#5
VOL. 1, NO. 5 - APRIL 21, 1999
"Finding the Good and Praising It!"
Frederick Douglass: He was the True Spirit of the Fraternity.
By Skip Mason
"Douglass, we are here. Here to take up the task where you left off."
Brother Simeon S. Booker, General President 1921
When Brother A. Wayman Ward wrote the fraternal prayer and began
with the words "May the true spirit of the fraternity...," he must have had the spirit
of Frederick Douglas in mind. For no one in the 19th century embodied what
Alpha Phi Alpha would come to stand for. When the 14th Annual Convention
in 1921 decided to induct posthumously into Omega Chapter the Honorable
Frederick Douglass, it treaded ground that had not been done before by
any organization. No one had ever inducted a deceased person into its organization
(and as far as this writer knows, no one has since). But if it was
to be done (and it was), certainly the Alpha's would be the first
to do it. Brother Carl Murphy, publisher of the Baltimore African-American
made the motion for that action in conjunction with a pilgrimage to the
home of Douglass in Anacostia. In addition, the Fraternity would present
a check for $100.00 to the Frederick Douglass Historical and Memorial Society.
Wesley cites in the History of Alpha Phi Alpha that the Fraternity had
been accused of "robbing the grave for Fraternity membership." Several
newspapers published articles which echoed that same sentiment. Wesley
gives sound reasons as to why the criticism was not justified. Permit me
to add several more documented facts that are not included in the history
book. By some divine foresight, Douglass had chosen the name Alpha for
several business concerns that he was involved with in 1892 namely the
Alpha Life Insurance Company and Alpha Bank which he co founded to promote
black business just three years before his death in the Anacostia area.
(A photo of Douglass and the board of directors appears in the book "Talented
Tenth").
Douglass's second wife Helen Pitts, a white female suffragette had established
a radical feminist newspaper called the Alpha as early as the 1860s. Finally,
in the spirit of Douglass, Ida Wells Barnett, led members of an organization
black activist called the Alpha Suffrage Club in 1916 to protest a myriad of
issues. Certainly these are all circumstantial and may not have a direct meaning
to Douglass's induction, but nonetheless, they are significant facts in understanding
the relationship of God's divine nature of circumstances. Everything is relevant is
life. People, places, situations, events that we experience in and through our lives
all happen for a reason. Douglass understood the relevance of what would happen before
Alpha Phi Alpha was born when he prophetically uttered:
"I have wanted evidence of greatness, under a colored skin to meet and beat back the
charge of natural, original and permanent inferiority of the colored races of men."
Douglass traveled to Egypt in February of 1887. Upon arriving, he said "I do not know of what color and features the ancient Egyptians were,
but the great mass of the people I have seen would be in America
be classed with mulattos and Negroes."
He recalled that 40 years earlier, he had found in a book Natural History
of Man, the picture of a pharaoh that reminded him of his "handsome, lost
mother" and now in Egypt he had a chance to see the Pharaohs people for
himself." Douglass said, "It has been the fashion of American writers to deny that the Egyptians
were Negroes and claim that they are the same race as themselves. This
has, I have no doubt, been largely due to a wish to deprive the Negro of
the moral support of Ancient Greatness and to appropriate the same to the
white race."
From Egypt, Douglass traveled to Greece visiting Athens, the Acropolis
and the great Parthenon. It can be concluded that Frederick Douglass took
the physical journey to the roots of Alpha some nineteen years before the
fraternity was founded. Eleven years after his death that spiritual
presence revisited Callis and those six men on the "hill" at Cornell
and inspired them to forge ahead with this experiment in brotherhood.
Frederick Douglass was very close to the assistant to the Library of
Congress Daniel Alexander Payne Murray, the father of Jewel Nathaniel Allison
Murray, who began working at the Library in the 1880s. Letters of exchange
between the two are in the archives of the Library of Congress and the
University of Minnesota Archives.
Perhaps the most significant connection between Douglass and a
"Jewel" lies within the family line of Jewel Henry Arthur Callis whose
mother Josephine Sprague was the brother of Nathan Sprague, the husband
of Rosetta Douglass, the only daughter of Frederick Douglass and his wife
Anna Murray Douglass.(no relation to Jewel Murray's family). Callis
cites that as a teenager growing up in Binghamton and Ithaca that Frederick
Douglass was his "refuge and through him he felt "a new hope was
being born." Callis had studied the writings of Frederick Dougass regarding
slavery. When Douglass died in 1895, Callis was despondent over this loss.
He later recounted in a speech that Douglass in 1848 was the only man who
possessed the courage to stand on the platform of the first Women's Suffrage
convention. He was the first! He named his bank and insurance because
they represented the first in that area for his people. He traveled
to Egypt to learn more about his race. Why then shouldn't he t be
inducted into the nation's first fraternity for college trained men of
African-American descent.
Ironically at the 14th convention in Baltimore when the decision was
made to induct Douglass, Callis was not present. Jewels Murray, Kelley
and Ogle were. Callis was interning in St. Louis, Missouri during the winter
of 1921 and was unable to attend. It is this writers opinion that it was
divine that he was not there and was made of aware of it later much to
his delight. His work had already been done. For the seed of Frederick
Douglass had already been planted in the spirit of the fraternity in 1906.
Often we must plant seeds and allow others to cultivate the harvest.
In this case, it happened in Baltimore on that cold day on December 28,
1921, when Frederick Augustus Bailey Douglass was made an Alpha man. The
brothers of Alpha knew that "true spirit of the fraternity ruled his heart,
guided his thoughts and controlled his life. After all, history has proven
that Frederick Douglass was indeed a "Servant of All."
Recommended readings:
Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., 1881
My Bondage and My Freedom
New York and Auburn: NY Miller, 1855
Frederick Douglass
by William S. McFeely
The Anacostia Story 1608-1930
by Louise Hutchinson
His papers are located at the Library of Congress
"Hundreds of Negroes are still skeptical of Black Genius."
Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray, 1936
A BROTHER WANTS TO KNOW:
What happened to the first attempt to establish a graduate chapter in New York?
Answer: Jewel George Biddle Kelley organized the Alpha Alumni
Chapter as one chapter that all alumni brothers would become members of.
He sent correspondence out to each chapter soliciting names of Alumni members.
However, by 1912, Alpha Lambda in Louisville, Kentucky had been organized.
The members of the chapter proposed to the convention what the name of
the graduate chapter should be called. Following discussion, the distinction
between alumni chapter and graduate chapter was clarified with the honors
going to Alpha Lambda in Louisville. It made more sense to follow the
organizational patterns of the undergraduate chapters and organize chapters
in each city. Why it took 15 years to reorganize the graduate chapter
in New York is unknown at this time? (Still seeking and searching)