| As a youngster, I used to listen to my mother tell me | | | | University life at Cornell was difficult. More than |
| how she and her sister grew up in Ithaca, New York. | | | | the weather up there was cold. |
| She was always talking about how pretty it was and | | | | Anyway, my grandfather and six of his fellow |
| would go on and on about the Finger Lakes and | | | | students were successful in founding the first Greek |
| the mountains. It always seemed weird to me since I | | | | Letter Fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha in 1906. Back then |
| grew up in the segregated south. I knew about New | | | | Cornell was daunting; though admitted to study, it |
| York City (I thought that Harlem was the same as | | | | was clear that students of color did not really belong |
| New York back then) and Brooklyn because I had | | | | or feel welcome in the community. At the same time |
| heard that | | | | Greek Letter Fraternities were a key survival system |
| a lot of Black folks lived there. Back then I figured that | | | | for white men. They provided social bonding and |
| Black folks could not possibly live in places like that, | | | | academic support for their members. Logically enough, |
| living that close to white people and such. On top of | | | | Blacks could not join them back then. What |
| that it was too cold. Coming from Richmond, Virginia | | | | my grandfather and his friends, now affectionately |
| this all seemed too strange for me. I could not really | | | | and reverently known as the founding Jewels of Alpha |
| understand how Black folk could live that close to | | | | |
| white people. | | | | Phi Alpha, did must have been phenomenal. They |
| As my mother told me more, I learned that my | | | | were courageous enough to say that if we cannot join |
| grandfather, who died before I was born, won a | | | | |
| scholarship | | | | the fraternities that make you feel welcome and |
| to Cornell University back in the early 1900s. He | | | | supported at Cornell, then we need to form our own. |
| stayed up there and married a beautiful woman | | | | There |
| whose | | | | had been an earlier effort to start a fraternity at |
| family was one of the few Black families in town. | | | | Cornell for Black students that was unsuccessful, but |
| That was why my mother, the older of two sisters, | | | | my grandfather and his friends were committed |
| was | | | | enough to make their goal a reality regardless of the |
| born there in what I thought was a strange, far-away | | | | sacrifice. |
| land. And though she is dead now, the romantic visions | | | | Alpha Phi Alpha now has members worldwide and |
| | | | boasts in its membership so many accomplished |
| of this cold life in a small quaint college town remain | | | | Black men that it has truly set a proud tradition. There |
| imbued within me. | | | | is so much good that can be said for the organization |
| Her father faced many challenges as one of the very | | | | that this article certainly cannot do it justice. If any |
| few Black students at Cornell during that time. | | | | readers want to know more I would invite them to visit |
| Basically, all of the other Black students shared those | | | | |
| challenges as well. I learned that he bonded | | | | the Alpha Phi Alpha website, |
| with a number of them and decided to start a Greek | | | | In a twist of fate my grandfather seemed to have |
| Letter fraternity. It seems at that time there were | | | | deeply influenced my fate when my opportunity to |
| no fraternities for Black students and assimilation into | | | | attend college came. |