FRIENDSH I P Chronicles
Greetings Brothers of the Great State of Georgia and beyond Welcome to Volume XVIII 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 Leadership, Scholarship, and Internships, along with various programming in the third quarter. Also included are photos of Georgia from Grand Conclave in Tampa, and Bro. Solomon Thomas has provided another thought-provoking essay entitled, “How to Manage Stress and Anxiety.” The Chaplain’s Corner features the Manhood Monday Call information, along with the Book Spotlight, “The Truths We Hold” with a short summary.
I hope you enjoy the continued updates to the Friendship Chronicles As we continue striving in this 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
CHAPLAIN’S CORNER
My Friends, welcome to the Friendship Chronicles (FC). The definitive goal of the FC team, is to ensure that the great Brothers of Georgia are completely cognizant of all prominent activities the Brothers are engaging in, throughout Georgia. Brothers, it is known fact that Georgia leads the arenas of Omega. The FC is a significant asset to Sphere” attitude Some inspiration going forward: you don't have. what you don't know. you don't believe. don't sacrifice don't release hate you don't study. you don't start. leader, if you don't follow you don't serve
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.
Brother Mohandas Martin “Dino”
BOOK SPOTLIGHT
THE TRUTHS WE HOLD: An American Journey
Publisher’s Summary
From one of America’s most inspiring political leaders, a book about the core truths that unite us, and the shared values that will see us into the future.
Known for bringing a voice to the voiceless, Senator Kamala Harris is committed to speaking the truth. The daughter of immigrants, she was raised in a community that cared deeply about social justice and, growing up, Harris herself never hid her passion for doing what is right.
Throughout her career, from starting out as a prosecutor right up to her position as California’s Attorney General, and now as a US Senator, her hallmarks have been applying a holistic, data-driven approach to the thorniest issues, whether it’s taking on the big banks or rejecting stale ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric as presenting a series of false choices. Neither ‘tough’ nor ‘soft’ but smart on crime became her mantra. Being smart means learning the truths that can make us better as a community and supporting those truths with all our might.
Through the arc of her own life, Harris communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values and grapples with complex issues that affect America and the world at large, from health care and the new economy to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis, and accelerating inequality. By reckoning with the big challenges we face together, drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, Kamala Harris offers in The Truths We Hold a master class in problem solving, crisis management, and leadership in challenging times.
Scenes from GEORGIA
At Grand Conclave in Tampa
Joseph Moore
State Photographer
Colin Royal
4th Year English & Journalism, Economics Scholar Editor in Chief of the Maroon Tiger | MOREHOUSE
Brother Colin Royal (15-Psi-23) is a Senior at Morehouse College, where he is completing a double major in English and Journalism, as well as a minor in Economics – maintaining a 4.0 GPA. At Morehouse, he has been on both Honor Roll and Dean's list for the past six semesters and gained esteemed entry into Phi Beta Kappa during his junior year. He has received the Highest Academic Achievement Award for the past 3 years and has also been named a NIKE Scholar and Jordan Journalism Scholar. organizations such as the Morehouse Honors Program, Maroon Tiger (campus newspaper), among other social and community service organizations. His published works are plentiful, and he has reported on such events as the HBCU NY Classic and the 2024 Democratic National Convention. three-part article series on student voters, as well as various individual pieces relating to outside of the convention. In addition to his involvement on campus, Colin has garnered substantial professional experience. He has worked with multiple organizations including the National Association of Insurance Commissioners,
In Spring 2024 at the 87th 7th District Meeting in Biloxi, MS, Bro. Royal was inducted into the District Honor Society. Additionally, he previously served as Keeper of Records & Seal at Psi Chapter.
learned so much at Harvard Business Publishing. The company’s SOAR Internship Program taught me a lot about project management and the media industry. I relished the opportunity to work on a plethora of projects – some including generative AI, content curation, article production, and company specific initiatives. Living and working in Boston gave me great perspective, and it allowed me to further develop my future plans. I genuinely enjoyed my time with both the company and in the city, and I am grateful for the experience and opportunity.”
Introduction
By: Bro. Solomon Thomas
Anything worth doing in life is difficult. Would it be better if that was not the case? Perhaps. No difficulty means no struggling, and no struggling means no adaptation. From an evolutionary perspective, we would not be the kind of creatures we are today as our ancestors struggled with the environment and were forced to adapt. We also would not be the kind of adults we are from a developmental perspective, as the maturity and forward thinking that most of us have came to us at the cost of great pain and negative emotion during our upbringing. An alternative to seeking a world without stress and difficulty is turning into someone capable of managing the necessary suffering that leads to growth. What I want to walk through in this paper is a paradigm of stress and negative emotion that might provide the knowledge to make it easier to deal with these phenomena and thus facilitate learning and personality transformation.
What is Stress?
Stress is a pattern of nervous system activity that also has a subjective, experiential element. The pattern can be characterized by autonomic functioning such as increased heart rate, respiration, and perspiration. There is also an increase in adrenaline through the body which heightens attention and arousal. The purpose of a stress response is to prepare the body for quick exertions, perhaps in response to a danger in the environment. Short term stress can be helpful, but if prolonged, it can inhibit tissue repair and impair the body's ability to fight off infections. Stress in itself has a neutral valence. It is not like an emotion which can be regarded as either pleasant or painful. However, the stimuli that trigger stress can have a valence, and this is what typically colors the entire stressful/emotional episode as either positive or negative (1).
What Makes Something Stressful?
Stressful stimuli, or stressors, can be positive or negative, explicit or implicit, and they can be physical or psychological. In the realm of fitness, we commonly refer to physical exertion and resistance as ways to stress the body and muscles, driving growth and
durability. One trend in some spaces is the voluntary exposure to intense heat or cold which are also considered stressors. In the more psychological direction, events or objects can be stressful in that they indicate danger or uncertainty to us. Often, our own thoughts can make us stressed out, perhaps if we are anticipating something undesirable that is about to happen, or if we spend too much time dwelling on something that is unlikely to occur but has an emotionally intense grip on us. Our emotional thoughts serve the purpose of quickly analyzing the world and preparing our body to act (2). They can cause us unnecessary stress if there are too many false positive emotional signals, or if those signals manifest in an inappropriate or unhelpful manner.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a primary negative emotion that can coalesce with a stress response. Anxiety manifests in the face of novelty or unexpected danger, and it causes the body to freeze, become aroused and attentive, and then to engage in exploratory behavior. Imagine that you have an internal model of how you desire the world to be. When you walk outside to your car, you want it to be there. When you start the car, you want it to start successfully. As you drive to work, you do not want your tire to burst and go fat. Now, as you act in the world, you also develop a model of what is actually happening as you make inferences from the sense data you gather. As long as your internal model and external model are in agreement (i.e. I expect my car to be in my driveway... I also see my car in my driveway), you have no anxiety. However, if there is an incongruence between your models, then you're anxious, and you freeze. Anxiety signals, "You don't have a good map of the territory, and one wrong step can be fatal" (3).
What are Fear and Frustration?
Anxiety can manifest across a few different patterns. One is fear. Fear is the feeling you get as you anticipate having to endure something painful or punishing (4). Fear is what you feel when you have a big workout, and you know it is going to produce much internal suffering. It is what we felt as children when we did something wrong while our parents were at work and then we heard their car pull up in the driveway. Fear highlights the freezing aspect of anxiety, as it generally inhibits all other forms of behavior. Another pattern of anxiety is frustration, which is very much like disappointment. It is what you feel when you are expecting something good to happen, but it ends up not occurring. Frustration is not generally associated with freezing. Quite the opposite, animals tend towards some form of active avoidance when they are frustrated.
How Does Managing Expectations Help to Reduce Anxiety?
If we can reduce anxiety, then we can reduce the forms of stress associated with negative emotion. Part of controlling anxiety involves managing your expectations, or, in other words, regulating your model of the internal world (5). The first step in doing this is making your model as explicit to yourself as possible. There is no difference between laying out your desires (your internal model) and laying out your goals. So, if you find yourself anxious at work or in your family life, you may want to consider explicating your desires precisely. If your desires are unconscious, but they are still unmet, you can still become anxious. After some exploration, you may find that you cannot think of any goals. Some would think that this means no anxiety, as there are no expectations to be unmet, right? Perhaps, but perhaps not. A goal helps us orient ourselves in the world. Once we set a goal, we begin to categorize the world as tools, rewards, or things to approach on one hand, and obstacles, punishers, or things to avoid on the other. The latter is indicated to us by negative emotion (6). If we have no goal, and if we are a little more biased to the negative than the positive, then the world may lay itself out as a place filled with obstacles, which is not helpful if we are trying to reduce stress.
Give Yourself Grace
We often set too high of a goal. If you expect perfection, you will never receive that signal from the sense data you collect, therefore you will be perpetually let down and anxious. Part of the practice of goal setting is aiming at a target that you can actually hit. This requires a high level of humility and awareness as you acknowledge your limitations. Setting a target, or managing your expectations, in a manner that is motivating and enables forward progress also helps bring about positive emotion, particularly in the form of incentive reward which is the kind of positive emotion that pushes you forward.
Give Yourself Something to Work Towards
Now, this incentive reward will not manifest if you set your goal too low. If you set an expectation that has already been met, then there will be no struggling, no forward movement, and no adaptation. The stagnation that comes from not making progress has its own form of negative emotion and stress. As the environment continues to change around you, your inability to adapt will impair your capacity to match your internal model with the ever-changing external model. One may be tempted to deliberately confine one's self to an unchanging, safe environment such as one's bedroom, but then they would be an agoraphobic. Unless you want that, you need to grow, and this means you must learn how to set goals and expectations that are both feasible enough for actual attainment and difficult enough to force maturity and learning.
Practical Tips for Managing Stress and Anxiety
Set a clear, specific, time-bound goal, one that you actually want to do. Make a plan, down to the micro-habits that will lead to your success. Set up a tracker, maybe even with a friend, so that accountability and transparency can serve as guardrails to keep you on the path. Finally, confront those uncertainties, disappointments, and frightening moments voluntarily. Voluntary confrontation with stressors trigger a less detrimental and less damaging response compared to involuntary encounters with the same stressors (7). Accept the difficulties of your path with enthusiasm. View the pitfalls and obstacles as opportunities to grow.
Conclusion
There is no avoiding stress. Attempts to avoid stress in the short-term often lead to involuntary confrontation with stress in the long-term. The way to tackle most things that frighten or threaten us is through direct exposure. The less we know, and the more we run away from that which grips us emotionally, the more anxious we become. The more anxious we are, the more we view the world to be a dangerous place, and the more we view ourselves as incapable of dealing with the danger. If we perceive the world as always dangerous, then we must always be on edge, ready to fight for our lives, and thus we are always stressed. If you want to control your anxiety, then set a goal, make a plan, track your habits, modify your goal as needed, and voluntarily confront that which you least want to.
References
1. Gray, J. A. (1987). The Psychology of Fear and Stress. Cambridge University Press
2. Rolls, E. T. (1999). The Brain and Emotion. Oxford Union Press
3. Hirsh, J. B., Mar, R. A., & Peterson, J. B. (2012). Psychological entropy: a framework for understanding uncertainty-related anxiety. Psychological review, 119(2), 304–320. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026767
4. LeDoux, J. (1996). The Emotional Brain. Simon & Schuster.
5. Parr, T., & Pezzulo, G., & Friston, K. J. (2022). Active Inference. MIT Press
6. Gibson, J.J. (2015). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Psychology Press.
7. Svensson, M., Rosvall, P., Boza-Serrano, A., Andersson, E., Lexell, J., & Deierborg, T. (2016). Forced treadmill exercise can induce stress and increase neuronal damage in a mouse model of global cerebral ischemia. Neurobiology of stress, 5, 8–18. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2016.09.002 If you enjoyed this piece and are interested in supporting this work, please consider becoming a free subscriber, where weekly essays covering culture, psychology, and philosophy are posted:
ImperfectJourney.substack.com
THE LEADER SHIP TORCH
Micah Hargrove
Chi Epsilon Chapter City of Atlanta
LeKobee Elam
Zeta Delta Delta Chapter
Blythe Construction
Keiton Robinson
Kappa Kappa Chapter Critter Fixer
Veterinary Hospital
HOLD HIGH THE LEADER SHIP TORCH
Omega KAA Chapter helps at the Juneteenth Health Resource Block Party
By: Bro. Clarence Pittman | DeKalb County, GA
June 19, 2024 – About the crack of dawn, Chapter brothers parked a mobile grill in the designated area of downtown Atlanta to help with this Block Party led by partner FLOWING WITH BLESSINGS, Inc. to serve 150 homeless.
Going into its third year, FLOWING WITH BLESSINGS has provided a mobile shower unit for unhoused community members. On this Holiday, KAA helped them with serving 160 pounds of grilled chicken plates along with donating over 500 new and gently used garments, including new shoes, polo shirts, pants, and beautiful suits to be worn for job interviews.
On the scene also was the Shearz Institute, which set-up a team of barbers, beauticians, cosmetologists, nail techs, and an esthetician for skin care. Additionally, a yellow school bus, converted into a mobile laundry unit with 13 washers and dryers, was humming a nice sound cleaning clothes. Health services were available that included a Morehouse School of Medicine van with medical specialists, and CenterWell Senior Primary Care with teams conducting on-site lab work, emotional and social wellness checks, and other resources. And several other vendors contributed hygiene kits, free phones, and other giveaways. Last, but not least, a DJ was harmonizing upbeat music into the buzzing atmosphere.
KAA Bro Bodae Vogt, the social action committee chair, was able to make one of his dreams become a reality as he led his team to feed and clothe the homeless. After Bodae shared his vision with KAA Bro Jamaal Green, he was introduced to Christina Moss who is one of the founders with FLOWING WITH BLESSINGS. “I expressed my vision and she felt that it will be a great fit for us to partner together for this Juneteenth event. We agreed that it will be good for us to assist in providing clothing and nourishment for the event,” said Bro Vogt.
Juneteenth celebrates the event in June 1865, several months after the Civil War ended, when Blacks enslaved in Galveston, Texas, were notified that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation freed enslaved Black people in the states that had joined the Confederacy.
Besides the brothers, numerous D9 members, many vendors, and community members participated on Juneteenth, including a WXIA-TV / 11Alive, Atlanta, reporter who publicized the humanitarian actions.
As everyone is aware, when a man, woman, or child gets a haircut, beauty care, showers, slips on clean clothes, and has a meal … it is so refreshing and such a great feeling. KAA, also led by Basileus Tim Roberson and Vice Basileus Clint Raines, assuredly contributed a little solace for humanity on Juneteenth.
ETA OMICRON & CHI EPSILON Making Local Headlines
By: Bro. Dr. John Williams | Albany, GA
On May 25th, the brothers of Eta Omicron and Chi Epsilon partnered with the Dougherty County Coroner, Michael Fowler, and his office to ensure that the youth of our county are offered swimming lessons to reduce the drowning deaths that occur each year, especially during the summer months. This year, the chapter gave a $500 donation to the program to help purchase swimsuits and supplies for those in need. We were also featured on the WALB News 10 Evening Broadcast. This annual event has become a key summer partnership.
On June 22nd, brothers partnered with CareSource for their “Paint the State Purple” event where we unloaded and passed out food to the community. The organization was grateful for our service and featured us on their social media and other organization communications.
Chi Gamma Gamma Brother George White, Ph.D.
Multifaceted Professional & Humanitarian Leadership
2024 Hampton University Alumni of the Year
By: Bro. Edward Reynolds Davis Jr. | XGG News Service
The year 1957 brought three significant landmark events to the metropolis of Washington, D.C. It was the year Washington, D.C. became the first major city in the United States with a majority African-American population.
It was the year that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous Give Us the Ballot speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1957, on the third anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, when he passionately declared, “Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights.”
And in 1957, exactly a week before the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Lord introduced to the world Chi Gamma Gamma Brother George White PhD., who grew up in the southeast quadrant of the city. It was near the end of the Great Migration that brought thousands of black people to D.C. and gave rise to a paradigm shift in black consciousness, second only to the Harlem Renaissance three decades prior. He was a former prep football star in the metro area known as the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia), and following the mood of black awareness and self-determination he took his talents to Hampton University.
A football injury short-circuited his college football career, leaving him to pursue other options. He chose one of the most challenging majors –physics, and then he saddled up on a horse called Aspirations and became a dynamic and innovative student later that has carried him through life.
His achievements led to his receiving the 2024 Hampton University Alumni Distinguished Service Award. The distinguished Hampton University alumni recognition is given to one who has achieved professional excellence and made significant contributions to their local and global communities.
Indeed, Brother White’s multi-faceted leadership as Senior Director for Strategic Partnerships in the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research at Georgia Tech and as a champion of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), typifies Hampton’s tradition of excellence. He has brought esteemed credit to the university by his personal accomplishment, professional achievement, and humanitarian service. When he first got to Hampton, his commitment to football didn’t leave room for anything else. But as the proverbial saying goes when God closes one door, he opens another. He said the new time on his hands gave an “opportunity to see who was bringing what to the table.”
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. captured his attention first. There was no second or third. The choice of pledging Omega was “an easy one,” said Brother White.
“I went to only one smoker I saw the big brothers on campus and the way they collaborated, and the fraternity spirit they showed. I said, ‘I’d love to be a part of that.’ “I did my homework and met the brothers on-the-yard,” he said.
Brother White was initiated into Omega Psi Phi on April 8, 1978, into the fraternity through the Gamma Epsilon Chapter, and later became Chapter Basileus.
“After I got engaged (in student affairs) I got more involved in campus leadership. Omega helped. It gave me confidence to go out there and be a leader. The Brothers recognized (his leadership acumen) more than I did.
After graduating from Hampton Institute, George enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he pursued both a master’s and PhD in Metallurgical and Materials Science Engineering. He became the first African American in the Big Ten to be awarded a PhD in Metallurgical Engineering. He served as the graduate advisor to the Pi Psi Chapter of the Omega Psi Phi. He also received the first UIUC Black Graduate Student Association, Outstanding Graduate Award.
His service at Hampton did not stop after earning his advanced degrees. He co-led efforts to establish the Gamma Epsilon Alumni Association (GEAA) as the first Greek letter Affinity Group on the campus of Hampton University. While serving as its first president, GEAA raised over $200K in scholarship monies for deserving Hampton students.
Today, Brother White serves as the National Hampton Alumni Association, Atlanta Chapter president. Under his administration membership has quadrupled with the number of paid members nearing 280 members, making it the largest chapter in the National Hampton Alumni Association (NHAA). He has helped to establish over a dozen working committees and initiatives, dedicated to supporting both students and alumni of Hampton University.
Brother White’s extensive humanitarian is powered by extraordinary career successes. He has authored and/or co-authored over 200 papers, journals and conference proceedings. He holds over 30 U.S and International patents in microelectronics and is a recognized expert in advanced electronic packaging.
Prior to his current position with Georgia Tech, as a visiting scholar he founded his first start-up, Jacket Micro Devices (JMD). He and his team raised over $25M to establish JMD and delivered the first fully integrated all organic dual band integrated passive device and module for WLAN (802.11a, b, g) and WiMax (802.16e) applications to the Intel corporation. He was named the American Electronics Association (AeA) Technology Innovator of the Year. He subsequently sold JMD to the AVX Corporation, where several electronic products are currently being manufactured with his Technology.
More recently he has established the HBCU Chips Network, a consortium of over 25 HBCUs and HBCCs whose focus is to collaborate and pursue CHIPS and Science Act funding while creating an inclusive next-generation workforce to help reshore US semiconductor manufacturing.
Brother White and his wife Kim, a native of Cincinnati and an alumna of Prairie View A&M University, are the proud parents of two sons: Adrien a graduate of Hampton University with a BS in Marketing and a MS in Sports Marketing from the University of Oregon, and Alexander who is currently at Kennesaw State pursuing a BS degree.
61st Georgia State Meeting
HOST CHAPTERS:
October 3rd 6th, 2024
