Howdy! Hi folks – thanks for joining us this afternoon. For those who I haven’t met my name is Mark Welsh and I am privileged to be the dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service here at A&M and have the opportunity to work with some
Of the folks who are going to speak with you tonight, which is really a privilege of the job. I wanted to just say welcome to the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center, to the Bush School, and the Bush Center area. Over on this part of campus we have the Bush School,
Which is the only official part of Texas A&M over here. We have the the George & Barbara Bush Foundation, which is headquartered upstairs in this building – which oversees all the bush family entities like Points of Light, Literacy Foundation, etc. – and then of course
The Presidential Library across the the way here. And those are collectively known as the Bush Center. We like to do things together whenever we can just because there’s a lot of great things we can do over here and share with the rest of campus and the rest of the
Community. We have people here from across the campus, we have students from the Bush School, and faculty members from the Bush School, we have members of other colleges in the university, and we have some community members who joined us here today as well.
– I’d like to introduce two people real quickly up front, the first is Professor Will Brown. Will is the director of our Center for Nonprofits Philanthropy here at the Bush School and our host for the evening. Will would you raise your hand? – Thank you. (audience applauds)
He’s shy tonight but normally he’s incredibly (indistinct) and charming. And then Will’s deputy in the center, one of our professors of practice at the Bush school, a long time public servant, and the nonprofit organization leader, Dr. Kenny Taylor, who I’ll introduce (indistinct) microphone in just a second.
Kenny’s hiding behind one of his creations by the way, because he made all of these, amazing guy. (audience applauds) (indistinct) but I happen to know he also made his jacket. (indistinct) him many, many times. Starting in May of 2020 throughout May of 2021, most of us on this campus and across our country had a lot of really difficult conversations, really critically important conversations. And one of the things we found here at the Bush School is that we started those conversations
From a place where we all agreed to stand as opposed to from a place of our differences, those conversations went much better. And we found that we had a whole lot of common ground between us, no matter how we sounded when we opened our mouths
Or what we looked like when we walked into a room, no matter what our social background or educational background, there was an awful lot of common ground between us and we all cared about the same things. So if we started the conversation with every person, every Aggie, every Bush School student,
Faculty or staff member is deserving of respect. If we start from a position of everybody’s family matters, everybody’s future is important, every child should grow up with the same opportunity to excel based on their efforts, every community should be striving to move forward constantly because we’re in the job of producing
Public servants here who serve all of your fellow citizens. If we started there, the conversations actually were pretty darn good. And one of the great things about black history month is it gives us a chance to do something that’s really, really, really important and that’s to not let those conversations end.
It’s a chance to learn about other cultures, to learn about your own culture in some cases, it’s a chance to share understanding of everything from why things happen to what drives people, what motivates them to succeed. And maybe most importantly, what motivates people and communities to come together
In service across any line you can draw. And that’s what tonight’s about. We have a remarkable speaker who’s demonstrated that his entire life, and we have a great person to introduce them, who I mentioned before, but is just a role model for all of us at the Bush School, Dr. Kay Taylor. – Welcome everyone, thank you so much for being here tonight. Thank you to Dean Welsh, members of our Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee are here. Thank you so much for your contributions in making the event happen tonight. The Bush School’s Office of Diversity and Career Services, and we have representatives from the
TAMU Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. Thank you all so much for being here tonight, for your support of this event. I’ll try to be brief. We’re here to celebrate the black fraternity and sorority contributions to public service. As a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity myself, in just two weeks from today,
I’ll celebrate 30 years in my organization. If I were to be honest, early on, when I pledged in 1992, I couldn’t say that I honestly saw the connection to service. But as we sit here today, it is extremely relevant that it’s easy to see in the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
Who was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. My fraternity brother, Governor Douglas Wilder, the first black governor in the State of Virginia and our Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris, who’s a member of AKA, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Closer to home though it’s obvious
Those of you all in the room that are members of the Divine Nine, would you please just kind of raise your hand real quick for us? Again, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you and all of the contributions that you made to Texas A & M University, the community here in the Brazos Valley, and also anywhere else that you serve as a board member, the volunteer efforts around the school here,
We thank you and salute you for your service to our community here to Aggieland. I won’t speak on the quilts too much, but yes, I am the artist. I learned from my mother. I’m happy to visit with you about the meaning, but basically it’s a representation of my love
For divine nine, my organization, and just how much my organization really means to me. Just real quick, I guess I should say that, you know, in many ways I look at the lessons that I learned back in the day and how that contributed to the person that I am today and where I am today, it was extremely meaningful in my life,
The friendships that I still carry those 30 years ago, even to this day. That said, it’s an honor to have Dr. Walter Kimbrough here as our guest who currently serves as the seventh president of Dillard University over in New Orleans. And before that, as the 12th president of
Philander Smith College in Arkansas, in Little Rock. Three years ago, when we started this event, I said to myself, if there was one person that should really be here, that I hope to have, he’s really the one that is the expert, the scholar about black elite and a whole bunch of other stuff.
So it’s a real honor to have you here. Thank you for traveling in. And as a side note, whenever I said Dr. Walter Kimbrough is gonna be here, I joked with him a little earlier, everybody just said, I love him. (audience laughs) Let’s give a warm welcome to Dr. Walter Kimbrough. (audience applauds)
This is the only place in the world where I get to say what I’m about to say. Hady. – Hady. I learned this years ago, from this campus, I was in the memorial union and people were just walking by me saying, hady. I was like what are they saying? (audience laughs) And it’s not, you can’t say howdy, you gotta say hady. So I’m just excited to be here to practice my hady
For at least a little bit today. So I’m glad to be here. Thank you for the invitation to be here. And like some of y’all said, this is the home of the 12th man, so I know y’all staying all the time too. So. (audience laughs) All right, lemme jump right into the presentation
And talk a little bit about public service and historical black fraternities and sororities. So let’s go back to the advent of African Americans in higher education. There isn’t an agreed upon first in this case. John Chavis, and I just saw a clip of something that Cameron Lewis Gates did talking about Chavis
Being the first, but they’re not really sure if he graduated. But they mentioned him 1799 or so. Other people might mention graduates from 1823, a John (indistinct) Brown from 1826. So we don’t really know, okay? But at sometime in that period of time, you have your first African Americans entering college.
You get your first HBCU 1837 of Chamberlain University of Pennsylvania, okay? This is important because now you start to have a critical mass of African Americans who can really enter higher education. But even the earliest higher education for African Americans HBCUs was really dominated by the leadership and the faculty being whites.
So a lot of institutions like Benedict College in South Carolina, the first X number of presidents, I think, maybe 12 or 13 were white presidents. And so this was something that happened. And so you have those presidents, a lot of focus on the religious training and those kinds of things.
And so a lot of the student out of class activities were related to that. So being involved in YWCA or the early Kirk Franklin (indistinct) you know. Y’all remember (indistinct). (audience laughs) Okay? So the choir, those are things that you could be involved in, Ministerial Union.
So that was really the out class experience really focused a lot on those kind of opportunities. So once you get a critical mass and students are realizing that on some campuses, there’s a creation of secret societies, fraternal organizations, 1776, the founding of Phi Beta Kappa College of William and Mary,
1812 you started to get up the first Kappa Alpha Order which is different from, whereas this Kappa Alpha Society, which is different from the modern day Kappa Alpha Order. And you start to see this growth that then students of color on these campuses said, we can have Greek letter organizations too.
The first attempt was 1903, Alpha Kappa Nu at Indiana University. It lasted for about 14 months and it sort of died out there. Just different conspiracy theories, I have a friend who’s a member of Alpha Kappa Psi said they heard that some of the members got lynched.
‘Cause when you think about Southern Indiana, at that point in time, it was very problematic for African Americans. But this is the place where in 1911, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity was founded. And the name was in reference to the men who started Alpha Kappa Nu in 1903.
But once again, very short lived organization. 1904 in Philadelphia, you had college graduates that created a fraternal organization, ’cause they had seen them on campuses and they created something known as Sigma Pi Phi, also known as the boule, The boule still exists today, made up a prominent men in different communities,
College graduates, a number of members of black (indistinct) organizations as well, but founded in 1904, they actually had two undergraduates that they admitted early on. Both of them died, I don’t know how or anything. And after that they didn’t do anymore undergraduates part of their organization, but it still exists today. Okay?
So it’s known as a the Boule Sigma Pi Phi. And even you can sort of see, this is in Washington, DC, these are members of the boule and they include Ernest E Just, who was one of the founders, who was a professor at a university, one of the founders of Omega Psi Phi.
And now he’s on the second, second row up on the end is Carter G. Woodson, Black History Month, Negro History Week, also a member of Omega Psi Phi but also apart of the boule as well, okay? So we don’t really get into the black internal experience in earnest until 1906 at Cornell University
With Alpha Phi Alpha. And between 1906 and 1922, you get eight of these organizations. They had a founder for years so they’re known as the great eight, they really were the bedrock of the black fraternal movement in the United States. So that sets it up now, you got more students involved.
It’s bigger than just the religious organizations. They can do different things, but it’s still a lot of gender specific activity. So ladies if you were at school, black college in the early 1920s, the homemaking, dressmaking department, those would be the kind of activities that were really for you.
A lot of the men were still involved in the sports activities as well. But you start to see some other opportunities in terms of literary societies, performing, dramatic societies are also other ways that people got involved, but this is still fledgling now going into the 1920s and people are hearing more about these
Fraternities and sororities that they want to be a part of. And so they start to expand and this is from Tuskegee University. And use of the same names, when we think about IFC, Interfraternity Council today, we think about, you know, predominantly white men’s fraternities for the most part,
But people use the same language at that point in time. Okay? But there was a very different mindset in terms of what it meant to be in these organizations and a responsibility. This is from the yearbook of Johnson C. Smith in Charlotte, North Carolina.
And I want you to see how one of the members of Kappa Alpha Psi talked about what the fraternity was about, okay? No fraternity group can achieve its purpose unless his members measure up to the ideals of the organization. Scholarship should be the first measure of the candidate. Scholarship, okay?
It started with that. And aligned with this, the members should be expected to live up to certain social standards that would be in keeping with the ideals and standards. So you hear about ideals, standards. Your chapter should be a measure of your fraternity. So these ideas were set early on
In terms of what these groups would be about. And in fact, in 1977, (indistinct) did a dissertation and it was for all kinds of fraternities. He went through and looked at rituals and the manuals and he said, they’re basically these five ritualistic concepts that make up Greek life.
And I argue today with people, I think that you’ll find these today in all groups. So if you think about their rituals and (indistinct) remember, as you think about rituals and all your hymns and all that, you’re gonna hear terms that relate to character. Okay? Scholarship, so say the first Greek letter organization,
Phi beta Kappa, we think today, the epitome of academic excellence. Fellowship, we talk a lot about brotherhood and sisterhood, so that makes a lot. Service, which we’ll get into, okay? (indistinct) to a profession. And yet people don’t think about this, but religion can be a part of it as well too.
My mother’s a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. So that becomes a part of a lot of the conversation within Delta Sigma Theta as one example, okay? So these sort of five pillars of what Greek life should be about. And if you look at just the models of the divine nine groups,
Those concepts just in the model are very much a part of it, okay? It’s very evident as part of these organizations. Okay, so we’re going into the 1940s. Y’all with me? (crowd murmurs) – Okay, all right. 1940s. So there are more and more people are hearing about
These groups and particularly in the south, as HBCUs in the south become accredited, people want to have their own organizations too. So on some campuses like Tuskegee, they just start off and they have social organizations. And some of the names of the social organizations might be a little surprising to you. Oh, okay.
This is at (indistinct), the swastika club. Now a lot of times you hear swastika, we think Nazi Germany, but the German swastika actually rotates the other way. This is also known as the Gammadion cross, Greek letter Gamma, the Gammadion cross or crux Gammata sometimes also referred to as the (indistinct).
So they have a deeper understanding as to what swastika meant in terms of forming their organization, okay? (indistinct) HBCU you know, 1920s, 1930s with that kind of worldview, okay? They didn’t have Google (indistinct). (audience laughs) Okay? But most of ’em, you know, would use traditional trappings of Greek life
And used those Greek letters and they were local fraternities and sororities, okay? So they used the letters. You can start to see the influence, this is at Tuskegee, before they got, you know, fraternities and sororities, Delta Sigma. Y’all know they ain’t just making it up out the blue, okay?
Somebody just like one day they got (indistinct) on the campus (indistinct). So we set it up. My favorite is this one. It doesn’t matter which one, just pick one we want to be in, okay? Just the power of those groups at this time, this is 1940s, if people just saw power (indistinct) say, I want to be part of this, there’s something magical that’s happening.
And I want be a part of one of these groups. And so when they came on those campuses, now in the south of HBCUs in the 1940s, it was a big deal. It was all in the yearbooks and the student newspaper. People were really excited about these groups, okay?
And also during this time, 1930s and ’40s, you can really get a sense as to how much these ideas of service and education were now building up in these groups. Fort Valley State University, this is from the archives of Fort Valley State, part of their student newspaper, 1946.
And I’d like to look at, you know, a lot of groups they have a week of activities, we call ’em a week, okay? The weeks are very different today than they were then because you saw a lot of the focus on educational type programs, okay?
So some of the Greek programs they had that spring of 1946, you know, the life of Carver and talent shows and program for graduating seniors. Delta Sigma Theta has had (indistinct) I think since 1930. As a party, you see the activities for (indistinct) look at the role of fraternities and sororities
In the post world war, okay? So we’re having these conversations so that the members would be educated about the issues, so they’re able to do the service, but they had to know the issues first. So you know 1946, these are college students having these kind of programs.
The undergrad chapter of Beta Psi Phi newly established on the campus, wound up a series of Greek letter programs for the spring season with the presentation of a journey through literature. Okay? It’s what the omegas did during their week at Fort Valley. Phi Beta Sigma, they had educators, Morris Brown College in Atlanta
Cooperation and collective uplands, the president of the college, “How to Rid Ourselves of this Economic Dilemma”, “Negro Business Improvement”, okay? They’re setting the foundation. These are things that we need to know about. Johnson C. Smith around the same time, this is 1927. They talked about Achievement Week.
And remember I talked about George Washington Carver, I mean Carter G Woodson, National Negro Education Week, which is now Black History Month. He was right in line with Omega Psi Phi, mid 1920s, the same kinds of things to understand, even fun stuff. You know, the deltas and the (indistinct)
Celebrated the president’s birthday at Johnson C. Smith (indistinct), okay? So you can understand, you got this organization, people are excited about it. They’re wanting to learn about what are the issues? So now we know about the issues, what do we do with this knowledge that we have?
So the next phase in you start to see activism and programs put in place to address the issues. You can go back to 1922 with Alpha Phi Alpha. Go to high school, go to college, program that we still continue today, okay? It’s very focused so we’re at the 100th anniversary.
I don’t know if we’re doing anything special for the 100th anniversary. I’m standing here thinking about this now. Go to high school, go to college. Very important to have that understanding. This is interesting when you start thinking about the political capital of these groups. This is in 1926, the national president of
(indistinct) of Kappa Alpha Psi, other members are at the White House with Calvin Coolidge in 1926, okay? So this is an organization that’s 15 years old. And I was reading something that there was, you know, debate on Twitter about something that the GOP put out about
You know, great presidents and Coolidge was on there. And people didn’t, Coolidge really shouldn’t have been on there, because I think there were issues just in terms of economy, but Coolidge was very progressive on issues of race. And this is an example of that.
‘Cause it would be a long time before I show you another picture like this, okay? But this is 1926 at the White House. So it’s just one of those, to me to understand, like how did these guys have that kind of political capital as a 15 year old organization in the 1920s
To be at the White House? Okay? That’s a very, very powerful image. So now they’re starting to have these social action programs along with the education. Now the organizations are stepping up, how do we go into the fifties and the sixties and get involved in the activism on the ground addressing the issues?
And you start to see these chapters mobilize, working in the community with boys club, Deltas have a book-mobile distributing books. Those are kinds of things that were happening. But we really started to see the power of these groups with the civil rights movement. So you go to the 1960s, my hometown of Atlanta,
Like all across the south and you have civil rights events that are happening in protest. And there was a lot of organizing on campus. The Atlanta University Center. This is actually from the Morris Brown College yearbook where my dad went to school. And sometimes there was (indistinct) turns up.
Were the members really involved and if they were involved, how visible were they? This young man has the square arms with the three stripes, there’s the dark stripe and the light stripe it’s probably black and gold, ’cause it looks like my dad’s (indistinct). The members of the groups were very involved in
The organizing and the activities as a part of this civil rights movement. And so when you start then to think about it, when you break it down and you start thinking about who led the civil rights movement? They were the members of these groups, okay? Hosea Williams, Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King,
Ralph David Abernathy, Phi Beta Sigma, Omega Psi Phi, Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi. Okay? It’s four of the biggest names of civil rights and they’re all members of these groups. So when you really start looking at people who were involved in the civil rights movement, it’s almost impossible not to mention
Somebody who’s a member of one of these groups. It’s a very powerful legacy of these groups. And when you think about it even today, people being involved in this, this is outside the courthouse when they’re advocating for the family of (indistinct) and had pastors who were there,
I’m gonna come back to Martin King the Third and (indistinct), Jamal Harrison Bryant, pastor of Newark Baptist Church in Atlanta, Kappa Alpha Psi, Ben Crump who Al Sharpton calls black America’s attorney general Omega Psi Phi, okay? Or civil rights leaders that met at the White House
With President Biden, Melanie Campbell, Delta Sigma Theta, former mayor Marc Morial, president of Urban League, Alpha Phi Alpha. In the back with the glasses is Johnnetta Cole, former president of Spelman College, president of the National Council of Negro Women for awhile, she just retied, Delta Sigma Theta.
I’m gonna come back to the other two. And why am I coming back to some? Show you the power of these groups. Because you have people who have long left college who still want to affiliate with these groups and sell membership. Al Sharpton becomes a member of Phi Beta Sigma in 2009.
His civil rights credentials are already, you know, branded by that, but he accepts membership then. Some of the new members for alpha Phi Alpha later on, Joseph Lowery, who founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King in New Orleans, Louisiana, joined Alpha Phi Alpha in his nineties, okay?
Along with Martin King the Third, Reverend C.T. Vivian the Third there. Robert Franklin was president of Morehouse College. The power of these groups. 2019, Sherrilyn Ifill, president NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a member of Delta Sigma Theta. That’s the other difference with these kind of groups that people who are very well established,
They don’t need these credentials, still want to be a part of these organizations, okay? So back to the 1960s, we get our ninth number of the Divine Nine. Alpha Phi Theta, founded at Morgan State University. And these are 12 nontraditional students. Some were veterans, they brought a different kind of flare
To the black fraternal movement coming in the 1960s. The 1960’s also a time you start to see integration with Southern universities. I graduated from the University of Georgia, that was integrated by a court order in 1961 by Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Charlayne Hunter-Gault, a member of Delta Sigma Theta.
Hamilton Holmes, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. Even in integration, the members of these groups were very much a part of that. So sixties, seventies, there’s a lot of growth. The 1980s, when I’m a student in college, now you get popular culture paying attention to black fraternities and sororities.
“School Days”, controversial at the time comes out in 1988, I was a junior in college. Have y’all seen “School Days”? If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it. I had a student when I was at (indistinct) he said that’s a classic, I like the name of classic, raising a son is a classic. But it is though, its a very important film. It’s a very important film. And around the same time then, “A Different World” where you have a lot of students, even on my campus that said I wanted to go to an HBC because of “A Different World”.
It was just one of those cultural events that lasted four or five seasons where you had this fictional HBCU and they had fraternity, sorority life that was prominent as a part of that as well. So now you get a lot of coverage. People are paying attention.
Every magazine there’s an article, in 1983, (indistinct) do another article later talk about sorority growth. People understand they’re like, wait a minute, they’re historically black groups, but they’ve always had a diversity of members and people didn’t know that until the eighties and the nineties. And now you start to see stories
About the diversity within these organizations. Million Man March happens and Louis Farrakhan is partnering with Phi Beta Sigma. You see him as a part of that, that was a big cultural moment, the Million Man March, when that happened in the 1990s. “Steppin’ The Step Show” started to pay attention too,
Because we have the movies and those kind of things. And now, you know, this was right before the Olympics in Atlanta. And so people were talking about it because that was a part of the opening ceremony, if I’m correct. And then Lawrence Ross writes “The Divine Nine”.
So this is the first major book that talks about black fraternity sororities, I think comes out in 1999, okay? So now people are really interested. Who are these organizations? Who are the people that are coming of age, even though now they’re almost 100 years old? And people are paying attention.
And like I said, more popular culture, “Stomp the Yard”, (indistinct) two versions of “Stomp the Yard”. “Drumline” has some fraternal elements as well as a part of that, okay? So it takes us into the centennial era, which is where we are now.
So we’re in a period of time where all of these groups are celebrating 100 years of membership and I was always concerned to say, okay, so what are we gonna do? Because at this period of time, when people think about our groups, they mostly think about stepping and hazing.
My side job is that I’m an expert witness in hazing. So that’s another story in and of itself. But we’re seeing this period of time where there is a lot of attention to the groups because they’re celebrating 100 years. The last of that first eight, what happened this summer, (indistinct)
Will celebrate their 100. So we’re in the middle of this centennial era and I was always thinking like, what are we going to do now? We’re 100 years old. How do we make an impression on the things that are happening? And things started to happen in the country,
Which forced us to say, how do we become relevant? Okay? 2012, Trayvon Martin, two years later, Mike Brown. And so now we’re trying to figure out how do we address these issues? The pandemic happens and then George Floyd, but we start to see now our members
Are starting to pop back up in ways that would’ve been reminiscent of the 1960s. And this was new for us too because we had gotten so out of the habit of being involved in the front lines, there was some debates to say, okay, people are going to jail and getting arrested,
Should people wear their letters, okay? This is a debate. And it was really, some of it was gendered in terms of the conversation because I think it was more pushback in terms of the women saying, should women be arrested wearing letters? I’m always like, yes. (audience laughs) Yes, absolutely.
Yes, wear your letters and be arrested. Because I think that’s to me more authentic to who we are and what we should be about, okay? We’re the same kind of messaging with the fraternities. Like I said, I showed the pictures from the sixties and they’re wearing those elaborate sweaters and out protesting.
So those are part of it. But people are having those conversations and it gave us a new opportunity for people to write different kinds of stories, to link our history to what’s going on right now. And there’s opportunity for us to lean in.
And you start to see more of us now leaning in, wearing letters, protesting, which I think is very powerful to say, yes, we’re out there. We’re not separate from what’s going on in our communities. But some people say, you know, these are the bourgeoisie, they don’t really care about what’s happening
With the little folks in the streets. We were out there in the streets and you saw a lot of that going on. And so we started to create new programs in to address some of the issues. Alpha Phi Beta created a program to really try to address
Some of the police challenges that were going on. So they created new programs as a part of that. And so when you think about it today and it hadn’t been for a number of years, when you start thinking about the legislative process and of course John Lewis was a major civil rights hero.
Our members are very involved in that historically, okay? So you start thinking about members of Congress. A lot of the black men who are members of Congress are members of these groups, okay? Marcia Fudge, who is now over at HUD, past national president of Delta Sigma Theta.
But when she was a member of Congress, you can see the number of members of Delta Sigma Theta are members of Congress. One of ’em might be a Senator from Florida, depending on what happens with (indistinct), okay? And so these are activities then that have been increasing the last few years.
You know, these days on Capitol Hill, days at the (indistinct) in different states, I was at a Delta Days in Louisiana at Louisiana State Capitol. And there was so many deltas, you couldn’t even move around. I’m like, I’m ’bout to go. I’m going home, there’s too many of y’all, okay? But everybody else is gonna have to reckon with that was the kind of action that we’re seeing, okay? You see all of these women being involved in the legislative processes a part of how we think about how to actualize these groups.
And this becomes part of the narrative when you hear a lot of the news, particularly for black women and the power that black women are having as a part of the election process, people are taking note of this. So when Loretta Lynch, a member of Delta Sigma Theta
Is going up for attorney general, you got all these deltas out there looking at folks like don’t do (indistinct). (audience laughs) Okay? They’re flexing their political muscle, their voting power in new kind of ways. And so once again, 1926, you got members of Kappa Alpha Psi with Calvin Coolidge,
You don’t see many pictures like that. I can’t find one like that until Barack Obama with members of Delta Sigma Theta. At the time, Cynthia Butler-McIntyre was the national president. I mention her now because she’s my friend and she’s a graduate of Dillard University,
So I have to give her an extra shout out since she’s one of my alums. (audience laughs) But you see next to her is Gwen Boyd, who was another past president of Delta Sigma Theta and then two down, Alexis Herman, former secretary with the Clinton Administration
And then on this side, you can see Marcia Fudge again, who was in congress but now HUD. We saw we’re silent for a while, but now we’re back, literally at the seat of power. Members of our organizations having these kind of conversations and then the game changed again to a whole nother level.
‘Cause now you get one of the members that is nominated to be the Vice President of the United States. And I’m married to an AKA. Man, it’s been insufferable. Living with an AKA and the president, the vice president is a member. It was like, when they had inauguration, I think I heard (indistinct) everywhere other than just like it was in my head like (audience laughs) do I hear it right now? It’s just, okay? (audience laughs)
But the news paid attention to this too, okay? In terms of the power of black fraternities and sororities, particularly sororities and people are mentioning the divine nine in a lot of different articles now about these groups. So here we are again, this is very recent. Vice president with the presidents
Of all divine nine organizations. All nine with the vice president of the United States, who is also a member of one of the (indistinct). It’s the opportunity for these groups in terms of public service and making things happen, has never been higher. The level of visibility has never been higher.
So these are exciting kinds of conversations. Glenda Glover is the national president of Alpha Kappa Alpha, she’s also president of Tennessee State. We’ll talk about her in a minute ’cause I had to get some additional information for this presentation, so I just texted her, so I’ma tell y’all what she told me.
(audience laughs) Okay? So this is very powerful imagery that now people are seeing in these groups, okay? The political influence of black sororities. It’s not just the power of black women in the political process, but now even black sororities, okay? And so while there’s still a lot of focus on, you know,
I talk about, you know, hazing and stepping and strolling, we’ve even taken that to a different level because someone got an idea in my hometown of Atlanta and they said, we going do stroll to the polls. We gonna galvanize folks to go vote, okay? And so this image becomes fire
And people are trying to figure out and you know the historical legacy of souls to the polls, you get outta church and you go vote. But now these black fraternities and sororities saying, we going to stroll to the polls and get people interested that way, okay? So this Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
They’re strolling to the polls. Dallas, Texas, the guys try to get (indistinct). Okay? But everybody’s getting in on this, a new way to think about strolling, I like this a lot, okay? And so now you have these trusted partners in a very difficult age that are finding different ways to serve, okay? We are still in this pandemic era.
So now you need these trusted partners to help get people to get vaccinated, to get tested. So you saw lots of partnerships like this all across the country. Some from South Carolina, all across the country, people are trying to figure out how do we partner with these groups? Montgomery, Alabama.
These are big events that we do, okay? Still historic programs in terms of providing scholarship money. That’s very important, something that we do. Iota Phi Theta, where they were founded, started an endowed scholarship at Morgan State University. But the AKAs killing everybody with this, Because the National President is an HBCU president. And so her target number one is about HBCUs. And she like, we just gonna raise an insane amount of money every year and give it to HBCUs. And the first year she did it, they did $1.6 million. She’s only president for four years.
So I texted her like Dr. Glover, what’s the total right now? They’re about 103 HBCUs. They have given money to 96 of them, anywhere from 50 to $100,000. That means a historical black sorority has given over $5 million to HBCUs in the last four years.
AKA has a permanent seat on the UNC Board of Directors. ‘Cause they always give UNC a check that has 100, $200,000. I always tell everybody if we ran for president, Alpha Phi Alpha, if you don’t have nothing like that, I ain’t voting for you. Because they killing it right now. That’s what we supposed to be doing. So I mean, I’m just a big fan of the work that they’re doing. I need to find some AKA, we need to change our bylaws. I need her to stay four more years. Because I like getting money from the AKA, okay? But this legacy of service now is at a different level, different level of visibility of something that we can really be excited about. So traditional programs, they still exist, working in communities, grassroots, but the political and social activism for these groups now
Is at a different level as well. And it’s something that I really get excited about that we can have these kinds of conversations about these groups from a historical point to see where they are now and the kinds of opportunities that they’re providing in their communities.
So with that, I’ll take a few questions. Anybody? Y’all don’t gotta be shy. ‘Cause I’ma turn it back over, okay, yes. – [Female] Howdy, my name is Chantaye Harris, I serve as the (indistinct) for fraternity and sorority life here at Texas A & M. And I have the pleasure of having some of my advisors here, as well as some of my outstanding students.
My question for you as (indistinct) students, especially coming out of a pandemic where they may have had significant impact to their ability to build their membership and do programs the way they would like to do them? – Yeah, that’s a good question. I think there’s gonna have to be some focus on
How are we building membership? Because there is great interest. I think the interest has not gone down, it’s probably increased some. So I think the interest is at a good level. It’s now making sure that we are telling more of this story and not the social stuff and get people to really join
And say, I’m really joining to be a part of a group that’s trying to address some really important issues right now. Because I think there is a space, particularly legislatively, there is a space for black (indistinct) organizations to play right now. I mean, we are in the state of Texas where
The demographics that shifted over the last 10 years are not reflected in how the map is gonna be drawn. People should be screaming bloody murder about that. That’s a good fight. It’s like how can you have fewer seats reflecting of African Americans in that population group? The Latino population has really grown
And the number of seats didn’t increase proportionately. So how do we get engaged? So I think there’s some really important issues that these groups should lean into. I think that there is a (indistinct) of students who are coming to college now that are more aware of these issues
Because they’ve been impacted not just by the pandemic, but you know, having to be stuck at home and watching everything that happened with George Floyd. My daughter’s 15 and they had a protest in New Orleans that summer and she like, I gotta go.
My son is 13, so that means it was two years ago. So 13 and 11, he was a little afraid because he’s thinking uh oh, if something bad happened, then they gonna get me and dad, okay? So we were telling him like, (indistinct) it’s okay.
We all gonna go, all four of us are gonna go to this. But she had a sign and she wanted to be out there. So there is a generation of students who were coming to colleges with a different level of social mind. They want the fraternity sorority, the fun stuff too.
But I think we’re at a point where we can get people who have a little bit more civic consciousness to join and give them a space to be engaged. And I think that would be attractive to a lot of people. And I think we need to lean into some of that.
So I think it’s an opportunity. Because I think there’s a lot of work that has to be done. And the last few years is sort of given us, you know, shown a way for us to be involved and people have looked for us to lead, even on the college campus.
Because there’s still a lot of opportunities. There’s a lot of issues happening in higher education that our groups should be involved in, okay? I mean, once again, Texas is a great ground for a lot of this stuff. Can’t teach critical race theory, like no one is anyway,
But sure let people go run the ball on the football field. I mean, what if somebody got to all the athletes here and said, no, you do that, we leave. I promise you it would work. Because it happened at University of Missouri in 2015, when the black students felt like they weren’t being treated fairly and the football team,
And I’m a hardcore SCC guy, I live in Georgia. Missouri, not even belong in the SCC and they weren’t even a good football team. (audience laughs) And they threatened not to play. And they got the president of the system fired and the chancellor at University of Missouri.
You tell me those black players aren’t out on that field for Texas A & M, things gonna change. You pass those balls and you see what happen. They’ll shut it down. Who’s gonna organize that? Who’s gonna have the spirit of those civil rights people I showed you on that (indistinct) and do something?
It’s an opportunity, it’s an opportunity. That’s a good question. I think I’ma need an escort to get up out this stage, Sneak out, (indistinct) come for me. (audience laughs) Anybody else? I’ve be around for a while too, ’cause you know, it’s always somebody like after like, (indistinct). I need to ask you a question, yes ma’am. – Hi, my name is Daisy Green. I’m the director of (indistinct) chapter. What recommendations or tips do you have for getting other counselors to respect our causes, understand our organizations more and kind of respect us as more than just being their piece of diversity
That need to get their things going? – Yeah, no, that’s been an issue a lot of times, particularly when I started my career as coordinator of Greek life (indistinct). So I know that world well. And a lot of times when people say we’re gonna have Greek Week and y’all come and it’s playing
And you just sort of pop in and teach them how to stroll. Y’all gotta say no to that. It’s like, no, let’s have a serious conversation on something that’s going on. Let’s work on a certain project and demand those kinds of things happen. If they don’t want do that, then that’s cool.
It’s like, y’all aren’t going to do that, ain’t no hard feelings. But these are the kinds of things that are important to us that we want to be engaged in. And it’s not, I always feel like people shouldn’t do the strolling in the first place. It’s like, let’s deal with something substantive.
What can we deal with substantive to have those kind of conversations? But you have to dictate that and you just have to say, no, we’re not here to perform. No, we want do something substantive. So I think you said and like I said, that’s not what people want to do, that’s fine.
There’s no hard feelings, you just like, we really want to deal with some issues. There are issues that we could be dealing with on this campus and have conversations that makes this campus a better place. And so we want to have those kind of conversations. I mean, people should be having,
Somebody should be having conversation with your now world famous basketball coach. You know what I’m saying? I mean, she world famous. If I was younger and single, But those are kind of, why is there so much judgment about what this woman is wearing? What does that mean? Who’s all involved? You know, you even had it within a community. I’m sure there are black women who look at her a certain way. Like respectability politics. And how does respectability politics limit
What people are able to do? There are a lot of complex conversations that could be had about that to sort of figure out how does that impact you as a black woman and what you want to do? And what those experience is like, what does she learn from that?
What can other women learn from her? What can men learn from her in terms of that? Those are the kind of conversations I think you can have. Those, I think, you gotta dig into those opportunities. So yeah, it’s like we not doing performative stuff. That stuff is tiring.
It was tiring when I was working Greek life in the nineties. Don’t do that anymore. It’s just like, look, we wanna deal with some real issues that are happening and we not just gonna come and show up and teach everybody how a stroll and everybody like we got a great Greek Week.
‘Cause y’all came to stroll. Y’all been here before. Okay? – Thank you. – All right, you’re welcome. All right. – One more? – Yeah, okay. – [Male] Oh it’s been in the news recently about bomb threats at HBCU’s. Wondering if you’ve ever personally experienced anything like that or conversations that you had
With other institutions who are going through that currently and making some historical (indistinct)? – Yeah, this has been crazy. I’ve actually done a number of panels and Dillard has not had a threat. There have been threats historically, even for Dillard going back to, you know, Straight University,
Which is one of our predecessor institutions. One of the main buildings got burned down when it was first built. So it’s, I mean, that’s just a part of the terror that has existed with these organizations. I always tell people the goal of this is not to
Actually bomb something because people who bomb stuff, they just go bomb stuff. They don’t do all these elaborate threats, they just start bombing. The goal is to disrupt. And that has been the plan so I think people have been unnerved by it.
And I think I’m hearing a lot from my colleagues that say, this is just what we gotta deal with. You gotta understand that, you know, everybody, I say, everybody thought the civil rights movement ended in the sixties has lost their mind. This is a reminder, it ain’t over.
It ain’t over, you get a different kind of backlash now. So how do we deal with that? Actually, I got an email the other day. There’s another call with the FBI I think tomorrow at like one or two, that I’ll listen in on.
And I think really they’re gonna have to make some arrests and make them visible so people be like, all right, stop playing. You know, we just haven’t had that so people are still, you know, there was some last week. It’s no rhyme or reason.
So I don’t know I think people are dealing with it the best they can. There have been a lot of support from the president’s administration, FBI, Homeland Security. I’ve been on a couple calls with them already. So they’re providing support, but it’s just,
I know it’s just disruptive for people where they just say, all right, everybody just go online today and then we’ll come back tomorrow. It’s, you know, the goal is to be disruptive. So there needs to be some high profile arrests and then people realize like they can catch you
’cause they’re basically just using the technology to offer these threats. And there has been in all of the threats there has been no evidence of anything that’s tangible to show that they’ve even had a plan, let alone a device. So it’s all just calling in, hey, there’s a bomb on your campus.
I’m gonna come shoot up everybody, this on that level. And so there’s been nothing substantive, but that’s not their goal, their goal is just to be disruptive. So it’s been interesting. So I mean, even for those of us who haven’t, you know, we had to look at, have a meeting,
Look at our protocols (indistinct) the campus. If we get a threat, this is what we’re gonna do. So I mean, our students are still thinking about it. ‘Cause we’ve had a school Xavier across town from us, they’ve gotten two or three. So it’s like our students are paying attention.
‘Cause it’s like, well that could be us. We don’t, you know, and at Southern up the road, they had one too. So it’s unnerving if it’s not you, it’s unnerving. But yeah, I think people still are in good spirits. You know, like I said, they gotta arrest somebody at some point
Because if you don’t, people feel like I can just use the technology and hide. There’s no way for them to stop. They need to know that they can be caught even using the sophisticated technology that they’re using to hide. – Thank you. – Okay. All right, y’all I appreciate y’all being here.
I always enjoy being on this campus with so much tradition and culture. So I’m glad to have been here with y’all tonight. Hope you got some different perspectives about black fraternities, sororities, particularly in the aspect of public service and social justice. Thank you. – Thank you so much, Dr. Kimbrough for that presentation. I can’t think of a more appropriate venue to talk about legacy of service than the Bush School of Public Service. First of all, it’s good to see everyone back here face to face. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to do this
And just look at these beautiful quilts. Aren’t they just amazing? And I think everybody knows where they came from, right? Everybody knows where they came from. Kenny, you’re just such an artist, such an artist. But you know, if I could just make one comment, you know, every time I see a quilt,
I think about a story that I always tell in all of my presentations, where is it? On the last slide that I show is a picture of a quilt. And I tell everyone in the audience that my grandmother lived to be 106 years old, growing up in Alexandria, Louisiana,
Right up the road from New Orleans. And I remember as a little kid seeing my grandmother pull out this, I guess it was a pillowcase and she’d sit down in a rocking chair and she’d sit there and she’d rock and she’d sing hymns and everything. And she reached down into this little pillowcase
And pulled out a rag. That rag may have been on an old t-shirt, an old sweatshirt or old pair of pants, whatever. It may have been round, it may have been square. It might have been rectangle or whatever. And she had picked that rag up
And she’d sit in her rocking chair and she’d sing and she’d start sewing. And I tell everyone that as a kid growing up, to me that was a pillowcase full of rags. But to her, every little piece that she touched, every little piece that she sewed together was precious. It’s almost as that,
She had to have that odd little piece of a rag. And she would sit there and as I said, she would sing hymns. But six, seven months down the road, all those rags became this beautiful quilt, like the ones that we see here. You know, all these started with small pieces of cloth.
And I tell everyone in my presentations that you and I are just like those small pieces of cloth. We’re different. If you look around, we’re very different. But just like those pieces of cloth, each one of us is precious. And when we all get together, when we all work together,
Just like those pieces of cloth, we’ll become something beautiful. So whenever you see all of these beautiful quilts around this room, don’t ever forget that. Because guys, that’s what diversity is. That’s what diversity is. Diversity is beautiful. Thank you so much.
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