The Legacy of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
The most remarkable leadership in the African American community in the 20th century (and beyond) has without question come from the ranks of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Since its founding on an ICE COLD Tuesday, December 4, 1906, the Fraternity has supplied voice and vision to the struggle of African Americans and people of color around the world.
Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity in the United States established for men of African descent, was founded at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York by seven college men who recognized the need for a stro ng bond of Brotherhood between African Americans. The visionary founders, known as the Jewels of the Fraternity, are: Henry Arthur Callis, Charles Henry Chapman, Eugene Kinckle Jones, George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Robert Harold Ogle and Vertner Woodson Tandy.
WHO ARE THE JEWELS OF ALPHA PHI ALPHA
On December 4, 1906, it had been decided that the organization known as the Social Study Club during 1905-06, and also as the Alpha Phi Alpha Society since October 23, 1906, should be a fraternity. Two of the original club members, Mr. C. C. Poindexter and Mr. Thompkins, had resigned from the organization on learning that the decision had been made to organize a fraternity, and another Mr. Morgan T. Phillips, who had been active during the previous year, had not returned to school.
Considerable discussion had developed over the names of the Founders of the Fraternity. There has grown up the desire on the part of the friends or relatives to secure honor and place for those who were nearest to them, because of some evidence that the persons were associated with the organization in its incipiency.
The Founders of the Fraternity can be only those persons who initiated the fraternal idea and remained steadfast to their design even in the days of struggle and conflict.
Others may have initiated and encouraged the group meetings and provided by foresight for their continuance, but this cannot obtain for any individual a place as a Founder of the Fraternity. It would rather imply that such persons were founders of the group meetings and served to strengthen the interest of the Fraternity in them as forerunners of the Fraternity.
Among this group, the name of Mr. C. C. Poindexter deserves special mention. He may be regarded as the precursor of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Without his serious and eager leadership, it is probable that the fraternal organization would have advanced more slowly. He was the moving spirit in the literary organization, which served as the predecessor of the Fraternity. He acted as the President of the group and continued in office during the formation of the early policies and also through the first initiation in the Alpha Phi Alpha Society. But when it became clear to him that his influence was waning, and that it was the purpose of the group to establish a fraternity, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, he absented himself from the meeting in which the decision was to be made and later sent in his resignation. The same attitude is representative of Mr. Thompkins. One can only express admiration for these men who were loyal to their personal convictions, whatever the effects of this action were upon the organization of a fraternity. They may not be placed among the “Jewels of the Fraternity,” but their direct influence upon the origin of the Fraternity should not be forgotten whenever Alpha Phi Alpha thinks of its history.
The original seven include those men who were members of both organizations, the Social Study Club, 1905-06, and the Fraternity, 1906-07, who had remained steadfast to the ideal of a Greek-letter Fraternity during the months of uncertainty through which the club was passing, who did not waiver in their efforts to bring about the realization of their vision, and who dared to be pioneers in an untried field of Negro student life. These seven men, the “Jewels” of the Fraternity are:
It appears that the seventh place among the Jewels (Eugene Kinckle Jones) was in dispute for some time. Mr. C. C. Poindexter was suggested for the place, but as noted, he was not in favor of the fraternal plan. Mr. Phillips was also suggested, but was not in school during the period of the organization. Mr. Morton, while not so active in leadership, was associated with the other Founders in the several meetings during 1905-06 but he did not permanently affiliate with the group until the autumn of 1906. However, as a result of his historical evidence available and the agreement reached by the three of the Jewel-Founders, Brother Eugene Kinckle Jones was given a place as one of the Original Seven.
The results of the efforts of these pioneers are noted today in the extensive General Organization known as Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. They had no encouragement from members who were eager to recognize them as “brothers,” but on the contrary, they were misunderstood and discounted by their fellow schoolmates who opposed fraternities as a whole, and were not able to see at this early period in Negro collegiate education, any worthy place for a secret Greek letter fraternity. However, the seven, through patience, sacrifice, and brotherly love, continued their project in the regular meetings of 1905-07, during which the reports of committees, individual plans and suggestions, were consolidated into the permanent features of the present organization known as the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.
The Fraternity initially served as a study and support group for minority students who faced racial prejudice-educationally and socially- at Cornell. During those beginning days, the Jewel founders and early leaders of the Fraternity worked to lay a solid foundation for Alpha Phi Alpha’s principles of scholarship, fellowship, good character and the uplifting of humanity.
The certificate of incorporation for the organization was filed and recorded in the office of the Secretary of the State of New York as Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. on January 29, 1908. The Fraternity was again incorporated on April 3, 1912, under the laws of the District of Columbia. The purpose and object of the Fraternity was declared to be ” educational and for the mutual uplift of its members.”
The constitution, adopted on December 14, 1907, provided that following the establishment of the fourth chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, the general organization of the Fraternity would be set up.
Soon after the founding at Cornell, Alpha Phi Alpha chapters were developed at other colleges and universities-many of them traditionally black schools. On December 28, 1908, the Fraternity’s first general convention assembled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The convention expressed the hope that ” the influence of Alpha Phi Alpha would reach every (African American) college and university in the land, to bring together under one band and with one bond of fraternal love, all the worthy leading college men wherever found, to form, as it were, a link to join them together. ”
The first general convention and subsequent conventions have continuously exhorted chapters and members to remember that “manly deeds, scholarship and love for all mankind ” are the aims of the Fraternity.
The Fraternity’s national programs date back to 1919, when Alpha Phi Alpha introduced its “Go-to-High School, Go-to-College” campaign to increase the education level of the African American community. Alpha Phi Alpha later took the lead in the voting rights struggle for African Americans and coined the nationally famous phrase: “A Voteless People is a Hopeless People” as part of its effort to register black voters. The slogan remains the battle cry today for Alpha voter registration efforts.
The Fraternity has established an Alpha Phi Alpha Archives at Howard University in Washington, D.C. so the history of the organization-which parallels the success of African-Americans-will be preserved. As African-Americans and underprivileged peoples around the world continue to struggle for their God-given rights of freedom, justice, equality and human dignity, the Fraternity continues to stand at the forefront of efforts to win those rights. Alpha Phi Alpha today continues the leadership the Fraternity has demonstrated since 1906.
The Fraternity’s leadership development and community service training for young men has made Alpha Phi Alpha the most prestigious organization of its kind today. Our commitment is to producing the future’s echelon through education, service, and commitment.
Education and scholarship remain major focuses for Alpha Phi Alpha today. The College Scholarship Bowl testing the intellect of Brothers was introduced as a feature of recent General Conventions. The Fraternity’s “Go to High School, Go to College” program, first established in 1919, was reintroduced; and a General Presidents’ Scholarship was endowed as part of Alpha Phi Alpha’s Education Foundation.
Today, Alpha Phi Alpha continues its commitment to the African American community through the Fraternity’s Education and Building foundations, which provide scholarships to outstanding students and shelter to underprivileged families. The Fraternity also has dedicated itself to training a new generation of leaders with national mentoring programs and partnerships designed to ensure the success of our children and you.
While continuing to stress academic excellence and pursuit among its members, the Fraternity also recognized the need to help correct the educational, economic, political and social injustices faced by African Americans.
Alpha continues to demonstrate the vision necessary for the next millennium. In addition, the Fraternity continues to serve as a light to the community, standing at the forefront of the African American community’s fight for civil rights and human dignity. From the it’s ranks have come outstanding civil rights leaders such as: W.E.B. DuBois, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Edward Brooke, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Andrew Young, William Gray, Paul Robeson, Julius Chambers, Maynard Jackson and many others.
Also, the Fraternity is involved in a campaign to assist the financially troubled NAACP. In assisting the country’s oldest civil-rights organization, the Fraternity has renewed its long-standing partnership with the NAACP and pledged to donate monies to the group. Alpha Phi Alpha donated more than $30,000.00 to the NAACP during the Fraternity’s 89th Anniversary Convention in Orlando, Florida. In addition, the Fraternity’s chapters are giving financial support to the NAACP by purchasing life memberships. Alpha Phi Alpha similarly aided the NAACP in 1960 when Fraternity Brothers Thurgood Marshall and then General President Judge Myles A. Paige led an effort to restore the freedom-fighting organization to leadership and power. In the early 1980s, Alpha Phi Alpha again supported the NAACP and several other African-American organizations with a $1 million fundraising campaign.
After leaving Cornell University, Henry Arthur Callis became a practicing physician, Howard University Professor of Medicine and prolific contributor to medical journals. Often regarded as the “philosopher of the founders,” and a moving force in the Fraternity’s development, he was the only one of the “Cornell Seven” to become General President. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C., he was a medical consultant to the Veterans Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama. Upon his death in 1974, at age 87, the Fraternity entered a time without any living Jewels. His papers were donated to Howard’s Moorland-Springarn Research Center.
“The chief significance of Alpha Phi Alpha lies in its purpose to stimulate, develop, and cement an intelligent, trained leadership in the unending fight for freedom, equality and fraternity. Our task is endless.” — Jewel Henry Arthur Callis, May 1946
The life of Jewel Henry Arthur Callis has been well documented in the book Henry Arthur Callis: Life and Legacy by Dr. Charles Harris Wesley. This sketch is written to highlight some of the accomplishments of the man dubbed the “Conscience of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.”
Henry Arthur Callis was born on January 14, 1887, in Rochester, NY, to Rev. Henry Jesse Callis and the former Helen Josephine Sprague, who was a second cousin of abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglas.
Rev. Henry Callis was born in 1858 in Matthew County, Virginia to Jesse and Nettie Smith Callis. His father was the keeper of a grist. As a young boy, he fell in with the Union Soldiers and was carried to Yorktown, where he was taught by the Quakers. Rev. Callis attended Hampton Institute but had to leave before finishing his degree. He later returned to Hampton and completed his work in 1879. He later took several courses at Cornell including political economy, Bible history and psychology. He also pursued theological studies at Rochester. He converted to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and was licensed to preach in 1885, two years before his oldest son was born. He was awarded two honorary degrees from Livingston College and Morris Brown College. A staunch Republican, Mason and Odd Fellow, Rev. Callis also served as the Executive Secretary of the National Race Congress. He was an exceptional orator and a well-respected minister. He pastored in Syracuse, New York; Elmira, New York; Elizabeth City, North Carolina; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois and Washington, D.C.
Jewel Henry Arthur Callis had four siblings: Roy N., Alice L., Leon T., and Harold J. Callis. His mother died of injuries sustained in an elevator accident when he was very young. When Mrs. Callis died, Henry was taken to the home of his grandfather in Binghamton, New York where, with the exception of one year, he would spend most of his childhood and youth. (Rev. Callis later remarried taking Nellie Turner of Geneva, New York as his bride.) Callis’s youth was filled with memorable experience. While at Central High School, Jewel Callis recited Booker T. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” speech, which Washington gave at the 1895 Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta. Callis’s peers at Central referred to him as a “second Booker T. Washington,” an honor he called “doubtful.”
“I had heard first hand tales of slavery, the Underground Railroad and the War. I had lived in a former “Station,” I had eaten with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. I had heard the spirituals sung spontaneously after the regular Sunday morning service. I had known well of General Greenleaf of the Louisiana Campaign, which in 1863 complemented Grant’s seizure of Vicksburg. I had seen scars of the lash on the backs of women… lynching, disfranchisement and peonage seared my soul. Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Nat Turner and Toussaint L’Overture were my refuge. And a new hope was being born! W.EB. DuBois had called the Niagara Conference.”
At the age of six years, Jewel Callis had chosen Cornell University as the school of his choice when he had the opportunity to visit the campus, with his aunt and younger brother. Edward Brooks informed Callis of a state scholarship and encouraged him to compete for it. He did and won a partial scholarship to Cornell University, fulfilling a dream.
While he was a student, Jewel Callis worked as a waiter at various fraternity houses and tutored students. In the fall of 1905, because of financial difficulties, he was forced to drop out of school. Roscoe Conklin Giles, one of the first initiates, recalled that he returned because of his indefatigable determination, “Setting an example for faint hearted who gave up the fight without a struggle.” He returned in the fall of 1906 and was Secretary of the Social Study Club. He joined Charles Chapman, Kelley, and Tandy on the Committee of Initiation. Callis along with Eugene Jones helped to rationalize and come up with the appropriate Greek letters for the club. Callis would remark years later that he had trouble with the last letter of the name. He often said that he was not a student of Greek and “wanted that changed in the history book.” In a letter to Brother Wesley on October 14, 1959, Jewel Callis writes:
“I had hoped that minor errors of fact would be suggested by living participants. There now is probably no way of unearthing evidence. All of us were commissioned to seek a temporary name. At the March meeting I returned with ‘Alpha Phi Alpha.’ It was adopted informally. These events occurred at 411 East State Street. During the Spring of 1906, we advertised ourselves in Ithaca as AFA. Under that name we gave a dance in town before the closing of school and the first initiation on October 30, was held under the name Alpha Phi Alpha.”
At the first initiation banquet on October 30, 1906, Jewel Callis spoke on the subject “Courage, Brother.” He would serve on the Topic Committee with Tompkins and Murray to further literary ideas as the decision to be come a fraternity had not yet been resolved. On December 4, Jewel Callis, then Secretary of the club, read the letter of resignation of Charles C. Poindexter. (According to oral sources, Poindexter and Callis would remain friends throughout the years. Though not documented, Poindexter was even believed to have been the godfather of one of or both of Callis’ daughters. One of Poindexter’s grandsons Cyril, resides in New York.) Following the passing of the motion, a committee on new fraternal organization was appointed and Jewel Callis, along with Jewel Charles Henry Chapman, initiates James Morton, Eugene Kinckle Jones and Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray served on this committee.
In the spring of 1907, Jewel Callis ran for President of Alpha chapter against Eugene Kinckle Jones, but lost. At the second initiation banquet “Jewel’ Callis was toastmaster. When discussion ensued on the pin Jewel Callis amended the motion that the pin be worn on the waistcoat on the heart side of the body. He then followed up with another motion that the pin be worn on the left side of the vest or shirt. It was seconded and passed.
Early on with this small chapter, there were of course some signs of disunity and Jewel Callis felt the need to speak out on the “lack of unity” among the fellows. The brothers agreed to his views and imposed a fine of $0.25 upon any brothers who displayed or showed a disunited spirit.
The first two years were full of committee work and Callis once again found himself on the Shingle Committee, the Constitution Committee and Incorporation Committee of which he would serve on the Board of Trustees. He had to rely on his memory with Eugene Kinckle Jones to rewrite the ritual after the original one could not be found.
In 1908, he was elected President of Alpha Chapter. At the first general convention on Howard’s campus, Jewel Callis permitted Brother George Lyle, president of Beta Chapter to open up the first session. Callis opened up the second day and carried out his duties for the rest of the convention. In addition, he was elected Vice President of the General Organization for the year 1909.
As a part of his responsibility, Jewel Callis was delegated to organize Epsilon Chapter at the University of Michigan on April 10, 1909. He also attended the Third Annual Convention in 1910 in Philadelphia as an Alpha Chapter alumnus.
Following his graduation from Cornell, he taught in Wilmington, Delaware. He attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and Rush College, which later merged, with the University of Chicago Medical School where he studied pathology. While a member of Theta Chapter, Jewel Callis was elected the seventh General President of the Fraternity at the December 1914 General Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
Jewel Callis married Myra Colson, a 1915 graduate of Fisk University, who did her graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1928, she received an M.A. degree from the University of Chicago. A former chemistry and physics teacher, she worked with the Department of Records and Research at Tuskegee Institute and was Supervisor of the District of Columbia Employment Services. She published Negro Home Workers in Chicago; was a member of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History; and a sister of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She and Jewel Callis were the parents of two daughters: Jane Callis Evans and Helen Callis Itoh of New York.
Jewel Callis taught medicine at Howard University before opening a private practice in Washington, D.C. He enjoyed a cordial relationship with Mu Lambda Chapter and the fellowship of such luminaries as Rayford Logan, Belford Lawson and others who were members of the chapter. His other memberships were numerous and included the National Urban and the National Medical Association. Jewel Callis also held life memberships in the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and the NAACP.
Throughout the 1920’s, Jewel Callis was very busy with his medical career. His preoccupation with his work and family may have prevented him from responding to the numerous requests from Brother Dr. Charles H. Wesley while he was working on the history of the fraternity. He was slow to respond. Several letters asking for his cooperation in supplying information went unanswered. Finally responding, Jewel Callis told him that in 1922, a flash flood in Chicago destroyed a trunk full of letters, papers, and clippings dating back to 1907, “much of the material relating to Alpha,” he said. Over the years, Brother Wesley would confer with Jewel Callis regarding the content of the book. In one instance, he demanded that a point be changed. Brother Wesley, in a letter to Jewel Callis, reminded him that “History is changed or rewritten only when there is introduction of new evidence and not merely by reference to one’s memory.”
Jewel Callis fired back. In a speech, he opened with the following statement: “Contrary to the published history…” Upon hearing that Callis had openly challenged his work, Wesley felt that implications were raised by questioning the work of history. Throughout the years, Wesley and Jewel Callis would exchange many letters regarding facts in the history book. Wesley always graciously and politely, with the respect due to a founder, would always try to satisfy Jewel Callis, by giving his references full consideration.
It goes without saying that Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. was dearest to his heart. In 1946, while visiting Cornell and attending his fortieth class reunion, Jewel Callis was the guest of Alpha Chapter. He thought of an idea in which he addressed in a letter to General President Belford Lawson and proposed the idea of building an Alpha Shrine at Cornell University. In the letter he cited:
“The very catholicity of Cornell nurtured Alpha Phi Alpha. The fraternity might well establish a Memorial house upon the campus of Cornell, dedicated to Universal Brotherhood. For this purpose, this project should be so administered that any male student at the university might be a resident. Such a monument to the beginning of the Greek letter fraternities and sororities among us would center attention upon problems we continue to face and should stimulate an increase in the number of capable students who attend the university.”
General President Lawson reprinted the letter in the October 1946 edition of The Sphinx and asked brothers to respond to Brother Howard Long, Chairman of the Program Committee or Brother William Benson, Chairman of the Housing Committee with their ideas.
Jewel Callis’s involvement with the fraternity was constant. He made it his business not to miss a General Convention unless he was simply unable to attend. By 1955, the Fraternity began to make plans for the 50th anniversary. Jewel Callis, however seemed displeased at some of the plans forthcoming. He said to Brother Wesley in a letter on March 27, 1955:
“I am not yet out of my depression completely. The chief interest appears to be publicity in red capitals. I fear that we have exchanged the leadership of scholarship for that of big business. My tragedy is that I no longer possess the physical strength, nor the emotional reserve to lead the fight for first principles.”
In that same letter, Jewel Callis commented:
“At Miami I gave you some idea of my vision for the Cornell luncheon program. When I heard in D.C. about the Thursday afternoon session, I became and remain greatly disturbed. I fear mediocrity is seizing Alpha again as it did in the 1920’s. Backslapping at the Cornell luncheon for the first 50 years is out of order. What we need now is vision born of wisdom, for the next half century. Unencumbered citizenship requires unlimited responsibility. In 1905, we had the Niagara Manifesto almost fulfilled in 1955. We require a new sight for 2006.”
In August 1956, Alpha celebrated the fiftieth anniversary in Buffalo, New York. It would be the most endearing to Jewel Callis. He and Jewels George Biddle Kelley and Nathaniel Allison Murray would be the only three founders present at the convention. As plans were being made, Callis wrote another letter to Brother Wesley commenting that he wanted Brother Dr. W.E.B. DuBois to be the speaker at the luncheon. As it turned out, Jewels Callis, Kelley and Murray gave the addresses.
Jewel Callis remarked in his message:
“Our Fiftieth Anniversary celebration loses its significance unless, like Janus, we look both backward and forward. To cover a half-century in a few minutes requires the insight of a genius. In 1906, three thousand lynching’s had occurred in a quarter-century. Disfranchisement was law in one third of the states. Separate but unequal had become an entrenched practice throughout the nation. The Niagara Manifesto, demanding full rights under the constitution for all Americans, was heresy…What are the dangers ahead in the next half century? They are not new. Success and prosperity breed selfishness and indifference. These vices undermine the fire society that spawns them. Eternal vigilance remains still the price of liberty. Freedom for one’s self cannot be divorced from responsibility for one’s fellow. Nor is freedom divisible. There is not one freedom for thought, another for speaking, another for reading, another for association and yet another for travel. As citizens, our obligation is to guard, jealously, complete freedom for all Americans. Only this vigilance will keep America strong and keep us free.”
It was obvious that Jewel Callis had grown weary of the direction the fraternity was headed. In an article in The Sphinx, he commented:
” We are necessary for the advancement of human rights in this decade. Indeed, I am not certain we are prepared for the responsibilities of this period. Our interests have become too narrow. Dances and cocktail parties replace discussion of current problems and active participation in community and regional affairs.”
Jewel Callis was very uncomfortable with the term “Jewel.” On December 23, 1964, in a letter to C. Anderson Davis, Editor of The Sphinx, Callis wrote, “Please do not use ‘Jewel’ in your notice.” Jewel Callis preferred to be called “Founder.” He felt that the word “Founder” was much more descriptive and symbolic. He was also “weary” and afraid of the idea of “reorganization” coming so often in the history of the Fraternity. He often complained about the tampering of the constitution, the ritual, and the reorganization of the Fraternity. Founder Callis wanted to see more emphasis put on the undergraduates and less on organizational machinery.
Jewel Callis died on November 12, 1974 in Washington, D.C., after an extended illness. His body was cremated. A memorial service was held on Saturday, December 4, at Howard University with remarks coming from Past General Presidents Rayford Logan and Belford V. Lawson and then current General President Walter Washington.
“Since its founding in 1906, Alpha Phi Alpha has recognized its responsibilities and has nurtured a leadership to aid the Negro in is struggle toward unfettered American citizenship. Education for intelligent participation in American life has been the tocsin.” — Jewel Henry Arthur Callis
“We live in a period of greater social change than ever before has encompassed one generation. Every Brother should take pride, and feel a corresponding responsibility, in the historic fact that Alpha Phi Alpha is the first Greek letter college fraternity founded with social purpose. Young Brothers seldom fail to catch the vision; let the Brothers who, like the Founders, have reached fifty, keep the vision.”
Charles Henry Chapman entered higher education and eventually became Professor of Agriculture at what is now Florida A&M University. A university funeral was held with considerable Fraternity participation when he became the first Jewel to enter Omega Chapter in 1934. Described as “a Brother beloved in the bonds,” Chapman was a founder of FAMU s Beta Nu Chapter. During the organization stages of Alpha Chapter, he was the first chairman of the Committees on Initiation and Organization.
“We must never lose sight of the fact that we must take part in the development, not only of ourselves but of all humanity…
I want you to understand that there never was or has been or will be, in the minds of the founders, including myself, the thought of any reward or any notice coming to us for this experiment in brotherly cooperation and comradeship, which we initiated and which has developed, not necessarily because of any efforts of ours, into one of the best regarded organizations in the Negro collegiate world.” — Jewel Charles Henry Chapman, 1931
Charles Henry Chapman was born in 1876 in Cayuga County, New York. Of all of the “Jewels,” information on his early life and family background have been the most difficult to obtain. What is known is that his early education was obtained at the Old Howard University Academy in Washington, D.C. In 1905, he entered Cornell University and found himself present at the meeting at 421 North Albany Street.
After leaving Cornell, Jewel Chapman did further study at Howard University, Hampton Institute and Ohio State University. During his years at Cornell University, he was a student of agriculture and owned a small brickyard and cafe. But he found time for Alpha Phi Alpha. Jewel Chapman chaired the first committee on Initiations and was chair of the Committee on Organizations.
As the organization began to take shape, Jewel Chapman worked hard for its success. He was responsible for securing the Odd Fellows Hall in which the initiation would be conducted. He also obtained towels for the initiation and did not request reimbursement. At the first initiation banquet, Jewel Chapman spoke on the subject “loyalty.” He also suggested that a program be prepared for the benefit of the society. At the second initiation banquet, Jewel Chapman’s speech was inadvertently omitted from the program; however, he spoke on the subject “The College Man in Business.” When the decision was made to become a fraternity, a committee on the organization of the new Fraternal Organization was appointed and composed of Chapman and four other Brothers.
Jewel Chapman was known to be very frank in his opinions and stringing in his convictions. However, Chapman was also said to be the mediator of the group. He offered the suggestion that the debate concerning the course of study to be pursued during the year be delayed for two weeks. After discussion, he withdrew his motion. As Wesley stated, “apparently to show that he was not entirely opposed to the literary idea,” Chapman made a motion that a Topic Committee be appointed and the seminar method be followed.
He commuted often to Cleveland, Ohio, where his family lived. His wife was Esther Chapman, who worked as a dietitian in the Cleveland Public School system. His journey to the south began with teaching appointments at Jackson State College in Mississippi and Alabama A & M College. In 1924, Jewel Chapman moved to Tallahassee, Florida where he joined the faculty of Florida A & M College and served as the Head of the Department of Agriculture. He was a lover of animals and instrumental in organizing work in animal husbandry on the college level. Professor Chapman was known to have developed prize dairy herds.
At the Twenty second General Convention in Atlanta, Georgia (December 28-31, 1929), Jewel Chapman was the guest founder and delivered the Founder’s Address at the afternoon session. He also attended several other conventions including the twenty third General Convention in December 1931, which celebrated the 25th Anniversary in Cincinnati, Ohio. At the 1931 Convention in Cincinnati, Jewel Chapman delivered the fraternal address. He remarked about the Fraternity’s purpose:
“I mean by this, that regardless of the many, many purposes each of us may devise as the activating principle in our life and the many goals toward which we may be striving, I can see, nevertheless, that we do have one supreme purpose for our existence as a fraternity, and that is the recognition, as well as the development and thereby the making of better men. You can realize that, Brothers, this can be only accomplished by the raising and elevating the lives of other people. I am led to make this pronouncement because, from time to time, I have listened to the accusation that this group is self-centered, thinking only of its own interests as individuals and as a group.”
A few months following the convention, Chapman helped with the establishment of the Beta Nu Chapter at Florida A & M College in Tallahassee, Florida on April 23, 1932. Certainly the presence of Jewel Chapman added to the sacredness of the initiation and chartering service.
On Sunday, November 17, 1934, following a two-week illness, Jewel Charles Henry Chapman died of nephritis. As Wesley stated in the History of Alpha Phi Alpha “the fraternity was totally unprepared for any breaks in the links of the chain for which more than two decades had kept together the founders of the Fraternity.” Funeral services were held on November 22,1934 in the college s auditorium. Jewels Henry Arthur Callis and Nathaniel Murray, at the request of the General Organization, represented the Fraternity. Brother J. Raymond Henderson, pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, preached the sermon. Flowers were sent by the Fraternity and Brothers present, gathered around the bier and repeated in unison the Lord’s Prayer and sang the Fraternity hymn. He was buried in Tallahassee, Florida.
In reporting Jewel Chapman’s passing at the Chicago Convention, General President Charles Wesley stated, “He has gone from earthly scenes but he is not forgotten by those who carry on in his place. We shall carry in mind his genial temper, his persistent loyal purpose, his unostentatious service to others and we shall endeavor to have these qualities live again in us.”
In a memorial address at the Silver Convention (December 1935) in Nashville, Jewel Callis had this to say about Brother Chapman:
“Were Brother Chapman to give me instructions for this address today, he would say something like this, Tell the Brothers to forget about me and to devote themselves whole heatedly to the tasks that lie ahead of them. Brother Chapman’s passing serves to contrast and yet link these two periods together. He gave the talent in the building of this foundation. As an older student with successful business ventures, he appreciated the need and the opportunity to maintain kinship with those less favorably placed. At Cornell, both colored and white students benefited from his advice and material aid. In the South, he spent his life building up an intelligent appreciation of the fundamental relationship between our progress and the soil. In death, he desired, not that he should he buried in his native state, New York, but that his ashes should mingled with the soil of Florida. Brother Chapman urged us not to accomplish our own salvation, but to bring a truer freedom and a measured security to this great underprivileged group in America, to whom we belong.”
Eugene Kinckle Jones became the first Executive Secretary of the National Urban League and served for many years (1911-1951). His tenure with the Urban League thus far has exceeded those of all his successors in office. A versatile leader, he organized the first three Fraternity chapters that branched out from Cornell Beta at Howard, Gamma at Virginia Union and the original Gamma at the University of Toronto in Canada. In addition to becoming Alpha Chapter s second President and joining with Callis in creating the Fraternity name, Jones was a member of the first Committees on Constitution and Organization and helped write the Fraternity ritual. Jones also has the distinction of being one of the first initiates as well as an original founder. His status as a founder was not finally established until the 38th General Convention in 1952. He died in 1954.
“Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest of Negro Fraternities, with all of its members presumably far above the average American and having a good practical understanding of the factors involved in the Negro’s problem, and which a membership upwards of eight thousand men, should be able to take into their hands the leadership in the Negro’s struggle for status.” — Eugene Kinckle Jones, August 16, 1936
Jewel Eugene Kinckle Jones was born in Richmond, Virginia on July 30, 1884. His parents were outstanding educators. His father Joseph Edom Jones was born of slave parents in Lynchburg, Virginia on October 15, 1850 and spent his childhood in a tobacco factory. He received his early education from a private school taught by R. A. Perkins and James A. Gregory (who later became dean of the college department of Howard University). In 1868, Joseph Jones entered the Richmond Institute (now Richmond Theological Seminary) with plans to prepare himself for the ministry. After three years of study, he left Virginia for Hamilton, New York and entered the preparatory department of Madison University (now Colgate), from which he graduated in 1872. Mr. Jones was then appointed by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York as an instructor at the Richmond Institute where he taught languages and philosophy, later Homiletics and Greek studies. His pursuit of the ministry led to his ordination in 1977. He had been baptized in 1868 and was a member of the Court Street Baptist Church in Lynchburg.
Joseph Jones activity with the Baptist church was very involved. He was a member of the Educational Board of the Virginia Baptist State Convention, Corresponding Secretary of the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, and president of the Virginia Baptist Sunday School Union. He was also editor of several publications including the Baptist Companion and The Companion. Dr. Joseph Jones was a sought after speaker. Several degrees were conferred upon him by his alma mater and by Selma University in Alabama.
On June 22, 1882, Joseph Jones married Miss Rosa Daniel Kinckle also of Lynchburg, Virginia. She was a graduate of the Normal Department of Howard University in 1880, and taught in the public schools for a period of time. A trained musician since childhood, she had a voice of “unusual compass” and could perform the most difficult classical pieces. Mrs. Jones took a course in harmony at the New England Conservatory of Music. She taught music, both vocal and piano, at Hartshorn Memorial College in Richmond. She and her husband were the parents of two sons Joseph, Jr. and Eugene Kinckle.
Jewel Jones attended Wayland Academy from 1899 to 1902 after which he entered Virginia Union University Academy. Jones graduated in 1906 with a BA degree in Sociology. In the fall of 1906, he enrolled at Cornell University College of Civil Engineering, at Ithaca, New York. His first year, he excelled so exceptionally that he was excused from all of the mid year examinations. He decided that engineering was not to be an appropriate course of study and changed to the field of social science with the view of practical social service as his life’s work. In February of 1907, he changed to the Graduate School of the College of Arts of Science selecting Social Science as his major subject and Economics as his minor subject. He was told that it would probably take two years for him to complete the requirements for a Master’s degree. He completed fifty-seven hours of course work and prepared a 172-page thesis in a year and half and received the degree in June, 1908. With the rigors of his academic schedule, he became endeared to this new organization known only as Alpha Phi Alpha Society in the fall of 1906.
Jones had the occasion to meet the members of the Alpha Phi Alpha Society and received an invitation to join Lemuel Graves and Gordon Jones as the first initiates and witness this first display of African-American brotherhood. They were treated to a series of dinner toasts and speeches. Jones became actively involved in the young organization, joining the Committee of the Organization of the new fraternity. He also worked on the Constitution Committee with Brothers Callis, Morton, Murray and Graves.
Brother Roscoe Giles recalled that Jones was an astute scholar and leader as well as mischievous, full of tricks, and fun. He recalled the following:
“Our landlady, Mrs. Clara Nelson, sang in the local church choir…and her elderly husband was the minister. Mrs. Nelson had the habit of singing every night when we were intent on studying, as a compensatory diversion. Jones would start a game of whist and we would play until the distracting noise cleared. No money or chips were used, but invariably Mrs. Nelson would run upstairs, throw open our door without knocking and announce she did not allow card playing in her house.
One day Jones called all the freshmen to his room. When we got inside he locked the door, then without batting an eye told us to remove all our clothing. Being an upper and under the duress of some threatening gestures of his roommate Tandy, we reluctantly complied. Then Jones has us sit at the card table and dealt the cards. He then stealthily unlocked the door, and with as much noise as he could make with high-pitched voice, he cried out, Don t you dare cut my Ace. With her accustomed alacrity, Mrs. Nelson ran upstairs and under the force of her momentum, before she could draw up, she was in the center of the room with all of us clad in our birthday suits. She backed out of the room and never bothered us again.”
In the fall of 1907, Jewel Jones and the Chapter met in the room he shared with Vertner Woodson Tandy to make plans for the New Year. Jones was elected the second President of Alpha Chapter after running against Henry Arthur Callis. When plans were made for the second initiation at the home of Rose Cohan on West Mill Street in Ithaca, Jewel Jones spoke on the subject “Alpha Phi Alpha.” Plans were made to acquire pins and a second committee was made up of Jewel Jones, Gordon Jones and Lemuel Graves. Jones also joined the Constitution Committee. When the first ritual was lost in the fall of 1907, President Jones wrote one from memory with the assistance of Brother Callis. On January 18, 1908, Jones was elected as a trustee for the incorporation papers.
One of the major discussions of Jones’s administration was the admission of other organizations or members to become a part of the Fraternity. Jones accepted the chapter mandate to serve as a delegate to represent the chapter at the installation of a chapter at Howard University. Jones went off to make Beta Chapter at Howard in Washington, D.C. As Wesley states, he was assisted by Jewel Murray to set up the chapter during the holidays. Jones then traveled to Washington took a train home to Richmond, Virginia. While there, he set up Gamma chapter at Virginia Union University. Not soon afterwards, Jones and Tandy jumped into his car and went to Toronto, Canada. Over the Easter holidays they made Delta Chapter; however, it was without the approval of Alpha Chapter. They had met with the eight gentlemen and found them qualified to be initiated. Given financial restraints, which would prevent them from following the usual procedures of going back, to get consent from Alpha Chapter then returning, they performed the chartering. When he returned to Cornell, the other members of Alpha Chapter had decided to expel him from the Fraternity for insubordination. The night for the proposed expulsion came and according to Giles “everyone sat around grim faced.” Jones got up to explain his actions. He said, “Why I even made an African Prince, Robert M. Mahlangan, a member.” Brother Roscoe Giles recalled that while pronouncing the prince’s name, Jones screwed his mouth to one side and made an almost distinguishable sound similar to that of a duck. The chapter was so overwhelmed with laughter that instead of expulsion, they gave him a rising vote of thanks.
At the end of the school year, under President Jones’s administration, there were three additional chapters. When the constitution was written, it stated that after the fourth chapter was formed we were to have a general convention. That would be the goal of the next administration as Jones graduated from Cornell in 1908 with a MA degree in Sociology. However, at the first General Convention of the Fraternity, on the campus of Howard University, Jewel Jones was present and delivered an address of greeting.
Not soon after the first General Convention, Jewel Jones married Blanche Ruby Watson on March 11, 1909 and two children were born: Eugene, Jr. in 1910, who became a prominent lawyer, and Adele Rosa (Pean) in 1911, who became a social worker after completing her studies at the University of Michigan. The Joneses resided in Flushing, New York. His son Eugene, Jr. attended Cornell University like his father and was also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Eugene, Jr. was the father of two, a son Dr. Vann Kinckle Jones, a podiatrist and a daughter Betty Jones Dowling, a retired librarian.
Known by friends and family as “Gene” and “Kinckle”, Jewel Jones loved playing bid whist and the game of tennis. He served as treasurer of the American Tennis Association for twelve years. He was very active in many social and civic organizations including the Flushing Educational Committee; former chairman of the Harlem s Boy s Scouts’ Advisory Committee of the Boy Scouts of America; Vice President of the National Conference on Social Work; Chairman of the Harlem Adult Education Committee; a trustee of Virginia Union University; and member of the Board of Directors of the Encyclopedia of the Negro to name a few.
Jewel Jones served as an instructor at the State University in Louisville from 1909-1909 and taught classes in English and mathematics. The following year, he transferred to Central High school where he was general assistant, substituting in several classes of English and even teaching mechanical drawing, handling over one hundred and twenty boys in three different classes. He also assisted with the coaching of baseball, basketball, football and track. He also occasionally umpired and refereed many of the games. He remained at Central until April of 1911.
While there, he assisted in the formation of the Alpha Lambda Chapter, the first graduate chapter.
George Biddle Kelley became the first African American engineer registered in the state of New York. Not only was he the strongest proponent of the Fraternity idea among the organization s founders, the civil engineering student also became Alpha Chapter s first President. In addition, he served on committees that worked out the handshake and ritual. He served as the first president of Alpha Chapter and chairman of the first Ritual Committee. He is credited for the name of the Fraternity. Kelley was popular with the Brotherhood. He resided in Troy, New York and was active with Beta Pi Lambda Chapter in Albany. He died in 1963.
“Alpha needs Quality not Quantity” — George Biddle Kelley, 1924 (18th General Convention)
In the small town of Troy, New York, on July 28, 1884, George Biddle Kelley was born to Richard and Mathilda Decker Kelley. Kelly’s father was a veteran of a Civil War regiment from Massachusetts. His father migrated from Virginia as a fugitive slave during the Civil War, and his mother came from a long line of distinguished Hudson River citizens who were established in Newburgh, New York. His grandfather, the late Rev. W.H. Decker, was one of the most cultured and capable preachers and pastors of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in the 19th century. Jewel Kelley’s uncle and godfather, Rev. E. George Biddle of Boston, Massachusetts lived for more than 100 years, and studied at Rayford where he graduated from the Divinity School. He was, at the time of his death, the last surviving member of the Boston Regiment of the Grand Army of the Republic. These ancestors of Jewel Kelley were pioneers in organized religion and education and were personal friends of Harriet Tubman and other freedom seekers who lived in the North and the Northwestern part of New York State.
Kelley credited his father’s spirit and influence for given him vision in establishing the fraternity.
“I saw in my vision my ancestors who had been in slavery, my father who had escaped from that despicable system and had gone back south as a soldier in the Union Army to help in subduing of those who held him in bondage. He seemed to encourage me in my determination to help unite our group in a unit. I firmly believe that it strengthened me in the desire to press my point for a fraternity.” (1954)
Kelley attended the Troy Military Academy, a military preparatory school. He studied at the Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute before entering the College of Civil Engineering at Cornell University in 1905, where he graduated in 1908. Kelley was described as sometimes conservative, unyielding and adamant. His disposition and emotional response to many situations revealed the uncompromising nature of his personality.
When this band of men began to meet and acquaint themselves with each other, they found their camaraderie delightful. During the days of C.C. Poindexter, Kelley was appointed treasurer of the literary group. He would later create the first ritual along with Jewel Robert Harold Ogle. Together, they planned the first initiation banquet on Tuesday, October 30, 1906 at Odd Fellows Hall. At the banquet, Jewel Kelley was Toastmaster and spoke on the subject “Why Organize?” At the second banquet, he spoke on “Reminiscences.”
The members of the literary society were very active in the community of Ithaca, participating in programs at the nearby African Methodist Epsicopal Zion Church. Kelly often delighted audiences with the works of W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and shared his recitations with the brothers.
Torn between the literary component and the fraternal idea, Jewel Kelley suggested during one of the literary programs on November 13th, through a motion, that a committee of a design for a pin be established. Alas decision was ultimately to come regarding the fraternity versus the literary club, and on December 4, 1906, George Biddle Kelley, who chaired the meeting, carried the motion when it was made to become a fraternity. Brother Kelley was elected as the first President of Alpha Chapter. As the group began to take shape into the fraternity, Jewel Kelley lent his time to the Committee on Initiation along with Jewels Charles Henry Chapman, Vertner Woodson Tandy and Henry Arthur Callis.
During the year of 1907-1908, a resolution was adopted towards incorporation. The initial Trustees elected consisted of Jewels Jones, Tandy, Callis and initiates Gordon Jones and Lemuel Graves. Jewel Callis however, rose to resign from the board citing that he thought Kelley should be on the board, “because our first President…by his untiring efforts and loyalty helped to establish Alpha Phi Alpha to its present standard.” Brother Jones resigned in favor of Callis and both Callis and Kelley were on the Board of Directors.
At the third Annual Convention in Philadelphia in December 1910, Jewel Kelley was one of several alumni members present including Jewel Henry Arthur Callis, Moses A. Morrison and George Lyle. Jewel Kelley gave the Annual Address and congratulated the organization for its growth and the scope of work through the new chapters, which had been formed. He reminded them to be “intensed” in their efforts.
Jewel Kelley was instrumental in the development of the Alumni Committee for the Fraternity in 1912. In 1915, he urged the alumni in an open letter to be “loyal to the fraternity.” Kelley said “The success of the fraternity is as much to us as to the undergraduate members. Yes, it is more to us, as we are in a large measure responsible for the advancement it has made now.”
December 1926, during the Nineteenth Annual Convention at the St. Luke Auditorium in Richmond, Virginia, Jewel Kelley joined founders Murray and Callis as the guest founders for the convention with all of them making remarks during the annual founder’s address.
General President Raymond Cannon had created a special Historical Committee to assist Brother Wesley with the compilation of the fraternity’s history. Jewel Kelley was very reluctant about serving on the Historical Committee. In a letter to Brother Dr. Charles Harris Wesley on September 25, 1927, he replied:
“At first I was inclined not to get in this history making of the fraternity. So many years have passed since we were founded that all facts are hard to verify and the mentioning of incidents often lead to controversies among those of the founders who are living. After reading your letter, I am convinced that you would be able to pick out what facts you wanted. I am therefore writing to assure you that I will be glad to give whatever support I can…Prior to going on vacation, I visited the office of the Secretary of State at Albany and made some notes on the original incorporation of Alpha Chapter. I am enclosing this abstract for your benefit.”
Five of the seven founders were reunited in Cincinnati for the Silver Jubilee Convention in 1931. At the Twenty- seventh General Convention in New York in 1939, Jewel Kelley, along with Jewels Tandy, Murray and Callis were recognized. Until his death in 1962, Jewel Kelley hardly ever missed a convention. He was a convention fixture and was very sensitive to each Jewel being afforded the opportunity to be the “guest founder.” In a letter to Brother Burt Mayberry, Jewel Kelley expressed his dismay. General President Wesley, though not contacted by Jewel Kelley, found out about his concern. He felt snubbed at not having been invited to the convention in 1940. Jewel Kelley had been the guest founder at the 1931 Silver Anniversary Convention where all of the founders were invited. Both Jewels Kelley and Ogle were invited to the Special Convention in Chicago in 1934. General President Wesley reminded Kelley that there were no politics involved in the selections of guest “Jewels.” In a reference to Jewel Murray’s appearance at the convention, Wesley remarked, “I have neither preference or opposition to either one of you. I hope that you believe that I am sincere.” Wesley offered an apology for any “discourtesy” which may have been shown to him. Jewel Kelley responded to General President Charles Wesley in a letter on January 22, 1941, and said:
“Your statement that my letter to Bro. Mayberry was used for political purposes does not surprise me as much as a similar statement would have done if made several years ago. The organization has become so honeycombed with politics that one group may do anything to defeat the purpose of the other… It has never been in the past nor will it be in the future my desire to ask for any favors from the Fraternity because I am a Founder. It is my belief that many members of Alpha Phi Alpha wish to honor those who organized their Fraternity.”
It was apparent that Jewel Kelley was passionate about the organization that he helped to establish. In a speech to the Eastern Regional convention in Washington in 1932, Jewel Kelley gave the Founder’s address. In the address he stated:
“I think we often lose many good men who might be excellent members of the fraternity because of cliques and some of the methods used in many of the chapters. I was told once a man was rejected because of his color. To me that is deplorable. We never founded Alpha Phi Alpha to be a light skinned fraternity or one in which fellows could trace their ancestry back for years and years. We chose Alpha Phi Alpha for men, regardless of family, for what they themselves are doing, what they can do for the future of the Fraternity. The depression has caused the fraternity to lose many men because they do not have the money to keep their obligations.”
A few years later, a second founder entered Omega Chapter, Jewel Robert Harold Ogle. Jewel Kelley wrote on December 12,1936:
“I can hardly realize that Bro. Ogle is not with us. It will be a long time before I will be able to conclude that Bob will not meet again with us, or that I will not be able to write to him as I did now and then. The Fraternity has truly lost a worthy Founder and one who’s chief thought was for its progress.”
Jewel Kelley was the guest founder at the Thirty- third General Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1947. After an introduction by Past General President Henry Lake Dickason, Kelley prefaced his remarks with comments on the preamble of the organization. He also concurred that the Founder’s address be discontinued and that a Founder’s Memorial Address be given by an undergraduate.
Though Alpha consumed much of his life, Jewel Kelley did have a job. He worked as an engineer in the private industry and was employed as an engineer for the New York Engineering Department. He provided much work on the construction of the Barge Canal during the 1920’s, before transferring to the Department of Taxation and Finance as an Auditor in 1920, where he remained until 1952. He conducted a tax consulting practice.
In September of 1934, Jewel Kelley married the former Harriet Gross of Jersey City, New Jersey. She was a graduate of the Dickinson High School and the Traphagen School of Fashion in New York. A fashion designer, she also studied at New York University and the Oswego Normal College.
Two years later in 1936, Jewel Kelley was once again invited to give the Founder’s Address at the Silver Convention in December of 1935 in Nashville, Tennessee. He pondered if the ideas and purposes for which he and the others helped to establish the fraternity were still present:
“After 29 years, I find that the undergraduates have a very small part in the affairs of the fraternity and are so outnumbered by the Alumni and graduate brothers that they are looked upon with tolerance if they venture to raise their voice and protest against the passage of certain laws which they later have to accept. We are so surrounded by brothers of deep legal learning, and oratorical ability that the timid undergraduate sits back with the idea of the early American Revolutionist that he is a victim of taxation without representation. It is not just that as a founder, I should urge and insist that the undergraduate members of the fraternity should be given more of an opportunity of shaping the policies and governing the Fraternity which was founded by undergraduates primarily for them.”
Jewel Kelley, though born and steeped in the traditions of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, converted and was ordained an Elder at the Liberty Presbyterian Church. He was also a 32nd degree member of the Prince Hall Masonic organization and active with the local chapter of the NAACP. As the director in the Central YMCA and member of the Boys Work committee of the “Y”, Jewel Kelley served as Vice Chairman of the Troy Council of the New York State Anti-Discrimination Commission.
Jewel Kelley would often remind the brotherhood of a story about the support of his brothers in time of need. He recalled a time when after graduation from Cornell, he moved to Little Falls, New York and had arranged a date to attend a matinee one Saturday afternoon with a young lady of the city. The matinee was located in Utica. By the time the day drew near, he realized that his funds were short due to a delay in the State payroll. Two days before the date, he wired a letter to one of the Jewels still enrolled at Cornell and the next day his money was sent. Jewel Kelley stated “that was the feeling that prevailed among the Jewels.”
At the Twenty-ninth General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky in 1941, Jewel Kelley would have the fight of his life, when there was a move by several brothers to add an instrument associated with African natives to the fraternity’s shield. Past General President Raymond Cannon who witnessed the event recounted the event in a speech to the brotherhood:
“Our shield should never, be changed nor altered in any way. Yet had it not been for the urgent protest of “Jewel George Biddle Kelley…our shield might have been despoiled by the insertion of an instrument of communications in use by natives of Africa as proposed. Well meaning brothers, but brothers wholly unfamiliar with some of the fundamental of Alpha Phi Alpha, propose many things in our convention foreign to this Fraternity. It is the duty of our Jewels and all former officers to prevent these things from finding a place in our fraternity.”
In an editorial in the 1948 edition of The Sphinx, Jewel Kelley remarked again about undergraduate relationships:
“The undergraduate should be allowed a still greater participation in the management of the fraternity as it relates to them…. All programs as to fraternity activities in local communities should be, as far as possible, through the direction of undergraduate brothers.”
Jewel Kelley passionately asked the brotherhood to forego their fun and frivolity:
“If all the chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha would forego the giving of a formal for just one year and donate the unusual assessment in an Alpha fund we could build or buy a National Headquarters as large or larger than any for which the organization is hoping.”
In those same remarks, he also stressed that the work should be equally divided between regional officers in both undergraduate and graduate brothers.
The fiftieth anniversary of the fraternity afforded Jewel Kelley one of his finest moments as he and Jewels Callis and Murray were the guests of honor. Kelley spoke at Cornell at the anniversary luncheon and said:
“I said to a man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown,’ and he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.’ Such a thought must have been in the mind of each founder fifty years ago. Half a century is such a long span for the life of an organization such as ours that one cannot but thank the Almighty who has shaped its existence. We have nurtured our little plant from its beginning with brotherly love and the water of human kindness. We have not come to our present growth through the efforts only of the Founders and our changing General Officers. We have grown because the various Brothers from the dates of their initiation have nurtured the plant…I cannot close without giving thanks and credit to the colored of Ithaca who so kindly aided us in our years at Cornell and encouraged us in the formation of our Fraternity. Together, with Mother Singleton, they were large in number. As a Founder who cherishes his part in the formation of the Fraternity, I thank all the Brothers and their families who come in such large numbers to our 5Oth Birthday.”
The next six years following the anniversary convention saw Jewel Kelley’s health decline and his convention attendance shortened. On May 5, 1962 at the age of 82, Jewel George Biddle Kelley died at Leonard Hospital in Troy, New York, but not before summoning people to his bedside who had administered to him while in the hospital. He said to them “thank you for all you have done for me” then turned over and died.
The funeral service was conducted at Liberty Presbyterian Church on Thursday, May 10. The Eulogy was delivered by Brother Rev. J. Clinton Hoggard. Telegrams were received from throughout the nation including Governor Nelson A. Rockerfeller, U.S. Senator Jacob Javits and numerous others. General President William Hale represented the Fraternity and delivered the following comment:
“The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmaments showeth his handiwork. Part of the handiwork is man to whom God bequests his earth and the fullness thereof. He places man here for brief while to enjoy the fruits of his beneficence and while enjoying them to gain for himself immortality in the only way possible-by joining with others in helping make the dream of the good life a reality for everyone by helping establish the Kingdom of God solidly in the hearts of men. Such is the record of George B. Kelley.”
Jewel Kelley was interred at the Oakwood Cemetery in Troy, New York. His grave was removed from the Oakwood and transferred to the graveside of his parents at the New Mt. Ida Cemetery, also in Troy. in 1980. A marker was rededicated by the local graduate chapter, Beta Pi Lambda and the Omicron Upsilon Chapter at Renasselaer Polytechnic Institute.
“Before I close, I wish to urge upon all the Brothers the necessity for a broader bond of brotherhood in the communities where you reside. After allegiance to your God, family and country, let nothing shake your love for the Fraternity and its ideas. Let every brother be truly a BROTHER, PROMOTE HIS INTEREST AS IF IT WERE YOURS and show to the world that ALPHA PHI ALPHA stands for more than mere words.” —Jewel George Biddle Kelley, December 1935.
JEWEL NATHANIEL ALLISON MURRAY
Nathaniel Allison Murray pursued graduate work after completing his undergraduate studies at Cornell. He later returned home to Washington, D.C., where he taught in public schools. Much of his career was spent at Armstrong Vocational High School in the District of Columbia. He was a member of Alpha Chapter s first committee on organization of the new fraternal group, as well as the Committee on the Grip. The charter member of Washington s Mu Lambda Chapter was a frequent attendee of General Conventions. He died in 1959.
“To say that your Founders met with discouragement is only putting the matter lightly. I can recall staying up with others as late as three A.M., sometimes four thirty A.M. trying to make some antagonistic brother see a point in argument, only to fail, and tackle the same again the following night.” — Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray October 1936
Born into two families with very rich backgrounds, Jewel Murray’s passion for education was inherited from his parents. Nathaniel Allison Murray was born April 10, 1884 in Washington, D.C. to Anna Jane Evans Murray and Daniel Alexander Payne Murray and was a part of the “Washington Colored Aristocracy,” experienced by very few families during the 1890’s through the turn of the century. He was one of seven children born to the Murray’s, who were married on April 2,1879. Mrs. Murray was born in Oberlin, Ohio. She was the daughter of Henry Evans, who in 1858, defied Fugitive Slave Laws in Oberlin, Ohio and was arrested and imprisoned with 18 others in Cleveland. Her great grandfather and Jewel Murray’s great-great grandfather Lewis Leary befriended abolitionist John Brown. His great grandfather Matthew Nathaniel Leary was a well-known manufacturer and politician in Washington, D.C. Our Jewel came from a rich stock of ancestry.
Jewel Murray s mother, Anna Evans Murray graduated from Oberlin College in 1876. During her marriage, she taught music at Howard University and at the Mott School. She dedicated her life to establishing free kindergartens and training kindergarten teachers throughout the District of Columbia. Mrs. Murray chaired the Education Committee of the National League of Colored Women (NLCW) in Washington. In 1898, she successfully lobbied for a twelve thousand dollar federal appropriation to establish kindergarten classes. Mrs. Murray published “In Behalf of the Negro Woman” an article in the Southern Workman in 1904. She was an early advocate for child welfare and for children getting an early start with their education. With her vast contacts, including the wife of a California Senator, she helped to secure a second appropriation from Congress in 1906 for the inclusion of a kindergarten teacher-training course at Miner Teachers College in Washington. In 1934, then in her eighties, she presented a plea at a congressional hearing for the establishment of a health center where a high percentage of tuberculosis deaths occurred. Very respected in all circles in Washington, Anna Evans Murray was a renaissance kindergarten advocate, clubwoman, educator and civic leader.
Murray s father, Daniel A.P. Murray, was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 3,1852 to George and Eliza Wilson Murray. Jewel Murray’s grandfather, George Murray was a timber inspector. Originally from Chestertown, Maryland, he came to the city after being freed by William Hopper, who had inherited him by marriage. George Murray was founder of Bethel Church and participated in bringing Daniel Coker, the first African-American teacher to the city of Baltimore around 1808. George Murray died in August of 1890 at the age of 115. His only surviving son, Daniel attended private school in Baltimore and the Unitarian Seminary, where he graduated in 1869. Three years later, he moved to Washington, D.C. where he secured an appointment in the Congressional Library as the personal assistant of Ainsworth R. Spofford. During his fifty years at the library, he began to classify material for a book he wanted to publish titled The Encyclopedia of the Colored Race. Though much work was done on the book, it was never published. A member of the Washington Board of Trade, Daniel Murray was a staunch Republican and was a delegate to the 1908 convention, which nominated William Howard Taft, and the 1920 convention, which nominated Warren G. Harding. He was vestryman at the St. Luke Episcopal Church. He received an honorary degree from Wilberforce University in 1916, and was cited as the world authority on the Negro. His reputation in Washington society was widespread. Jewel Murray’s father usually attended presidential inaugural affairs in Washington. According to the book Baltimore: The Nineteenth Century Black Capitol by Leroy Graham, Daniel Murray was one of the wealthiest blacks in Washington and was an accomplished violinist. He served on the school board and his brother managed the United States Senate Restaurant.
One of seven children, Jewel Nathaniel Murray’s other siblings were George Henry, a lawyer who had studied at Harvard and Howard Universities and taught at Cardozo Business High School in Washington; Paul Evans, a renown concert violinist; Harold Baldwin, an engineer who also studied at Cornell University and was an engineer in Brazil before becoming a paper manufacturer in Mexico; Helene, Pinckney, and Daniel, Jr., also a violinist. They attended X Street School and the Armstrong Manual Training School organized by their great uncle Wilson Bruce Evans in 1901. Nathaniel Murray graduated in 1905. He would later return to Armstrong as an instructor in science.
In the fall of 1905, Nathaniel Murray entered Cornell University as a student in the College of Agriculture and made the acquaintance of his fellow classmates and Charles C. Poindexter, who worked in the department of Agriculture. They enjoyed the camaraderie and discussions of possibly establishing a fraternity. Jewel Murray remembered:
“As was to be expected, some opposed and some favored the new proposition. After drifting along for several weeks with no definite decision forthcoming, I offered the motion that I believed the time was ripe to disband the social club and organize a Negro College fraternity.”
When the motion was made to become a fraternity, Jewel Murray seconded the motion. Murray recalled the tension:
“Did we have fights? Yes, but only verbal fights. Did we call names, only to be balled out by the chairman? Did we have personal grievances? Yes, yet despite personal grievances, we put Alpha Phi Alpha first and when the time came to go home at the hours indicated, we all gave the good hand of fellowship and left ready to resume the battle the next night, or the next called meeting.”
Murray recalled the lack of faith of the organization during its early days of some members of the school and community:
“People not familiar with the determined spirit that actuated your Founders to continue to carry on, hurled verbal epithets at us such as: You will be the laughing stock of the town; You cannot hope to do what white folks do; You are too poor and you have no money; You will lose your jobs as waiters if you try to imitate your employer; You will go bankrupt after your first dance. ”
After graduating from Cornell, Jewel Murray returned to Washington, D.C and made it his home for over 30 years. In 1923, he along with Jewel Robert Harold Ogle, future General President Charles Harris Wesley and numerous others charted the Mu Lambda Chapter. Jewel Murray was elected Chaplain and would always open the meeting with the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer.
As an educator, Jewel Murray taught in the District School System as an instructor in agriculture and biology at Armstrong Manual Training High School. In 1945, Jewel Murray was the only African American to enter the among 300 competitors in the Third Annual Victory Garden Harvest Show sponsored by the Washington Gas light company. He won three prizes for his plant specimen which included a Swiss Chard plant, a salad vegetable and three winter squash fruits that he raised at the Phelps Vocational School.
In 1936, Jewel Murray spoke compassionately about the brutality of initiation:
“Who has not heard of the so called Hell Week? Who has thought more than once of some way of reducing the brutalities and permanent physical injuries that many Brothers have carried and will continue to carry to their graves… The first stages of the initiation are utterly brutal. I have stopped many a blindfold prospect from being beaten at the hands of an irresponsible Brother. The ceremonies as carried on in many chapters throughout the country were not the ceremonies that your Founders planned or intended for you to use. Too much of the element of personal prejudice enters into some of the initiation ceremonies and should not be tolerated. This merciless brutality must he stopped!….When Brother Eugene Kinckle Jones was initiated in ceremonies, in which I took part, there was no prolonged after effects in evidence. He can testify to that!”
His compassion to reach out to children and inspire became evident in the same speech:
“Do what you can by example, or by precept to encourage Negro boys and girls of college grade, as well as those of high school, to carry the banner of racial achievement into places where it has never been waved, when placed in Negro hands. Do this even though we as a group are in the minority or the majority. Believe in ourselves. Have a vision like Benjamin Banneker, Samuel Armstrong, Henry Ford, Booker T. Washington, Charles Wesley, Col. Lindbergh… Don’t let anyone persuade you to change your goal. Keep your vision on your dream always ahead and work on and on.”
Jewel Murray was invited to give the Founder’s Address at the Twenty- eighth Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 30, 1940. The speech was titled “Improving the Economic Status of the Negro”. In the speech, he highlighted the following:
“Concerning Alpha Phi Alpha Negro Citizenship Campaign, which is also based in part upon economic status, it is a well known truth that the man or woman who owns property and has a bank account has always proven himself to be a better citizen. Those who possess none of these desirable economic traits are not inclined to be motivated by the same desires…All fraternity brothers of AFA must continue to strive to aid all Negroes to obtain a guarantee of equal opportunity to enjoy life, liberty and happiness. Each chapter must continue to support whole heartedly, all local and national issues affecting Negroes in the U.S… Lend your aid to all worthy AFA candidates who aspire to political leadership. Remember that A Voteless People is a Hopeless People. ”
At the Thirty-second General Convention in Columbus, Ohio in 1946, in what was one of the highlights of the convention, Jewel Murray harked upon the reclamation of brothers. In essence he said do whatever is necessary to reclaim a brother:
“Don’t get discouraged in your personal visits and efforts to rehabilitate Brothers who will tell you yes in order to get rid of you and then fail to show up. All who are interested in the strayed Brother or Brothers should grasp this opportunity to put Service before Self. Go after that Brother in your own auto or even hire a taxicab, if necessary, to impress him with the real need the local chapter has for his presence and influence. Expense should be nil, when the reward justifies the expense. For after all, what good is Alpha Phi Alpha to any of us if it does not teach us that as a servant of all, we must transcend all through service.”
On the selection of officers, Jewel Murray said in that same address:
“Aim to cut out too much politics in the selection of your chapter officers. Select only those Brothers for nomination who possess qualities of leadership, scholarship and character that you feel proud in having them as leaders. Get rid of the machine politics whereby so many chapters are handicapped in carrying out any kind of program, which program would always react to the glory and fame of dear old Alpha Phi Alpha…If chapters will but work to assimilate their membership and through their programs keep up a rich spirit and enthusiasm, the worries about taxes and assessments will be a thing of the past. A rich chapter life will replace the tendency to need dance and entertainment features. Brothers, Alpha Phi Alpha needs a real awakening from its lethargy! It is asleep and things are transpiring in many of the local chapters that would humiliate and shame your Founders…”
Jewel Murray enjoyed the role and distinction of being a founder of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Unfortunately, not all brothers accorded the Jewels the due respect they deserved. He recalled at the 34th Annual Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1948, the following incident:
“Despite the fact that the business sessions of the Convention were a grand success, there was, however, a lack of Courtesy shown the Jewels by those in charge of the local Committee of Arrangements. To be concrete, when at the close of the afternoon session, preceding the Banquet and it was too late to get home when I, in company with Jewel Brother Callis, presented myself at the place where the Banquet was being held, I was refused admittance, because I did not happen to have a ticket, even though local chairman knew full well that both Brother Callis and myself were “Jewels.” In fact, we both had worked with the local Chairman at previous Conventions. I considered such action entirely uncalled for, and should not occur again.”
At the 50th Anniversary Convention in Buffalo in August of 1956, Jewel Murray in his founder’s address recounted some of the early days of the fraternity:
“At Cornell during the early days of the fraternity, we helped to keep our membership intact and to prevent any of us from Busting Out by preserving all exam papers and filing them with our secretary to be gone over by any Brother who felt he was weak in any particular subject and wanted coaching. We also helped each other get jobs as student sellers, or in any way possible to earn an honest dollar.”
Alpha Phi Alpha was quite a family affair for Jewel Murray. His first cousin Joseph Henry Brooks Evans was the fraternity s Executive Secretary and his uncle Roy W. Tibbs, also an Alpha, was a renowned musician and piano instructor at Howard University. Tibbs was married to Murray’s cousin and Evans s sister, Lillian Evans, who went under the stage name “Madame Lillian Evanti.” She was a renowned contralto who performed throughout the country. Their son and grandson Thurlow Tibbs, Sr. and Jr., were active members of Mu Lambda Chapter.
Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray was married though efforts to locate his wife’s name have been unsuccessful. He was the father of two daughters Pauline Murray Garcia and Eunice Catalina Murray. In the early part of 1949, he moved to Los Angeles, California and affiliated with the Beta Psi Lambda Chapter. It is believed he moved to be closer to his daughters. The move did make him closer to site of the 37th General Convention in Berkeley, California.
At the start of the second session of the 37th General Convention in Berkeley, California in 1951, General President Belford Lawson granted a special privilege to Jewel Murray in what would be one of the most compassionate displays of brotherhood on the part of the Fraternity for a beloved Founder. Jewel Murray made a passionate plea for the Fraternity to remain steadfast and strong. He also made a request for financial assistance. Brother Herman K. Barnett offered a resolution to the convention for adoption that a monthly pension be authorized and established for the use and benefit of the surviving Jewels in a sum adequate for its purposes and that a monthly pension for Jewel Murray in the sum of $50 per month beginning in January 1951 is approved. The convention granted Jewel Murray an immediate, outright grant of $600.00 for medical attention. Jewel Murray informed the convention that that sum would take care of his immediate medical needs. The motion carried.
Jewel Murray entered “Omega” chapter on December 12, 1959 in Los Angeles, California. General President Myles Paige in his “Report to the General Convention” cited his death and said Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray passed and was buried without our knowledge. Reasons as to why the National Headquarters was not notified of his death are unknown. However, the 45th General Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio in December of 1959 adopted a resolution in memory of Jewel Murray. But it was his own words shared in the October 1936 edition of The Sphinx that best speaks to his legacy:
“Founded on a platform of service, loyalty and reverence to God and our fellow brothers, we have learned that the greatness of any group of men lie not in the fine buildings they erect, or the numerous air castles planned but never erected, but rather in service to God and your fellow brothers, whether it be in the fraternity house on the street, on the school campus, at a public gathering or in your home.”
Robert Harold Ogle entered the career secretarial field and had the unique privilege of serving as a professional staff member to the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations. He was an African American pioneer in his Capitol Hill position. He proposed the Fraternity s colors and was Alpha Chapter s first secretary. Ogle joined Kelley in working out the first ritual and later became a charter member of Washington’s Mu Lambda Chapter. He died in 1936.
“Never before was it as incumbent upon every member to restate loyalty and exemplify fraternal obligation by consistent life and unimpeachable character. But these must be reinforced by a growing consciousness of the responsibilities that Alpha Phi Alpha faces in the world today, where, if ever the problems which beset us are to be solved and a way of deliverance discovered, it must be by the application of those principles upon which we are founded.” —Robert Harold Ogle, March 21, 1936.
Robert Harold Ogle was born on April 3, 1886 in Washington, D.C. to Jeremiah and Mary Ellen Ogle. He attended the public schools in Washington. From 1901-1905, he was a student at the M Street School. The school was considered one of the finest preparatory schools for African-Americans in the city. Most of the students were children of working class parents and admission required the successful completion of grammar school. With only 530 seats, it was very competitive. The students had to pay for books and supplies. Students were required to take English, history, algebra, Latin, and physics or chemistry. Electives included French, German, Spanish, Greek, history, and other advanced courses including geometry and political economy. M Street School had a cadet corps and performed often on the White House lawn, also. Ogle was enrolled in a four-year liberal arts program and a two year business education program. Ogle arrived at the end of Robert Terrell s tenure as principal and the beginning of Anna Julian Cooper’s as principal. After graduation in 1905, Robert Harold Ogle entered Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
After graduating from Cornell in 1909, Jewel Ogle returned to his home of Washington D.C., where he entered the secretarial field, finding employment for the United States Senate Appropriations Committee. An authority on Parliamentary procedures, Jewel Ogle received his training while working under the chairmanship of the late Senator Francis E. Warren of Wyoming. In that position, he developed a keen knowledge of fiscal affairs of the Federal Government, and a habit of careful research. He also clerked with two Washington Municipal Judges Brother James A. Cobb and Armond W. Scott. He married the former Helen Moore and moved to Richmond, Virginia for a short period. She died leaving him with two daughters Helen Ogle (Atkins) and Mary Ogle (Wilson). He remarried Marea Scott.
A lifelong resident of Washington, D.C., Jewel Ogle and his family resided at 1721 T Street, N.W. In 1923, he along with Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray and future historian and General President Charles Harris Wesley chartered the Mu Lambda Chapter, where he was an active member of the chapter until his death.
Jewel Ogle was a dedicated Brother from the start. It was at the home of Archie and Annie Singleton (411 East State Street, Ithaca, New York) in Jewel Ogle s disheveled combination study and bedroom that the fraternity took shape. In December of 1905, as the desire to become a fraternity was growing, Jewel Ogle began investigating a news item he had seen in the Chicago Defender newspaper. He had returned to Washington for the Christmas holidays and saw an article which told of the establishment of the Pi Gamma Omicron Fraternity at Ohio State University. He wrote the registrar for information and received a reply that there was no such organization. They later found out that the fraternity had been at Ohio State but had disintegrated.
At the first initiation banquet, Jewel Ogle spoke on “Welcome Brother,” and it was he who made the motion to establish Beta Chapter at Howard University in December of 1907. It was Jewel Ogle who proposed the colors of “Old Gold and Black” for the organization. Noted for his excellent Spenserian penmanship, he served as the first secretary of Alpha Chapter. Also, Ogle and Brother J. P. Boags wrote what was to become the first song for the Fraternity, sung to the tune of ‘Maryland, My Maryland”:
Sons of Alpha are we,
One in love and charity,
Let our thoughts of sadness fly,
For our own, our Alpha Phi!
Chorus
Courage, Brothers, banded we
All through life to eternity,
Let our hearts in joyous praise
Sing of Alpha through endless days.
In 1927, Jewel Ogle chaired the fraternity’s first Historical Commission with Jewels George Biddle Kelley, Vertner Woodson Tandy, Henry Arthur Callis and Past General Presidents Charles H. Garvin and Roscoe Conklin Giles. In a letter to the Brothers, Jewel Ogle wrote the following plea in the December, 1927 issue of The Sphinx:
“We are familiar with the resplendent record of achievement marking the rapid growth of Alpha Phi Alpha in numbers and power. We know that its fundamental principles are true and strong. We believe that the men of the College world and other citizens of the United States see it in the embodiment of all that is noble in Negro manhood. Let us make our achievements a matter of permanent record. Urge your chapter to reply early to the questionnaire, which is being sent out by the Historical Commission. It is your mandate- Help us to put it over.”
His efforts, along with Brother Wesley’s, produced the first edition of The History of Alpha Phi Alpha: A Development in Negro College Life in 1929.
When the Twelfth Annual Convention of the Fraternity opened on December 1927, at the Mt. Zion Congregational Temple in Cleveland, Ohio, the Annual Founder’s Address was delivered by Jewel Ogle. According to the February 1928 issue of The Sphinx, Brother Ogle gave a “heart to heart talk, directing attention to some fundamental prerequisites for the future progress of Alpha Phi Alpha.”
In 1931, Jewel Ogle, along with founders George Biddle Kelley, Vertner Woodson Tandy, Henry Arthur Callis and Charles Henry Chapman, attended the 25th Anniversary Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. Following the convention, he shared some thoughts about the future of the Fraternity:
“Alpha Phi Alpha undoubtedly faces the most challenging test in its history. It is of vital importance that we seriously consider the contribution of every brother may make for the good of our fraternity.”
Following an appendicitis operation at Freedman’s Hospital, a day before the Fraternity’s 30th Anniversary (December 3, 1936), Jewel Ogle died at the age of 50. His funeral was held on December 7, at his church, Lincoln Temple Congregation. His casket was surrounded by many flowers, including a pillow of yellow roses on which was woven in small yellow chrysanthemums the word “Alpha Phi Alpha,” sent by Mu Lambda Chapter. There was also a laurel wreath with white lilies sent by the General Organization. Brother Charles Harris Wesley, then General President of the Fraternity, rendered the Eulogy and remarks were made by Brothers Joseph H.B. Evans, Emmett J. Scott, Jewels George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Henry Arthur Callis and Vertner Woodson Tandy. Brother Emory Smith remarked at the funeral:
“Had he been like many of us he may have found satisfaction and contentment in the accidental distinction of being one of the founders. As a “Jewel”, he may have made us feel a sense of awe in his presence. But more than a founder, he was a builder. More than a “Jewel”, he was a brother.”
Jewel Murray remarked at the service:
“Jewel Ogle had a deep and abiding regard for efficiency and truth, in all of its manifestations. In any battle he championed the cause of principle and right, and was willing at all times to make personal sacrifices in order to see the right triumph. Jewel Ogle enjoyed the rare opportunity of mingling freely with men of affairs who have occupied high places in the world at large. His devoted mother, his devoted wife and daughters and his many friends were blessed with the companionship of a rare personality. His Fraternity brothers, as well as those who were privileged to know him and enjoy personal contacts, feel very happy to know that during his active life, he did so many good and noble things, which the younger brothers of the Fraternity, by emulating, will have much to build upon for future development. Jewel Ogle lived a life of service and rendered service whenever needed… The world has lost a man in Jewel Ogle, the country has lost a staunch supporter and a loyal fraternity brother, but Mu Lambda, a graduate chapter he helped organize, has lost a Jewel Brother and a Beloved Friend.”
On December 10, 1936, a memorial service was held at the Mu Lambda chapter house. Past General President Howard Long called Brother Ogle “a man of strong likes and dislikes, who made these qualities lend themselves to the best traditions of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.”
Curiously, Jewel Ogle’s grave had been unmarked for years. After much research by one of the Maryland Chapter Brothers, he found where the Jewel was buried. The Brothers of the Eastern Region lead by Eastern Regional Vice-President, Bro. Darren Morton, and project chairman, Bro. Tony Cheatham, embarked upon a fundraising campaign to ensure that Bro. Ogle’s grave was marked properly. On Saturday, September 14, 2002, The Brothers of the AlphaEast held a memorial service for Brother Ogle at the Epiphany Episcopal Church (3111 Ritchie Road, Forestville, Maryland). The guest speaker was then General President Harry E. Johnson. Following the memorial, the Brothers unveiled a beautiful black marble grave marker engraved in gold, which was placed upon Brother Ogles gravesite (Harmony Cemetery, 7101 Sheriff Road, Landover, Maryland).
Vertner Woodson Tandy became the state of New York s first registered architect, with offices on Broadway in New York City. The designer of the Fraternity pin holds the distinction of being the first African American to pass the military commissioning examination and was commissioned First Lieutenant in the 15th Infantry of the New York State National Guard. He was Alpha Chapter s first treasurer and took the initiative to incorporate the Fraternity. Among the buildings designed by the highly talented architect is Saint Phillips Episcopal Church in New York City. He died in 1949, at age 64.
“I went through hell founding this organization and I want something done about these problems. Think of it, we have over a hundred and twenty chapters and I ask what are we doing…We must fight till hell freezes over and then fight on the ice.” — Vertner Woodson Tandy, December 1937.
Born in Lexington, Kentucky on May 17, 1885, Jewel Vertner Woodson Tandy was the son of Henry A. and Emma Brice Tandy. His father, Henry, came to the blue grass area of Kentucky, shortly after the war in 1865. With very little education and attending schools when he was not engaged in work, Henry Tandy found employment in Mullens Photography Studio, developing negatives on plates of glass. After two years, he began his career as a brick mason for G.D. Wilgus, one of the largest contractors and builders in Central Kentucky. He rose rapidly to foreman, and in 1892, after the death of Wilgus, he formed Tandy and Byrd Contractors. It became one of the leading contractors and builders in Lexington, constructing buildings and residences throughout the city. Henry Tandy employed many young men in construction and was looked upon with great respect in the community.
Henry Tandy married Emma Brice in June 1875. The Tandy’s were very prominent in Lexington. Tandy was Deputy Grand Master of several fraternal lodges including the U.B. F. and the S.M.T. of the State of Kentucky. In the book Kentucky’s Prominent Men and Women, the author wrote about Henry Tandy:
“Everybody knows and admires the genial, dignified citizen whose life is worthy of emulation… Modest in all his ways, dignified in his manner, Mr. Tandy always makes one feel at home in his presence.”
No doubt it was Henry Tandy’s ebullient personality that influenced his son, Vertner, who himself would develop a comical, charming and serious nature about him as well as a zest for life and an interest in helping others, particularly those who are in need.
Our future Jewel’s education was obtained at the Candler School in Lexington, Kentucky. Watching his father build and develop homes, Vertner Tandy found interest not in building but designing and decided early that he wanted to be an architect.
In 1904, Jewel Tandy entered Tuskegee Institute to study architecture and was for a short time under the tutelage of Professor Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee machine. Tuskegee’s Architecture program was started in 1892, when Booker T. Washington recruited Robert R. Taylor to develop his Mechanical Industrial Department. Taylor, who was one of the first African-Americans to graduate in architecture from MIT, taught at Tuskegee for forty-one years and designed many of the major buildings. He influenced one of the first generations of African-American architects, including his “prize” student, Vertner Tandy, who, in September 1905, transferred to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, to continue his architectural education. Jewel Henry Arthur Callis recalled that Tandy arrived on the hallowed grounds of Cornell in a rather “tight cadet’s uniform with a saxophone under his arm.” He was, as Callis reflected, “A big, jovial, good natured, lovable fellow with a keen sense of humor. He did his own thinking. He enjoyed disregarding customs that ignored fundamental human values.” Tandy found himself with the group of young men who formed the Alpha Phi Alpha Society, ultimately destined to become the first African American Greek letter Fraternity. His early influence and involvement has been carefully documented in Wesley’s History of Alpha Phi Alpha: A Development in Negro College Life.
Jewel Tandy soon made acquaintance with Richmond, Virginia native, Eugene Kinckle Jones, who became his roommate. They developed a close bond and as the Fraternity developed and expanded, the two of them went out and set up chapters at Howard University (Beta Chapter) and Virginia Union University (Gamma Chapter) and the University of Toronto (Delta Chapter).
His comrades called him affectionately “Tandy.” It was during his affiliation with the Fraternity that he designed the beloved Fraternity pin (the first of which was dropped in the snow on the campus of Cornell and lost forever) and served as the first treasurer of Alpha Chapter. Jewel George Biddle Kelley recalled that “Tandy was anxious that we retain our custom of selecting members in our chapters so that the organizations would not become packed with undesirables.” But he, himself, was not a complete paragon of virtue according to Second General President Roscoe Conklin Giles, who recalled the time that Jewel Tandy disappeared from the house for a week:
“Fearing something serious had happened to him, we held a council of strategy deciding if Tandy did not show up noon Saturday, it would be necessary to report his absence to the provost. When we came home Saturday we went to Tandy’s room where we found him in a deep sleep. Attempts to interrogate him were futile. We were never able to get a word of explanation about his absence. Two weeks later a man in clerical garb came to the home inquiring for the Rev. Vertner Woodson Tandy. We told him that there was no minister living at our house.”
As it turned out Jewel Tandy had gone into the city, “ended up into riotous living and had run out of money.” Not having funds to return to Ithaca, he had gone to the pastor and preached a sermon for him. The minister had lifted a collection for the benefit of his itinerant assistant, which enabled Tandy to accomplish his objective. Tandy, out of gratitude, told the minister “if he ever came to Ithaca to look him up.”
A few years after he graduated from Cornell, Jewel Tandy, an outspoken advocate for Civil Rights, led a demonstration at Sage College in 1912 to have African-American women admitted. He married the former Sadie Dorsette, and in 1922, they became the parents of one son, Vertner Woodson Tandy, Jr. (Tandy, Jr. was initiated into the Fraternity in 1951 and at last report resided in Monsey, New York). During World War I, Jewel Tandy was the first African-American man to be commissioned an officer in the State of New York, but this was to be only one of several “firsts” for Tandy.
Jewel Tandy returned to Harlem, New York, opened his architectural firm on Broadway Avenue and, was an integral part of the period known as the famed Harlem Renaissance. Abyssinian Baptist Church, Lenox Avenue, the Apollo Theater, the Renaissance Ballroom, the Utopian Neighborhood Club, the photography of James Vanderzee, the NAACP, James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Arma Bontemps, and all of the other literary icons of Harlem society were a part of the world that Architect Vertner Woodson Tandy and his family lived in during the decade of the twenties and thirties.
His career as an architect was legendary. David Levering Lewis in his book When Harlem Was In Vogue called Tandy “Harlem’s most distinguished architect.” As the first licensed African-American registered architect in the state of New York, Jewel Tandy helped to design many buildings in Harlem, including the St. Phillips Protestant Episcopal Church. The church had attempted to buy a white church in Harlem but was unsuccessful, so they hired Tandy and erected their Gothic structure on West 134th Street. He also designed the Housing Authority Abraham Lincoln Houses on 135th Street. However, it was his design of the $250,000, Italianate palace, thirty four-room mansion in Irvington on the Hudson river for noted hair preparation millionaire Madam C J. Walker in 1917 that brought him his greatest notoriety. The design and construction of the house was so phenomenal that it made the New York Times. Two years later, he designed her country house known as “Villa Lawaro.”
Other works by Tandy’s and his architectural firm on Broadway Avenue in New York, included the popular night club Small’s Paradise, Mother Zion A.M.E. Zion Church (1925) and a $100,000 town house near Striver’s row. Jewel Tandy was also the first African-American to become a member of the American Institute of Architects. In 1938, he was awarded the contract to design the Liberian Building for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.
Though his work kept him extremely busy, Jewel Tandy tried to keep up with fraternal activities, however, he had very little tolerance for some of the Fraternity’s and Eta Chapter antics. His candor, outspokenness and bluntness was legendary to those who knew him. He recalled in a speech to the brotherhood his dismay following an initiation in his chapter (Eta):
“In New York, they were having an initiation. I was not allowed to talk to the initiates because I had no pin or badge…Many think Alpha Phi Alpha is an athletic association in New York because all they know about is the basketball game.”
At the 26th General Convention in New Orleans in 1937, on the campus of Xavier University, Founder Tandy, the only Jewel present, would really have an opportunity to have his say. He gave a stirring and rousing fraternal address and talked about the politics in the fraternity:
“We have got to do something for Negroes, there is too much politics in this fraternity. I have seen men beaten so badly that three days [later] they could not walk. Another thing is that obnoxious black ball system. I saw a man at a meeting pick up a handful of black balls and said that he was going to black ball until times got better. We need good men; furthermore, this is a good fraternity. We need a good fight; we can help our Negro doctors. I knew a Jew, a man who exercised the right to keep the Negro under his feet if he can. Shall we stand for it? We won t fight. Do something constructive so that your sons, your daughters and all who come behind them will be proud of you. We must fight until hell freezes over and then fight on the ice. I may never come back, but I want you to know that I have been here. I am going to demand that you do something. Cooperate with organizations, don’t be satisfied with giving basketball games and good dances, I want to see you offer constructive work to fight the evils of yourselves and of your country…We, the founders, went through the hardships and now you have the gravy. Carry with you home the thoughts that the founders wish you to continue what we started.”
At the closing banquet of the convention, Jewel Tandy installed General President Charles Wesley and his cabinet of officers for 1938. It was a memorable evening.
Always a visionary, Jewel Tandy once remarked:
“We should go to Africa… and make the Prince of Liberia a member.”
At the Thirty-third Anniversary Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1947, Jewel Tandy spoke on “Laying the Foundation for a Fraternity”. In his text, he commented on the following:
“So at this time, we, the Brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha… need to fortify our defenses and gird ourselves to the larger significance of our standards. We must put aside the precocity of the imitative social snob and undertake the challenge of our social responsibilities, both to ourselves and to the masses of our people of common experience and of common estate.
Along these lines we must repair the damage, which has been done, to our struggle. In so doing we must meet the same fundamental needs, which the fraternity met in the lives of seven lonely young men thirty three years ago. Recognition and remedy of defects is not only desirable but also mandatory lest, we repeat, we inhabit not a shelter but a tomb.
Being men we must put aside childish things and answer the challenge of qualitative worth to meet the times… We therefore must choose, train and encourage the youths of our choice to a more authentic standard of values based upon more universal concepts…Then the ideas of our vision shall have been fulfilled. We shall continue to be and to become, in act as well as in mind, the ‘First Ethiopian Brotherhood’, the buttress of our troubled people and an outstanding force in a world of change. We shall be not a dead and imitative tradition, but a democratic living culture.”
While working to complete what would become his last project, “The Apartments,” Jewel Tandy fell ill. He died on November 7, 1949 in the Harlem Hospital, at the age of 64, just a month before the 35th General Convention in Atlanta. His funeral services were held at the church he designed, St. Phillips Church, on November 11 (Armistice day) with the Rev. Shelton Hale Bishop, officiating. The service was very solemn and simple. There were no personal testimonies or resolutions read, however, individual sentiment was expressed by the numerous floral arrangements that surrounded his flag draped casket. Brothers from New York and Eta Chapter attended in large numbers including General President Belford V. Lawson and Jewel Henry Arthur Callis. The New York State National Guardsmen also made a tribute. Three volleys were fired by the guardsmen as the 30 car procession made its way to his final resting place in Hartsdale Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Callis stated upon hearing the death of this “Jewel:”
“Excellent in his work was his gospel. He called no man master. Yet he was indeed the inspired servant of his fellows.”
