LOOK BACK KAPPA HISTORY
Reflections of Early Conclaves
“... There was more intimacy at the Grand Chapter Meetings in the 1920s. That was mainly because of the organization’s youth and relatively small numbers. There was a feeling of very great kinship ...In the meetings, the meaning of brotherhood and fraternity was stressed. During the conclaves then, brothers stayed in private homes. Hotels in that time were set against us–in the north and the south. We never went in hotels for anything. In fact, most of the big colleges were not really open or receptive to Blacks. They tolerated us, of course, but it was nothing more than that.”
“Grand Chapter Meetings were also very festive occasions. All the boys managed to rent a suit or somebody in the family would give them a suit. There were only a few boys with enough money to get their own suit. The Black people then barely earned any money. If they earned as much as $5,000 or $6,000 a year, that was considered a lot of money. Also, there was a lot to consider in attending a Grand Chapter Meeting in those days … the ones that came didn’t stop at any restaurant along the way to eat. They would have to stop and ask someone, “Where can a colored man get something to eat?” You couldn’t just sit in any hotel the way they do now. The host chapter had a special committee to arrange housing for the members. People stayed in private homes and paid a few dollars a day to the hosts. That made it difficult for families and wives to attend in the manner they do in the contemporary times.”
I.J.K. WELLS, SR. (Epsilon 1918) was elected Grand Strategus at the 11th Grand Chapter Meeting [1921], offered his remembrances of early Conclaves
“At the 1930 Philadelphia Conclave, Kappa attendance was relatively small, with some chapters unable to meet their Grand Chapter payment—the beginning of much of the decade of the Stock Market crash [of October 1929] and economic depression effects ... The next year, 1932, attendance dropped to only 100 Kappa men, about as low as any of the Grand Chapters in the two preceding decades. This Conclave was held at West Virginia State College, Charleston ... In contrast, 449 Kappa men and their families gathered when the fraternity met the following year in Chicago. True, Chicago did also have the 1933 World’s Fair, and the fraternity met during [the] “fair time,” rather than the customary Christmas season.”
DR. PAUL P. COOKE (Xi 1935), 44th Laurel Wreath Laureate, on the Grand Chapter Meetings in the 1930s
“They were a much smaller event then; I think there were only 30 brothers or so at that Conclave. Conclaves in those days were very expensive things for most people to go to because not everyone had the money.”
DR. R. EUGENE CLARKE (Kappa 1919), a past member of the Grand Board of Directors and longtime member of the Cincinnati (OH) Alumni recalled the early Grand Chapter Meetings he attended, including his first in 1919 in Chicago
EARL B. DICKERSON (Beta 1913), 5th Grand Polemarch observed Grand Chapter Meetings in the 1920s
SPRING 2024 ♦ THE JOURNAL 37
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker