FEATURE
Brutality Was
Never Accepted by Alpha’s Founders By Donald Ross
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ll too often, Alpha brothers exclaim that there is a good reason for engaging in acts that cause physical harm to candidates for membership. Their reason—or excuse—is usually the recollection of their experience coming into Alpha Phi Alpha. It seems that many believe this behavior is as old as the fraternity. It is true that bad behavior has been around longer than the fraternity, but it took a few years before anyone in the fraternity thought that engaging in it was a good idea. What many do not know is that acts which cause physical harm, particularly when a weapon is involved, have never been supported by Alpha’s founders or its leadership. Hazing is a popular word used to describe actions which cause mental and physical abuse. It is also to describe those acts that include the use of a weapon, usually a paddle. “Giving wood” or “wood is good” have been popular phrases for decades in fraternal organizations. However, these acts have resulted in injuries, deaths and lawsuits. Additionally, even without the acts being deemed a hazing violation, they are considered criminal acts because use of a
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weapon to physically injure another is known as aggravated assault. History shows us that none of the first initiates, Lemuel Eugene Graves, Eugene Kinckle Jones or Gordon Homes Jones, were paddled or subjected to a physically harmful act in order to become members of Alpha. That was also true for General Presidents Moses Alvin Morrison, Roscoe Conkling Giles, Frederick Harris Miller, Charles Herbert Garvin, Henry Lake Dickason, Howard Hale Long, William Augustus Pollard, Daniel David Fowler and Lucius Lee McGee. In 1934, the living founders, then known as the “Jewels,” became concerned enough about negative activities and gathered to decide how the fraternity should address it. They crafted a document containing a proposal for the General Convention, but near the end of that year, the death of one resulted in a decision to delay presentation for a year. Then-General President Charles H. Wesley, reprinted the proposal in his 1977 biography Henry Arthur Callis Life and Legacy. The words that follow were taken directly from Wesley’s text: THE SPHINX
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