they'll build their selfconfidence regardless of what others say, just as in my generation there was nothing any racist could say that dented our armor made of a sturdy mix of education and selfesteem.

Our youngsters should know the history of the civil rights movement, of course. But also the story of our great institutionsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the Urban League, the NAACP, the Alphas and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the historically black colleges and medical schools, the legendary inventors and artists, the powerhouse church denominations, the pioneering businesses, the great independence movements in Africa, and the unique cultures of the Caribbean and Bahia.

Millions of our children are doing the right thing every day. They deserve our full support so that they stay the course. Their story goes so unreported in the media that the broader society is losing sight of the fact that our children are an asset, not a liability, to society. We owe it to these youngsters to tell their story loudly and relentlessly until their accomplishments are widely acknowledged.

Unfortunately, others of our children aren't faring nearly as well. They too are our destiny. We're failing them as parents and as a people. These kids don't emerge from their mothers' wombs as members of the Crips and Bloods.

They aren't born three grades behind in reading. That's why we African-Americans must each accept full responsibility for our destiny and for that of our own flesh and blood.

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We as parents and as a people must pursue this campaign to develop all of our children with the focus and fervor of the civil rights movement of old. The challenge before us for the rest of this century and well into the next is whether we can mobilize ourselves to pursue a positive campaign to promote our development with the unshakable single-mindedness that characterized our decades-long protest campaign against discrimination.

Don't look for a messianic leader to part the waters and lead us to the promised land of opportunity. Waiting for miracles won't work. Structural economic change and insidious racism cannot be fought that way.

The responsibility rests with each of us, individually and collectively. My fellow Alphas and African-Americans, developing our children isn't a feel-good agenda that will pay off in the distant future. For our youngsters entering the 12th grade this September, the 21st century starts next June.

Our Children = Our Destiny.

Alpha Phi Alpha and the National Urban League were founded within a few years of one another. Like siblings who drifted apart, it's time we come home to one another.

It's time we link arms to help all our children. In the words of Brother Charles Wesley. "March Onward and Upward Toward the Light." Thank you.

Brother Hugh B. Price is President and Chief Executive Office of the National Urban League

THE CALL OF LEADERSHIP

by Brother Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr. Fraternal Luncheon Address

Brother General President, Brothers in Alpha: I could hardly have known back in 1952, when as an 18-year-old sophomore at Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama, being initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha, what impact this Fraternity would have on my life.

I was, of course, proud to be a member of a fraternity that exemplified scholarship and service, and boasted of the fact that a large number of the outstanding AfricanAmerican leaders, both nationally and locally, were Alpha men. I remember as a member of the Sphinx Club that I had to research and familiarize myself with the backgrounds of well-known Alpha men who were college presidents and leaders in the business and political arenas of this nation.

That was, as I noted, back in 1952, more than four decades ago. Then, according to E. Franklin Frazier, in his classic work, The Black Bourgeoisie, less than 5% of

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African-Americans belonged to the American middle class.

But even then, Alpha men were well represented among that small percentage. Today, nearly a third of African-Americans meet the criteria of being middle class.

Alpha men continue to make up a hefty percentage of the black middle class.

During my 42 years in Alpha, my membership in the Fraternity has given me access to and direct contact with outstanding black leaders of my own community. Those associations inspired me and helped to shape my philosophy of life early in my adulthood. Indeed, many of my models of achievement, service and leadership were Alpha men. As I advanced in years, my Fraternity membership brought me into direct contact and camaraderie with some of America's most prominent African-American leaders, who were also Alpha men. So, in countless ways, the work of Alpha men

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Convention

inspired me to try to achieve, to know, to believe in and to be committed to our struggle. It underscored what my mother and father had tried to instill in me about the value of service and the obligation to serve.

This spirit of Alpha is captured in Brother Sydney Brown's dedicatory statement at the Alpha House of Theta Xi Lambda which is contained in our history book, a work entitled The House of Alpha.

Somewhere in there, he said that we are "the college of friendship, the university of brotherly love, the school for the better making of men."

So I'm proud to come here today to address another luncheon of our national convention. That honor first came to me in 1980 or '81 at our Chicago convention, when Brother General President James Williams asked me to address the convention luncheon. Again, in San Antonio in 1991, I spoke to the convention luncheon and was the recipient of our Fraternity's first Thurgood Marshall Award. And, of course, I should mention that Brother General President Ozell Sutton gave me the fine honor of giving the luncheon address at his 1983 Inauguration in Atlanta.

So, I'm steeped in the Alpha tradition and believe firmly in its nobility of service.

Our Challenge Today Now I have done these reflections and these reminiscences because the altruistic qualities which have exemplified distinguished Alpha men as individuals and collectively exemplified our Fraternity, are so much in need in America today and especially in many of our black communities.

It is an established fact that leadership for every group in our diverse society which has achieved entry into its mainstream has come from its middle class. And so it is very important that we constantly re-examine the growth and quality of our middle class because from there will come the leadership which either succeeds or fails to lead us to America's Promised Land. The middle class receives special recognition but it also has special responsibility. As members of the middle class, we know personal accomplishment but we must also be the architects and builders of group accomplishment and solidarity. So inherent in the Alpha precept of service is the philosophy of, "I want for my brothers what I want for myself."

I am Mayor of one of America's medium-size cities. I see there, in our neighborhoods, the successes of our middle class and the pains and the frustrations of our underclass. We all hear of and know of the violence which grips some of our young people, the drug crisis which robs them of their dignity, self-respect, and soundness of mind. We know of growing teen pregnancies, the decline of moral values and family fabric and we are challenged to be a part of the solution.

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Robert F. Kennedy was fond of the words of George Bernard Shaw: "Some men see things as they are And ask why I dream things that never were and ask why not?"

Effective leadership must always have vision. It cannot accept the status quo when there is need for new vision. It cannot accept injustices of whatever form or shrug them off as mere human imperfections. Leadership asks not only what about problems but it asks "why not" about solutions to problems. Surely the best leaders are sometimes called "boatrockers" or "trouble-makers" or "agitators." But more often than not, they are the people who make the positive difference.

In our community, it's time "to dream things that never were and to ask ourselves, why not make them true?"

When you have the time, read one of Cornel West's works entitled Race Matters especially his chapter entitled, "The Crisis of Black Leadership." Some excerpts: "There has not been a time in the history of black people in this country when the quantity of politicians and intellectuals was so great, yet the quality of both groups has been so low. Just when one would have guessed that black America was flexing its political and intellectual muscles, rigor mortis seems to have set in. How do we account for the absence of the Frederick Douglasses, Sojourner Truths, Martin Luther King, Jrs., Malcolm Xs, and Fannie Lou Hamers in our time?"

"One reason quality leadership is on the wane in black America is the gross deterioration of personal, familial, and communal relations among African-Americans. These relations â&#x20AC;&#x201D; though always fragile and difficult to sustain â&#x20AC;&#x201D; constitute a crucial basis for the development of a collective and critical consciousness and moral commitment to and courageous engagement with causes beyond that of one's self and family."

"Black political leadership reveals the tame and genteel face of the black middle class. This crude and slightly unfair comparison highlights two distinctive features of black political leaders in the post-Civil Rights era: the relative lack of authentic anger and the relative absence of genuine humility. What stood out most strikingly about Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer was that they were almost always visibly upset about the condition of black America. When one saw them speak or heard their voices, they projected on a gut level that the black situation was urgent, in need of immediate attention. One even gets the impression that their own stability and sanity rested on how soon the black predicament could be improved. Malcolm. Martin, Ella, and Fannie were angry about the state of black America, and this anger fueled their boldness and defiance."

1995

"In stark contrast, most present-day black political leaders appear too hungry for status to be angry, too eager for acceptance to be bold, too self-invested in advancement to be defiant."

Institutional Strength Every group that makes it in America makes it in large part on the basis of what I call "institutional strength." In a competitive society, we need institutions from which we draw strength. Life in America has been difficult for African-Americans because we've had such few institutions we controlled and from which we could draw strength. The institutions which control America — the large corporations, the banks, the media giants, etc., have been out of our reach until recent years. Even now, we have few big corporations, banks, TV stations, and the like. We have drawn our strength mainly from two institutions—black churches and blacks colleges. If we fail to strengthen the few institutions we control, we can hardly expect to develop others. If we fail to support the NAACP, for example, which has helped our progress, we are guilty of failure to strengthen bridges which brought us across.

The Pitfalls of Illusions We are challenged to avoid "illusions" in our struggle for full freedom. An erroneous concept of reality or believing what does not exist is an "illusion." It's like sitting on a train that's standing still and look out the window at a train passing by. You get the impression that your train is moving when, in fact, it's standing still. What a pitfall for a people who still have miles to go in freedom's journey, to be under the illusion of moving when, in fact, they are standing still.

Coming out of the progress of the 60s, I'm afraid we got caught upon some costly illusions.

Our Unused Assets We have some important things going for us if we will only take advantage of them. Our's is a history of triumph over overwhelming odds. Indeed, "we've come over a way that with tears have been watered, we 've come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered." (James Weldon Johnson) We have a sizeable black middle class which represents a great resource to draw upon for leadership, providing it remembers where it came from and how it came. As Paul said to the Galatians (Gal. 5: 13-15), "We are made free to free others."

We have the ballot which we gained at great cost, but we under-utilize it with 25 - 30 percent voter turnouts which contribute to the defeat of our political friends.

Billions of dollars pass through our communities each year but we keep little of it in our communities. We are largely consumers. In a world market that places high premium on groups with power and control, we own little and are -15-

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too often seen as beggars. If we as a people own nothing, control nothing, people think of us as nothing. We cannot achieve our dreams without changing our consumer mentality. It's O.K. to help other people build businesses, but if we are to control our destiny, we must build businesses of our own.

The real test of our leadership is whether predominantly black and governed cities can prosper. Can they be safe and vibrant cities? Can our predominantly black school boards lead strong and competitive schools? Will the property values in predominantly black neighborhoods appreciate rather than depreciate as we become the majority tenants?

We have come to that fork in the road where we must go back to doing all we can for ourselves. To paraphrase Frederick Douglass: "A man who will not fight for himself is not worth being fought for by others. For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others or do anything to help others gain it."

Sometimes we catch hell when we try to do good — to uplift others, to care about others, to lead others. But try we must! Teddy Roosevelt said: "It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doers of deed could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; (but strives valiantly, makes mistakes but who always dares greatly)." Daring greatly! That is leadership. That is Alpha.

I have closed every luncheon of Alpha I've addressed with these words of an unknown author: The New Freedom They set the slave free, striking off his chains Then he was as much a slave as ever He was still chained to servility, He was still manacled to indolence and sloth, He was still bound by fear and superstition By ignorance, suspicion and savagery His slavery was not in his chains But in himself They can only set free men free And there is no need of that Free men set themselves free.

Alpha's immediate goal: helping to set black America free; for in so doing, Alpha helps to set all of America — black and white —free!

Thank you.

Brother Arlington is Mayor of Birmingham. Alabama and the longest serving African-American Mayor.

Eighty-Ninth A n n i v e r s a r y C o n v e n t i o n Orlando, Florida A u g u s t 3 - 8 , 1995

THE SEVEN JEWELS

\&W1 % Henry A. Callis, M.D.

•**J

Charles H. Chapman

Eugene Kinckle Jones

George B. kclley

Vernier VV. Tandy

Robert H. Ogle

Nathaniel A. Muri

GENERAL OFFICERS GENERAL PRESIDENT—Milton C. Davis, P.O. Box 509, Tuskegee, AL 36083 IMMEDIATE PAST GENERAL PRESIDENT—Henry Ponder, President's Office, Fisk University, Nashville. TN 37208 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR—Darryl R. Matthews, Sr.. 2313 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21218-5234 GENERAL TREASURER—George N. Reaves, 2933 Balmoral Crescent, Flossmoor, IL 60422 COMPTROLLER—Frank A. Jenkins III, 529 South Perry Street, Suite U, P.O. Box 4246 Montgomery, AL 36104 GENERAL COUNSEL—Tyrone C. Means, P.O. Drawer 5058, Montgomery, AL 36103-5058 NATIONAL HISTORIAN—Thomas D. Pawley, III, 1014 Lafayette Street, Jefferson City, MO 65101 DIRECTOR-GENERAL CONVENTIONS—Al F. Rutherford, 8585 Stemmons Freeway, Suite 730N, Dallas, TX 75247

VICE PRESIDENTS EASTERN—Samuel G. Wilson, 3639 Highwood Drive SE, Washington D.C. 20020 MIDWESTERN—James B. Blanton III, 10625 South Hamilton, Chicago, IL 60643 SOUTHERN—Chester A. Wheeler III, P.O. Box 6682, Macon, GA 31208 SOUTHWESTERN—Harry E. Johnson, 8606 Running Bird Lane, Missouri City, TX 77489 WESTERN—Kenneth Venable, 722 West 19th Street, Unit # 4, San Pedro, CA 90731

ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENTS EASTERN—Rasheed Meadows, New Haven, Connecticut MIDWESTERN—Solomon Davis, Chicago, Illinois SOUTHERN—Justin Gray, Tallahassee, Florida SOUTHWESTERN—Kevin Speed, New Orleans, Louisiana WESTERN—TB A

Administrative Assistants to the General President Charlie E. Hardy, Tuskegee, AL Joseph E. Heyward. Florence. SC Warren W. Sherwood. Montclair, NJ Alpha Phi Alpha Building Foundation, Inc. Hebrew L. Dixon, Chairman 100 Fluor Daniel Drive Greenville, SC 29607 George N. Reaves, Treasurer Casby Harrison III. Assoc. Gen. Counsel Calvin R. Austin Samuel D. DeShazior Everett B. Ward Bruce A. Austin Harold W. Patrick Milton C. Davis, Ex Officio

Alpha Phi Alpha Education Foundation, Inc. Christopher C. Womack. Chairman 2109 Christina Cove

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

Corporate Office

Birmingham, A L 35244

George N. Reaves. Treasurer Cecil E. Howard, Assoc. Gen. Counsel James B. Gillespie Keener A. Tippin John H. Carter James W. Ward Kermit H. Boston Milton C. Davis. Ex Officio

2313 St. Paul Street Baltimore, MD 21218-5234 Telephone: (410) 554-0040 Fax:(410)554-0054 Darryl R. Matthews, Sr., Executive Director

NATIONAL COMMITTEE/COMMISSION CHAIRMEN Personnel Iva B. Williams 237 Eleventh Avenue. S.W.

Rules & Credentials Ronald T. James 1717 Northeast 66th Street Oklahoma City. OK 731II

Alpha Scholarship Bowl Roland Wesley 1159 Quail Run Avenue Bolingbrook.lL 60440

College Brothers AfTairs Myles Newborn III 42103 Desert Hill Drive

Historical Commission Thomas D. Pawley. Ill 1014 Lafayette Sti\.-ct Jefferson City, MO 65101

Archivist Herman "Skip" Mason, Jr. 564 Blake Avenue. S.E. Atlanta. Georgia 30316

Constitution David E. Pryor

Job Fair

Publications

Wilbur H. Jackson. Jr.

J.J. Johnson. Ill

6466 Gunstock Court

6716 Indian Spring Court

P.O. Box 512

Reynoldsburg, OH 43068

San Jose, CA 95120

Tuskegee, AL 36087

Senior Alpha Affairs Rufus B. Dewitt 4937 Dafter Drive San Diego, CA 92102

Elections 15613 Singapore Houston. TX 77040

Life Membership John C. Rawls 5808 S.W. 49th Street Gainesville. FL 32608

Public Relations Edward L. Marshall 3816 Lake Bonaparte Drive Harvey. LA 70058

Special Projects John M. WHMama 25 Hudson Court Franklin, NJ 08823

Budget & Finance Frank A. Jenkins 111 529 South Perry Street. Suite 16 Montgomery. AL 36109

Endowment & Capital Formation Robert L. Davis P.O. Box 728 Tuskegee. AL 36083

Membership/Standards & Extension Ronald L. Mangum 54 Bremmer Street Richland, WA 99352

Racial Justice & Public Policy

Business & Kcon. Development James D. Moore 2115 Steeplechase Drive Ann Arbor. MI 48103

Grievances & Discipline Howell L. Davis 333 North Sam Houston Pkwy East Houston. TX 77060

National Programs Ronnie S. Jenkins 3507 Dale Lane. S.W. Atlanta. GA 30331

Recommendations Albert H. Fairwealher 6210 John Chisum Lane Austin. TX 78749

Awards & Achievements Joseph Byrd Xavier University P.O.Box 101-C New Orleans. LA 70125

Lancaster, CA 93536

Johnson E. Pennywell

Birmingham. A L 35211

Joe C. Thomas 787 Carsten Circle Benicia.CA 94510

Time & Place Michael C. Rogers

441 4th Street NW Suite 1120 Washington. DC 20001

THE LIVING PAST GENERAL PRESIDENTS 21"

T. Winston Cole, Sr. 124 SW Twenty-Third Gainesville, FL 32607

241" Walter Washington Alcom State University Lorman. MS 39096

25,h James R. Williams 1733 Brookwood Drive Akron, OH 44313

26 lh

Ozell Sutton 1640 Loch Lomond Trail S.W. Atlanta, GA 30331

27 lh C h a r l e s C. T e a m e r S r .

4619 Owens Boulevard New Orleans. LA 70122

28,h Henry Ponder

Fisk University Nashville. TN 37208

sphinx A L P H A PHI A L P H A FRATERNITY, INC. 2313 St. P a u l S t r e e t B a l t i m o r e , M D 21218

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