O M E G A : Chapter of Sweet Rest
Huel Davis Perkins Loved Alpha “Madly” A Reflection by Rick Blalock
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I asked him what he wanted me to tell the brothers for him. He said: “I love you madly! I love you madly!” Before Brother Peters and I left the hospital, the three of us held hands, and we recited the Alpha Phi Alpha prayer. Brother Perkins could only listen to Ron and me, but his eyes spoke volumes of joy. He said thank you as we ended. We shook hands, as only Alpha men can do, for the last time. A week later, I got the call from his son Huel A. Perkins that “Dad has gone home.” He entered Omega Chapter on April 15. However, he didn’t want a huge public funeral, didn’t want an Omega service, and did not want brothers spending dollars to fly from around the country to pay last respects. Instead, he wanted us to take that money and put it toward scholarships for young people—making a hearty donation to the fraternity educational foundation, in his memory. Even to his end, on earth, he was thinking of educating young people. While you never forget the last time you have been in the presence of greatness, it is the long streak of great things for which we also remember Huel D. Perkins. He was one of the original members of the Alpha Phi Alpha World Policy Council, and when his health began to fail, he resigned from the council and was designated member emeritus. He wrote the ‘Alpha Phi Alpha Sweetheart Song.’ He was a leader and role model for hundreds of students and Alpha men around the country, and especially to those who passed through the halls of Southern University Brother Huel D. Perkins meeting President Jimmy Carter. and Louisiana State
hen you talk to many of the senior members of Alpha Phi Alpha, they will remind you about those “giants” of Alpha—the Alpha men who became the pillars of the organization. The men who took the imagination of, and baton from, the Seven Jewels and built the fraternity into the leading international organization it is today. The men on whose shoulders new generations now stand. Huel Davis Perkins was one of those giants. My last visit with him was in a Baton Rouge hospital, the weekend of the Southwestern Regional Convention this past spring. I believe we both knew his days were numbered. But, he still cracked a smile. That same dashing smile I remember the first time I met him—as a college brother in 1987—when I was awarded a scholarship by the Alpha Phi Alpha Educational Foundation, of which Brother Perkins was chairman. He found the strength to utter a few words to me and Brother Ron Peters, the founder of the fraternity’s Brother’s Keeper program, which cares for our elderly and disabled brothers and their families.
42 THE SPHINX H Summer 2013
Brother Huel Davis Perkins
University (LSU) in Baton Rouge. Born in 1924, Brother Perkins served in the U.S. Navy and later graduated from Southern University with highest honors in 1947. He taught music at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., before becoming a music professor at his alma mater. Later, he earned a master’s degree in music and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. In 1978, he loaned his talent to the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C. He then began a long association with LSU rising to assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs from 1979 to 1990, before serving as executive assistant to the chancellor through retirement in1998. In 2005, LSU honored him with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree and named a doctoral fellowship program for him. The fraternity bestowed upon him its highest award for a member, the Alpha Phi Alpha Award of Merit. You could go on and on about Huel D. Perkins. But there simply is not enough ink or paper to record it all. He loved his wife of more than 60 years, Thelma, and he leaves a legacy behind in his only son. He told the History Makers website in 2008 that his favorite quote was: “Man comes to earth unarmed except for his mind. His brain is his only weapon.” Brother Perkins used his for the betterment of mankind and then some. H