Three years ago distinguished y Professor uh David blight accepted the charge from University president Peter salv to lead a team of Faculty members uh students and Community folks to investigate Yale’s total relationship with the institution of slavery and while we know that slavery ended in 1865 in the United States officially the
Shadow of slavery loomed and looms um large and long and so certainly into the early 20th century when many black students made their four-way uh forway into Yale University and that brings us to um I would say Yale’s oldest black student organization The Zeta chapter of alpha alpha Fraternity Incorporated
Today we are celebrating the long and storied history of the organization but certainly of the chapter um that has existed at Yale and in New Haven since 1909 joining us today our um we have Al Lucas a Yale graduate who is U for a long time since his time Yale been a uh
Large presence in the New Haven Community we have Dr Paul White who leads an entire school system of New Haven students and a Yale graduate and we also have Latif Legend um an initiate of Zeta chapter and a leader in higher education and obviously today as you all
Will find out in history and so we welcome you we are also acknowledging the founders day of the entire fraternity of alpha F Alpha and we welcome you to learn and to celebrate thank you over to you Al uh thank you and happy Founders Day to all the brothers
Everywhere uh and to all of the people who have taken out time with their busy schedules to join us I see many uh folks who I know um who are in attendance with us and we appreciate you being here so uh briefly my role is to give you a
Little bit of context about where we uh how we got here to begin with and what was going on contemporaneously in our early history so in short what you had going on uh Chaz did a lot of work he narrated an event about the first
HBCU that we were trying to have in New Haven that was in 1831 uh he just mentioned the end of slavery in 1865 if you go about 30 years from now now you’re looking at a generation that has come out of U living through reconstruction or growing up in
Reconstruction and has access now to all sorts of entities across the United States that they didn’t have access to before um including going to some of these Elite universities uh alpha alpha Fraternity Incorporated started on December 4th 1906 at Cornell University in IA New York but we have to keep in context that
The Niagara Movement Niagara of state New York uh WB de Boyce um leading that charge leads to the the founding of the NAACP in 1909 was going was part of the intellectual conversation that was going on at the time you can see from the slide we have up here not only did he
Write uh about the meaning of the niagar movement and the junior niagar movement but it was specifically through an open letter to college men so college men across the country were uh being engaged and uh going through how to operate in these in this new environment in the United States and
To certain understand it’s almost a full circle movement to what we watched after the George Floyd situation where all of a sudden institutions that historically had not been that welcoming to individuals from um outside of their sphere of influence had begun to open up those spaces so in that context we had
Uh men who had gone to college and other places and ended up at Cornell University they also had connections with other men who they had either grown up with or met through their social contacts or educational contacts and as a result once the chapter was founded at Ithaca in Cornell University they began
To Branch out and and found other chapters and other locations starting with Howard University that was our second chapter then we went to Virginia univers Virginia University Union University our third chapter Delta chapter which was at the University of Toronto later on moves down to Houston tillon Epsilon chapter and then our
Chapter Zeta chapter in 1909 um and then at Colombia as well in 1909 and so all all the the uh original members of these individual chapters had contacts with each other through various experiences across the country at that time they had been working together on a
Lot of issues across the country some of them were relatives Brothers cousins um other had gone to school together and um all had the same Mission which was around making sure that they were able to survive the hostile environment that they were at at these new institutions that they hadn’t had significant access
To including being able to study together so that they could actually complete their education at those particular institutions and then so that leads to Us ending up getting to uh Yale University in New Haven Connecticut in in 1909 um fortunately for us we were fortunate enough by 1913 to have um a
Brother Charles Wesley who ends up writing the history book of the of the Zeta chapter and the alpha F Alpha fraternity um and that book ends up being the book that has um shown to be a model for all of the other uh Masonic and fraternal organizations since then
And he’s written several several of those so that gets us to where we are in 1909 it’s it’s uh part of again the the evolution of what we had going on through the 1800s and the realization of what the their ancestors had dreamed of of them having access to
These Elite institutions so from there I’ll throw it over to brother Legend to take us from from there brother Legend You’re muted sorry thank you uh so I’m gonna start off with a few terms because I know that there’s some unique terms that’s uh to the fraternity and I just
Want to kind of do some grounding for everyone so things like uh the jewels we refer to is effectually known as the founders of the fraternity charter members are are someone who is is related to a a chapter that uh that helped establish that chapter at that specific school or uh
Local um and then you have uh within the praternity we have like college brothers or alumni brothers and there is this um our structure as an or as a fraternity we have the general organization with the various positions for this particular time period uh you have a general president General Treasurer
General Secretary and so forth uh but then within the chapters uh similar model but just uh unique to that specific uh chapter and uh as we mentioned since we’re going to focus on a lot of the early history uh I just want to kind of like ground us at least
With the basic information as it relates to how Zeta chapter was established now um the origins begins um March 20th 1908 where two negro students uh was refused service on the basis of their uh color and this went national news at that time right uh it was all over the
Papers all entire country and uh but what was interesting was that uh one particular student by the name of Philip Manuel Thorne he was in law school well-known a debater and he was he he said no I I I know my rights and what ended up um was that he galvanized
Support from notable figures one um beginning with the his faculty many of the professors was like hey we want to support you on this then also another significant individual Booker T Washington uh and and so the combination of those two uh entities uh in terms of providing
Support and M this is just just a a simple refusal of being served at a restaurant led to this Coalition uh of people to help uh fight this case and so a couple of months after uh the the case ended up settling out um Thorne w one he uh attorney fees and
Plus the feed for the food right and but it triggered uh not only what was going on in terms of uh the lawsuit trigger what I want to say is the other institutions to start to organize so you saw this uh galvanizing of organizing within the Yale institution but also at other
Schools as well and so in uh in our fraternity history book uh there’s a letter uh stated on December 31st 1908 and it starts off with uh individual by Augustus Alonzo Williams of Michigan he had a group of students uh and he sent this letter to Rosco C
Giles about interest in becoming a fraternity and his recommender ironically was Philip Manuel Thorne uh of Yale now again because of everything that was was happening with that case and everyone was communicating with one another you start seeing this this connection here and you have this new brand new fraternity that just
Established uh uh roughly about three uh uh two years ago and now going into this third year and so after um couple of months the the general organization was able to make uh a decision on sanctioning these two chapters um one at Michigan and one
At Yale and uh by uh it was also the approval of the beta chapter gamma chapter and um yes uh Delta chapter fortunately was not available at the time but uh the first earliest chapters were able to make this approval and so you had juel Callis who traveled to
Michigan to establish uh Epsilon and Rosco Conlin jobs establishing Yale now one week before Zeta chapter was established there was an event um and uh by feie E Grant she’s the first black woman to be enrolled uh at Yale University and she eventually became an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority
Incorporated but at this recital you had Philip Thorne Jefferson got the for is d m mlen Mason um performing Usher duties and so this was one of the most this was the only available public document that we could find that showed them at least some of these individuals
Together all of uh and so this is just exactly one week before the chartering of uh Zeta chapter now which I’m really excited to introduce this because this is not just uh impactful for the uh for the fraternity but also for Yale is who were these original members and I’m calling them the
Legendary eight no pun intended with the last name um but these were the individuals that came together that uh what we would Define as charter members uh based upon all the standards that Alpha chapter has set forth uh and also that aligns with our fraternity’s history book and I’m going
To site off each individual’s name you have Jefferson gatherer is JR Harold Mary brigh Kingsley author Edward Johnson Ira mclen Mason Samuel Richard morcel William Porter norcom Philip Manuel Thorne Jr and Christopher Hubert Yearwood now again what what’s really fascinating about this is as they came together to establish this
Chapter even while they were taking classes they had to con deal with a direct attack or how would you say on their identity and what was fascinating was seeing some of the courses that were taught at Yale at this time and uh I was a bit shocked but I mean also this
Was the time right where you see someone’s identity race or ethnicity that’s associated with words like criminals danger liquor crie and I did try to do further research to see if this was associated with any other group or any other uh ethnicity but couldn’t find anything but it was definitely
Specific uh to black folks so imagine establishing a chapter but yet in your classes taking classes this is part of what you had to deal with now again although Zeta chapter uh in terms of the history started in 1909 it has gone through periods of inactivity and um but we still remained
A strong pillar in uh the Yale community and even also in Connecticut now one of the pieces that I thought was very fascinating was understanding the black student enrollment during this period And this is some of the scholarship that was um out there that EXP explained or or at least Tred to
Articulate exactly what was going on in terms of the history right and obviously when you see some of this information I’m talking about the the legendary eight but then you’re going to see that throughout the century this information wasn’t probably totally accurate right and there’s there’s a lot of information that we
Need to unpack and I hope in the future that we can really uh um um really look at what did uh what were these actual numbers and what were these actual figures so um in terms of the impact at Yale I look at a person like brother John mclen Ross right first black
Student to receive this MFA in 1935 then you look at another notable figure brother Levi Jackson who became the first C black Captain of any Yale team right uh you go further major institutions that are very important to Y African-American Culture Center Bay the African-American studies at Yale right
You have these brothers who was leading the fight and not only just impacting what was happening at Yale but also the country as a whole and then you not only during the 1960s with that pivotal period you see it to this very day right where at the Y
School of Management you have this colloquium right you have brother lightning with this uh theater and and major donor for the institution you have brother uh Johnson who was able to get MLK day off so this is a day that now the Yale University observes and recognize and ironically who’s that
Person they recognizing oh yeah another brother Martin Luther King now again to try to tell this history in 10 minutes is going to be difficult because guess what there’s a lot of brothers right we have a lot of pioneers that have been involved from the beginning and I’m just going to go
Through each or at least some of these brothers decade by decade you have Hubert Baines Ross he was he is the Pioneer of black anthropology H right or you go further you got some illuminaries even Al Lucas here right or uh you have Marco Davis head of the uh the Hispanic uh caucus
Institute right you go further you got jique Grammy Award winning you got medals education you got um brother NN who during um during the earthquake in Haiti he was one of the lead one of the major leaders and and as one he’s a Haitian
American but two he was one of the uh in servant for the Navy he was able to coordinate and help and explain on the ethic side of how the military should engage the uh the Haitian people you know you go further even to this uh as going to the 2000s Brothers
Like Jeremy harp who has done a lot of work in terms of researching Z the chapter history right but we even go further to this very day you got Brothers uh either coaching some making it almost to the or I believe making it to the league right and all these things
Come together show that Z Chapter has not only just been a uh is a pillar to Yale but also a pillar to the Greater Community by serving or or by by following the aims and ideas of this fraternity and so I’m going to pass it off to Paul White to discuss his student
Experience okay well ality has been something that has meant a great deal to me over my entire adult life as a student experience it was really uh being unaware of black fraternities uh any of the divine nine which is the nickname for the nine uh predominantly black fraternities and
Sororities uh and discovering in during my freshman year uh meeting uh men that would become some of my dearest friends in life uh not knowing their affiliation but just knowing who they were as Leaders the roles that they took on and there were things that uh felt felt the
Synergy towards and it inspired me to become a member and during the years of the 90s there were a lot of activities on CS there were times as brother Legend talked about times of strife that uh black students encountered uh it’s not something adhere to just the distant past this was things
That occurred during the 90s there incidents on campus uh law students Black Law students receiving letters uh with all types of racial epets in it uh students being denied entry to places that every other student was was allowed entry to uh so the past repeats itself frequently and as members
Of Al alha bus of alha Al fraternity incorporate we have stood to support and work through these issues uh connecting it through uh as you see the fraternity is not just uh activity for colle it has an extensive Alumni network it goes uh through the rest of your life you
Connect with people and continue to work uh as brother Legend mentioned we have the alumni chapters and that is how you continue that work as you continue to become uh go on in life so it’s been a great experience to me I will in a
Moment bring us to a brief poem to talk about what it means to be an alpha man but again it’s about all of these aspects of Life working in community being a being a pillar to to whatever Community you are in uh so that you can support and make make a difference in
Commity that’s the foundation of the work that we do that’s been part of the work we’ve done at Yale part of the work that we’ve done in our community here in New Haven and continue to do and bringing all of that together is what what this experience has been and what
It means to be an alpha man and I’ll I’ll conclude my portion with just reading this to be an alpha man means more than just to wear a pin it requires intrinsic qualities that are develop deep within it calls for lasting Brotherhood a word sometimes used in
Vain it means an honest devotion not anticipation of personal gain fraternity speaks of Brotherly Love that’s something to achieve it’s more than a grip of hands it’s an ideal to conceive you’re proud to be an alpha and share her Praises one before you inflate yourself with pride ask yourself
Honestly how much have I done to realize the wealth of personal satisfaction from knowing you’ve given your all to help her cause unfortunately when you r to her call to combine all these qualities and root them deep within the product will be an alpam man deserving of his
Pin so take an honest inventory of your character within for every virtue you find missing try to weave it in for a man without these virtues isn’t worth a grain of sand it’s plain to see it’s more than just a pin that makes an alpha
Man so there will this is one of our the foundation poems that we we we learn and take to heart and as an experience this these are the foundations that build the work that we do in the communities that have chapters and wherever we go and all responsibility as members of this
Fraternity both to our history at Yale where we’ve had I speak for myself had a great experience and life brought me back to New Haven that can serve both the Yale Community as an advisor to The Zeta chapter currently but also the New Haven Community as uh assistant
Superintendent and engage in the work to build community and I think that’s a good stopping point for me thank you for the legend yes yes um gentlemen and uh in my introduction a critical part that I skipped over was acknowledging uh members of alpha alpha who were pillars
At the University uh in my life time sort of uh folks who gave me deeper insights into the relationship between the black student experience at Yale um historically and also um gave me Insight um into how um this current organization ties to um the story of the black experience at Yale
From the beginning and those people are Dr James comr um who was a founder of the Y child study center and noted uh child psychiatrist Dr Curtis Patton who is an Emeritus professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and then I’d also like to acknowledge um historical
Figure Lloyd Richards who uh was an alpha and the first African-American to be dean of the a school of drama and then I’d like to acknowledge two uh people in my personal life who have uh helped me to make this connection in my scholarship and uh those people are my
Brother Byron Warner and my father Dr Charles Warner who are members of uh alpha alpha and so sort of a total Su experience um of work in uh local history and knowing uh good Alphas uh have bought us to uh this program today and so now uh we have some time for uh
Some questions uh from the chat and um one of the questions is for uh Latif how did you um come to wanting to dig into uh your chapter’s history oh thank you for that so it it started when I became an interest um uh as a any aspirant uh one of the first
Things you want to learn about is the organization and also the chapter that you belong to and when I um was trying to learn this research uh dig in and understand uh this history I thought it was a bit interesting that the um the charter members were unknown
And I think having the fact that uh uh my father who um I started doing genealogy with him and I was like oh I want to apply that same type of approach and trying to figure out these individuals because I felt like this is an important history that we need to
Make sure that we are able to observe because this was a significant moment for Yale University and um and so you with a lot of work uh I have to say from um Brothers within the fraternity Donald Ross uh you uh Dr Harris um and our general president lonzer but even uh
Within the chapter Al Lucas and even B like you guys helped out this was a it took a it was a village and uh very honored that we were able to finally uh able to resolve this unknown history follow on another question from the chat uh for you Latif but also for
All besides yearbooks and student newspapers what other sources do you recommend so I wonder as somebody who’s now a super experienced expert researcher how do people get started in this work wow so um I will say definitely you know u in terms of understanding black students at these institutions yes the
Yearbooks help but I think also looking into ancestry um or any of the other genealogy websites I think that has a lot of nuggets of uh information especially public uh when you think about uh government records right uh these are important clues that can help you tie a person uh specific IND
Individual based on a a specific location um year um um and um and uh and them themselves so uh I I definitely say tap it to those resources but then also look at you know simple Google search you know type in their names see what
Comes up and You’ be amazed if you dig uh deeper of what information that lies not just within the school that they’re Affiliated but maybe possibly other places that they may have been involved with whether it’s another institution or maybe a company that they work
For um and we have a question Latif if you would be willing to go back to the enrollment slide sure and talk a little bit more about what you uh maybe didn’t have in in the 30 seconds talk a little bit more unpack those numbers and what
It meant about the those times so this this particular aspect uh uh in terms of the numbers was uh quite profound because I’m like I’m relying on basic what is the available scholarship that’s out there about black students so forget about just like the fraternity and Zeta
Chapter but like what was going on in terms of student representation and how this information was depicted and I felt it was important to kind of understand that um and when I’m seeing what’s out there in terms of the the scholarship but then I’m comparing it to what the
Records that we have within the fraternity it was like night and day and I’m like oh whoa I’m you know the first assertion of students coming together in the mid 60s I was like oh no we know that that happened in 1909 not not 1960s but then what happened
What how did that how did this happen and how can we got to sort this out and then I think things that I discovered was just again how difficult is to track um race uh with students at these prominent institutions right um it you would think that it would be something
As simple as oh who are all the black students who all the um who are all the you know native students you know that information was very um very very very scanned but I think uh capturing this information I I I in this way I hope that will trigger more research um so
That we can understand a little bit better um in terms of whether it’s 1909 with Zeta chapter but all the the moments where black students came together to try to organize and and uh in Within These institutions to have a closer connection to help with persistence and and retention within the
Institution because this was also not just a issue with within Zeta chapter at Yale this was happening at all the other schools even our own Alpha chapter right so uh I felt that it was important to kind of uh understand how much we need to start unpacking this uh part of the
Research for uh these types of Institutions okay um I’m just gonna jump in and uh I saw some other questions in the chat that I think we can encapsulate into one kind of question it has to do with the chapters involvement in the community um the chapter inactivity and
Chapter chapters um engagement generally um on campuses like this so uh the short version of this of the answer to that is Zeta chapter has always been extremely involved in the New Haven Community uh we’ve had members who have have run churches in New Haven we’ve had members
Who were directors of the Q house in New Haven um so we’ve always been involved um from the Inception um if you go back and look at the addresses of the early members of the chapter many of them are on Dixwell Avenue so they they actually
Have been engaged in in New Haven and the black community from the beginning um as far as an activity you can only these historically uh black uh fraternities and sororities historically have drawn their their membership from the black populations on the campuses so if as you saw from Brother Legend slide
If you have low numbers on the campus then you’re going to have low pools to pick from now in 1954 54 um alpha alpha changed his Constitution to make it a uh inter racial um organization so that there was no no prescription on membership based
On race um and so from the 50s on we’ve always had uh been a multicultural organization since then with its roots in the African-American experience and in higher education um one of the speaking of higher education one of the questions had to do with the engagement at the Divinity School because we have
Some brothers that have always been there and that goes a little bit to the history of of Yale University and how the schools as we know them now have evolved from what they were in the early uh beginnings of Yale University where people were in the professional schools
Um and those professional schools were actually where you did your your work so if you saw earlier um the slide that brother Legend put up about being a junior in the law school um and so it was a different kind of develop in a dynamic so we’ve always had Brothers in
All the different professional schools as well as in the uh in the college from our Inception until now so um I think that hits on some of those particular questions that we had and to this day um we’re very engaged in the community again we’ve we’ve um been presidents of
All the local organizations that are focused on community activity we’ve been in the school system since we got here and uh have been up and down and all around Haven from uh from the moment we stepped into town I’ll stop there thank you both for that and thank you Latif for going back
Through the founders U I wonder if you might and and maybe each of you if you’d be interested do a little bit more capsule biography on one or more of these people since it is Founders Day for the chap for the fraternity nationally but some of some of the eight
I’m particularly interested but you can choose whoever you want on William Porter norcam who I know had some distinguished New Haven ties as well but I wonder Latif and maybe Al and Paul also if you want to take a few of the founders of The Zeta chapter and talk a
Little bit more about their histories and impact um yeah so I uh since I I’ll start off with uh Harold M Mary brigh Kingsley uh there was at one point that he uh was the passor of the largest black church in North America um and uh he uh went to
Talladega College uh he ended up moving to California uh where he um established another church I believe it’s called the good Fellowship uh and was deeply involved in terms of community building um and worked even with uh luminaries like uh WB de boys um let’s see here uh you
Got um Ira mlin Mason um another uh Talladega College and and this is something I think is interesting about a lot of these Founders there’s uh there’s this theme of HBC Utah right um some of them were uh uh already received their bachelor’s degree or some
Type of degree from a HBCU or even after they graduated from Yale they went back to HBCU either working or as an employee or as um even to pursue uh further studies um you had that with um individual like uh actually oh not uh Mason is one of them and and even um
Author uh Johnson so uh these were some of the things that I thought was uh deeply fascinating in terms of um some information about these guys um oh um Samuel Richard morcel I think uh one one of the pieces he was an a major executive for the YMCA for the um for
The state of Pennsylvania and um he ended up getting a a a prominent position in uh Westchester New York but uh they said we want to keep he we want to keep the YMCA’s uh segregated and he said no we have to integrate and uh they
Forced his hand and he ended up stepping down uh because he it was very important um and you saw this not just with within him taking this stance but you saw this across the country where there was this big push for integration and so for him
To uh sacrifice his job for to stand up for his values I thought was uh very incredible and negative uh history that many folks may not uh be aware of um this this other guy I call he’s a lightning rod Philip Manuel Thorne um there’s there’s some evidence that’s out
There that says that he uh uh was one of the founders of the NAACP but when you go to NAACP website uh uh he’s not mentioned but he’s there but they definitely uh shows a early involvement with what would be uh today the NAACP legal defense fund uh so we know that
There was some early involvement with that uh utilizing his degree and um helping to advocate for uh for many of the black folks in the community uh Michael and if I may uh add on to Latif two of these uh early uh founding members of Zeta chapter have
Ties to figures um that do pop up in the Yen slavery story uh we can start with uh Samuel morcel who married uh Maud Wright and mod Wright was one of the uh direct offspring of one of your favorites Michael Robert and park who uh for many years served as the assistant
To um both of Yale’s noted uh early science professors um also uh Robert park for many years was the uh steart for Skull and Bones um early in its existence and you also have um figures like Samuel morcel and Ira mclin Mason who is the great nephew of Yale’s longtime uh
College Carpenter Charles mcclin so these these folks while early black Yale students uh were not unfamiliar with higher education and they uh you know weren’t unfamiliar with Yale University and their own family histories Paul I wonder if you could talk from the perspective of of a leader in the New
Haven Public School System about the importance of local history in uh local schools and ways that uh we might encourage further local history study absolutely uh I believe it’s one of the important things uh New Haven as a community has a proud history uh New Haven of course connects itself tightly
To things in in its past toale the connections that go across that and there’s uh great history that connects that uh from little things such as the the oldest high school here hell housee High School James Hell House has many ties to the university uh ties to even
As a school the mascot the Bulldog is because of Yale’s Bulldog as connection uh in that history and also just uh the ongoing work of connecting our students and I’m also going to connect to one of the questions about students and uh black students and spaces
Um it’s local history is important to be taught in our schools and also as part of that is and that it is a place for students of New Haven to be a part of and engage in that so I believe that the more we can connect even the history of
Zeta chapter the history of black students being at Yale is pro important particularly when we have a majority District of black and Latino students today that connects back to what a place and an environment that students should be a part of and connected to one of the questions about uh the organizations
History in some places um chapters are small or or not exist because there are multiple ways for black students to connect with one another and there are at the time the fraternities and sorties were a major source of that connection and connection in the movements of civil rights movement work
Because the those relationships were built and they were safe space spes to connect in spaces to uh to build the legacy of African-Americans so I believe that that is always going to be important as that there are other places and ways to connect uh as any organization we have
To adapt in ways over the as we evolve being 117 years old uh you have to recognize life is different communities are different and while the African-American experience is not monolithic it is this so broad you still have to Enga learn new ways to engage
And meet the needs and stay true to the principles which are to uplift all communities and as a way of doing that and a connected connectedness that I I’m sure people will find that need to try ways to connect and that will continue our fraternities and sororities
Growing may may I add um just a piggyback a little bit on that so the the national one of our national programs is called go to high school go to college and so this is a program that every chapter within the fraternity is expected to perform on a yearly basis
And there is evidence that we were performing these types of programs that go all the way in 1910s like right when the early Inception of this program so um the connection between an Haven community and helping uh improving College access is something that uh one is trademark for the fraternity but also
Something that uh this chapter has held throughout uh its century plus history
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