2024 FRIENDSHIP CHRONICLES Q1

Greetings Brothers of the Great State of Georgia and beyond

Welcome to Volume XVI of the Friendship Chronicles The State of Georgia Organization is comprised of 46 chapters providing service in 40 counties and 16 colleges and universities. We are dedicated to empowering the youth, strengthening families, and uplifting the community The purpose of the Friendship Chronicles is to highlight the great work that chapters and brothers are doing across the State

In this edition of the Chronicles, you will see spotlights on Undergraduate Advisors and Chapter Leadership, along with programming at the start of the fraternal year. Our Achievement Week celebrations from around the state are highlighted and Bro. Solomon Thomas has also provided another thought-provoking essay entitled, “The 21st Century Citizen.” The Chaplain’s Corner features the Manhood Monday Call information, along with the Book Spotlight – “Invisible Generals” with a short summary.

I hope you enjoy the continued updates to the Friendship Chronicles As we continue striving in this new fraternal year, our theme is ”Going From Good To Great!” Special thank you to Bro Dr John Williams, Director of Public Relations and our State Chaplain, Bro Mohandas Martin, for their work on the Friendship Chronicles and continuing to demonstrate excellence in everything that we do

Bro. David C. Jones

GA State Representative

LEADERSHIP WELCOME EDITOR’S NOTES

Friends, it is indeed an honor to continue serving! I’m thrilled to continue in collaboration with Bro Martin in the growth of this reinvigorated Friendship Chronicles. My goal as State PR Director is certainly to enrich the brand of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. in the State of Georgia, and engage in dynamic storytelling. After serving as the State Graphic Designer for six years (s/o to Bro Marvin Broadwater, Sr ), I’m excited for this platform to showcase much of the work, and of course, continue developing communications, branding, and PR skills and competencies. I welcome ALL who may be interested in joining the State PR Team and becoming contributors to the FC BIG EMPHASIS on Undergraduate Relations and Professional Development

Stay tuned for all forthcoming publications and communications from the State Organization Special s/o to Bro. Phillip Mayo, our Social Media Lead. Make sure you follow us on all social media platforms (@OmegaPsiPhi_StateOfGeorgia) and stay connected to all the action and progress, as we endeavor in “Going From Good to GREAT!”

Brother Dr. John Williams Editor & Designer BRAINIAQ | 8-16-HO

CHAPLAIN’S CORNER

My Friends, Greeting & Salutations, in the name of the Supreme Basileus of the Universe, Jesus Christ, our Lord, and Savior, welcome Brothers, to the newly refreshed, revived, and reinvigorated Friendship Chronicles (FC). The definitive goal of the FC team, is to ensure that the great completely cognizant of what key events have events will take place, also, present all prominent engaging in, through-out Georgia Brothers, it accepted by Alabama, Florida & Mississippi), Mighty 7th District in all arenas of Omega. The FC maintain this “Tip of the Sphere” attitude.

FC, the team and I welcome what’s going on to the FC team, in a timely custom. The positive attention to your chapter and alertness The FC itself will not be successful without Therefore, I say thank you Brothers in

Brother Mohandas Martin “Dino”

State Chaplain & Editor

Psi Omega Spr. 98

Brothers of the greatest Fraternity on the face of the Earth, I was reading and pondering on the goodness of life and came across this: “Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit.” With that being said, I look forward to seeing each of you reading this note on the Monday Manhood Prayer Call.

INVISIBLE GENERALS: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals

Publisher’s Summary

Red Tails, George Lucas’s celebration of America’s first Black flying squadron, the Tuskegee Airmen, should have been a moment of victory for Doug Melville. He expected to see his great-uncle Benjamin O. Davis Jr. the squadron’s commander immortalized on-screen for his selfless contributions to America. But as the film rolled, Doug was shocked when he realized that Ben Jr.’s name had been omitted and replaced by the fictional Colonel A. J. Bullard. And Ben’s father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., America’s first Black general who helped integrate the military, was left out too.

Dejected, Doug looked inward and realized that unless he worked to bring their inspirational story to light, it would remain hidden from the world just as it had been concealed from him.

In Invisible Generals, Melville shares his quest to rediscover his family’s story across five generations, from post-Civil War America to modern day Asia and Europe. In life, the Davises were denied the recognition and compensation they’d earned, but through his journey, Melville uncovers something greater: that dedication and self-sacrifice can move proverbial mountains— even in a world determined to make you invisible.

Invisible Generals recounts the lives of a father and his son who always maintained their belief in the American dream. As the inheritor of their legacy, Melville retraces their steps, advocates for them to receive their long-overdue honors and unlocks the potential we all hold to retrieve powerful family stories lost to the past.

By: Bro. Solomon Thomas

Introduction

We face many problems in our day. Some are perennial such as the battle for mental and physical health, economic security, maintenance of the familial household, and the constant pressure of adapting technologically. Some problems are more ephemeral such as our nation's specific wars, the erosion of fundamental values, and the adoption of ideologies that replace what was once the sacred. Our traditions are being tested, and our grand narratives of love and faith in God, family, and self are under attack. Both sets of problems are calling out the best in us to confront them.

We in The West also have the privilege of being born in the best time period throughout history. Instead of starvation, we are battling obesity. Think about that, we have a problem of too much food instead of too little. Absolute poverty worldwide is still on the decline. Information flow and educational opportunities are abundant. Civil liberties have been expanded in the right direction, and advances in medicine have made it easier to fight diseases. We have cars, homes, decent paying jobs, and a network of friends and family that we can fall back on when times are tough. Of course, there will always be people who have more and less than us, but that relativistic thinking shouldn't keep us from expressing gratitude for what we have and working to expand our domain of responsibility.

To be a responsible citizen is to both take note of the problems around us with humility and recognize the blessings that allow us to thrive. We rely on our community, civil structures, and social institutions for many of the luxuries that we have, but these organizations rely on us, the individuals, the families, to keep them maintained and serving us properly. All it takes is a brief reading of recent history or a quick glance at the newspapers of other countries to realize how unlikely it is for our lives to be the way they are. It takes work, sweat, and sometimes blood to keep a society afloat, and if we aren't careful, we'll underestimate the fragility that undergirds our social existence. It takes everyone doing their part to make sure our blessings get passed down to future generations, and what it means to do your part is what I want to walk through in this paper.

Discipline

Given than men and women are made in the image of God, we use our words, our speech, to create habitable order out of chaos. We do the same with our actions, contending with the unknown through exploration and dialogue, marking out a space where things are safe, stable, and predictable. The amount of chaos that we can wrestle with, the amount of the anxiety-provoking unknown that we can engage with, is dependent on the level of order we have in our lives. The less that things are falling apart in our personal or even professional lives, the more capacity we free up to focus on taking care of other people or fostering a harmonious relationship with the environment.

Dr. Jordan Peterson states it best in his book 12 Rules for Life; "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world" (1). How can you expect to be an effective citizen if you cannot contain the crushing and frustrating chaos in your own life? To put your house in order is to create routines, habits, and systems that facilitate attainment of goals in various domains. It means that you're physically ft, you have a career or streams of income that support you financially, you have a ritual for feeding your spiritual instinct, you have an intimate relationship and close friendships that rejuvenate you, you educate yourself to fully manifest your intellect, and you have hobbies or interests outside of work that keep you playful and creative.

A properly functioning society helps set conditions for flourishing in each of these dimensions, but it's up to the individual to bring them into being. Where the individual fails to maintain prosperity and stability, society feels those ramifications and consequences. People who don't take care of their physical and mental health require care and sometimes financial support from others. Those who don't make a point to feed their religious instinct start to worship false idols. They latch on to the "sacredness" of politics, sports, entertainment, social media, or alcohol. While these domains are fun, and we should engage with popular culture, we must remember to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God’s."

Practically speaking, putting your house in order makes you a better, more responsible citizen because it keeps society running smoothly. When you show up to work on time, make sure your kids are being taught and cared for properly, ensure that your friends have a backup plan in you, you are doing the good work that not only creates value that everyone else can benefit from, but you're also not creating stress for others. If you don't clean up your property, either someone else will, or the poor aesthetics and physical trash will have a negative impact on your neighbors. Everything you do, or don't do, matters, which is why it's important as a responsible citizen to create a vision of the ideal life for you and yours and to build the daily habits that will make it a reality.

Attention

A responsible citizen pays attention. He notices when the tension between his emotions and rational mind is too great. He listens both his mind and his body. He listens to his wife, his children, the elders, and the youth. He pays attention to the social institutions that facilitate progress, ease, and the functioning of a city. He watches to make sure that they are respected, but also to ensure that they are still useful and carrying out their purpose. If the educational system, for example, begins to lose touch with how the parents want their children to be taught, then he notices this breach of contract and speaks out. He serves as the correcting mechanism that keeps large organizations in the service of the public.

He pays attention to those who have less than him. He does not smear them as oppressed or victims but understands that life can be cruel and people can get in their own way, so they cannot be forgotten about. As policies are being passed or as changes to infrastructure occur, the responsible citizen keeps the dispossessed in mind, acknowledging that what can help the poor can help everyone else. Life does not have to be a zero-sum game where the flourishing of one must mean the deprivation of another. The responsible citizen also pays attention to the fact that most complex problems, such as economic deprivation, are multi-faceted and no single cause can explain all of the effect. He is weary of any leader that highlights one and only one factor as a cause of a problem.

The responsible citizen is vigilant. He's on the lookout for the forces that can corrupt a society such as tyranny, authoritarianism, and an immoral will to power. He teaches his children about the indications that an individual or organization is swerving off the path. He teaches about good character, those who embody humility, gratitude, and the search for wisdom. In times of social unrest or civil tensions, he does not fall victim to the shallow landscape of identity politics. As Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers" (2). He sees that all men share in one form of suffering or another, and that empathy and authenticity are the preconditions for engaging in the necessary dialogue that brings people together rather than tears us apart.

On top of putting one's house in order and paying attention, a responsible citizen is oriented towards the Good. What does this mean? The Good is that which all aspects of conscious flourishing have in common. Imagine the worst-case scenario for a society, say those which manifested in twentieth century Germany, Russia, or China. Think of a society where no one is free, everyone is hungry, and everyone lies. Those societies did not get there overnight. There were gradual steps taken by key leaders and decisions made by every single citizen that tilted the society towards hell. Given this horrible scenario, we can define the Good as the opposite of this outcome.

To be oriented towards the Good is to choose the patterns of behavior that increase the probability of maximizing well-being for the most amount of people. All of your actions have the potential to be a vote for the Good, and this is true for at least two reasons. The first reason is that your actions cascade through time and space. The consequences of your decisions move through the world in a manner unbeknownst to you, and these results shape the reality that everyone shares. Going back to Reverend Dr. King, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be."

“All of your actions have the potential to be a vote for the Good...”

The second reason is that every action is nested within a set of contexts that relate your ultimate desires to your current situation (3). Most of us need money to survive, so we have jobs to earn money. Part of working a job means showing up on time. Part of showing up on time is going to sleep at a reasonable time, and part of going to sleep at a reasonable time means turning off the television before it gets too late. Every night, we have a decision to make. It may seem trivial, but that decision is directly tied to how comfortable our lives are, and if you happen to be the primary provided for your family, it's also tied to their comfort. One too many decisions to stay up late can lead to one too many instances of oversleeping, being late for work, and losing your means of earning money. Once you realize that every aspect in your life is set up this way, you'll understand the true weight of your actions and the concomitant responsibility.

Every day, every moment is a blessing. Every embrace and laugh with a loved one is a source of gratitude. Every struggle you encounter is an opportunity for growth. Every tragedy the befalls you is a spring of humility. Every setback is the beginning of newfound wisdom. Our community is what we decide to make it. We face problems, old and new, all the time. We can't control when or to what degree they manifest. We can only control how prepared we are and how optimally we'll react to them. That is the essence of being a responsible citizen. It's the belief that everything you do matters. It's the mindset of growth and adaptation that you bring to bear on the world. It's the determination to put your house in order, the willingness to pay attention to what's happening, and the fortitude to orient towards the Good.

References

1. Peterson, J. B. (2018). 12 Rules for Life. Random House Canada.

2. King, M. L. (1963). Strength to Love. Beacon Press.

3. Peterson, J. B. (1999). Maps of Meaning. Taylor & Frances/Routledge.

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Phi Kappa Kappa Chapter

Football Recruiting Summit

By: Bro. Marc Styles | Riverdale, GA

Early on Saturday, February 10, 2024, the brothers of Phi Kappa Kappa Chapter converged on the Charles Drew High School to setup for and assist with the operation of this event. This worthy event started back in February of 2007, Brother Alonzo Upshur a Football Coach at a local high school started the Metro Atlanta Football Recruiting Summit, as a way to bring “Unsinged” High School Senior football players and coaches from various NCAA Division II, Division III, NAIA, Junior Colleges, and Prep Schools together. The ultimate goal is to get as many of the attendees into any school that was present as a Scholarship Awardee or as a Preferred Walk on. Parents were highly encouraged to attend this free event as well.

Prior to the 2020 Summit and the Covid Pandemic that started in March, the name was changed to honor our fallen Brother Brandon “Big B” Adams, who was a standout Georgia Tech Football player who had just wrapped up an outstanding Junior Year and was possibly headed to the NFL as a top draft pick. Over the past seventeen years this program has impacted a lot of young men from Georgia and surrounding States (Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee) that attended this event with their collegiate dreams and beyond.

Schools in attendance this year were: Allen University, Arkansas Baptist College, Bowie State University, Central State University, Clark Atlanta University, Elizabeth City State University, Erskine College, Fort Valley State University, Lincoln University, Morehouse College, Tuskegee University, Virginia State University

Once the students started visiting with the coaches, all of the couches had them stand and introduce themselves and talk about their GPA’s, what high school they attended, and what position(s), they played. The impact for this year won’t be known until the fall. Pictured is Ms. Lisa Greer giving her speech, and Brandon’s family being presented with a small gift from the summit committee.

DeKAAtur Ques

Help with the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl 25th Anniversary

By: Bro. KAA Chapter Bro. C. Pittman III

Decatur, GA | January 27, 2024

local area elementary, middle Grove High for the Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl (HRRB).

KAA Brothers served as registration officials, competition moderators, console judges, timekeepers, and scorekeepers in a competitive four round game format. Each round consisted of 15 quiz-bowl style questions to a five-member school team. Elementary and middle school students read and are quizzed on the latest 20 Georgia Book Award Nominees, while high school students read and are quizzed on the latest 20 Georgia Peach Teen Book Award Nominees. The first and second place winning teams go forward to represent DeKalb at the Metro Region Bowl in February. And KAA Chapter brothers have helped with the Bowl for the last 7 years.

As a witness to a few rounds of the elementary school team competitions, the students exhibited cognitive skills of strong concentration, keen listening, calm and cool nerves, and an excellent comprehension of questions. At the same time, one could feel the academic zeal in the room along with seeing some nervous verbal anticipation and tense body language. Alongside the leadership of the DeKAAtur Ques, the energy at the competition included several representatives from other Divine Nine Chapters in Dekalb County. This unique competition was created in 1986 by Mrs. Helen Ruffin who was a dynamic and innovative Library Media Specialist at Sky Haven Elementary School in DeKalb County. It was initially called The Reading Bowl and, in a competitive game format, questioned students about the content of the 20 Georgia Book Award Nominees each year. Her vision was to have teams, comprised of students from different schools, compete to test their knowledge of the selected books. This idea came to her after serving on the Georgia Book Award Nomination Committee at the University of Georgia, in 1985. This book award began in the Department of Language Education at the University of Georgia’s College of Education and its purpose, according to their website is, “to foster a love of reading in the children of Georgia, and to introduce them to books of literary excellence.”

Undoubtedly, these students’ daily preparations of reading, studying, and evaluating various themed books helps enhance their self-esteem, reading comprehension, communication skills, team esprit, and academic commitment among other attributes gained by competing in the Reading Bowl.

The Georgia Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl (GA HRRB) is in partnership with the Georgia Children’s Book Award Program which is sponsored by the Department of Language and Literacy Education, the College of Education, the University of Georgia, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Education. During the last few years, over 600 schools throughout Georgia have held competitions at the local school district level and have registered online for regional competitions.

DeKAAtur Ques recognize the efforts of Mrs. Janice Jackson, a member of the School Steering Committee for the HRRB at Miller Grove High School, and the wife of Chapter Bro. KC “Kojack” Jackson. Her invitation and coordination enabled the Bruhz to enthusiastically participate at this invaluable and historic 25th Anniversary.

highlight the life and accomplishments of Civil Rights leader and activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fully Engaged on The MLK Day of Service 2024

By: Bros. Elijah Macon & Caleb Denson

On January 15th, concurrent with the Dream March and MLK Day Program, we partnered with the ladies of Albany Alumnae and Delta Rho chapters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. for a hot soup, socks, belts, and blankets giveaway initiative. The giveaways were held simultaneously in three separate locations, Sylvester, Cordele, and Albany. Thanks goes out to all the brothers who signed up to participate during these events on this day. We could not have pulled this off without the support and efforts of the brothers.