LOOK BACK KAPPA HISTORY
Indiana University Provost Rahul Shrivastav poses with Grand Polemarch Jimmy McMikle with the unveiled portrait of Founder Elder Watson Diggs.
recorded as being illiterate. Diggs was undeterred by facing the circumstance and actively worked to change the paradigm of those statistics. HONING HIS SKILL Around the turn of the century, Diggs left working in the railroad and coal mine industries and concentrated on his efforts to become a teacher. He served as a teacher and principal at various elementary schools. To perfect and authenticate his craft, Diggs continued his education, briefly attending State University in Louis- ville, Kentucky (a predecessor of what is now Simmons College of Kentucky), followed by Indiana State Normal School (now Indiana State Univer- sity), Terre Haute, Indiana, where he
received formal training as a teacher, and graduated in 1908. He was one of two Black males in his graduating class. The teacher’s certificate increased his earning potential and enabled him to be licensed to teach throughout Indiana. He continued his education, initially at Howard University (1909- 1910), then transferred to Indiana University in the fall of 1910, where he became the first Black American to graduate with an A.B. degree from the institution’s School of Education in 1916. Diggs continued to work as an educator and principal at School #42 in Indianapolis, subsequently named in his honor. He took graduate courses during his summer breaks, earning his Master of Education from Indiana University in 1944.
While enrolled at IU as an under- graduate student, he found that the school’s academic rigor was not the only difficulty to overcome. Diggs found the limitations placed on him and other Black students placed an additional burden on them to over- come. On one occasion, he learned that a student had been told by his history professor that no Black student could earn an “A” in his course. He promptly enrolled and accomplished what had been said to be impossible. While navigating his coursework and working to support himself, Diggs led a group of nine other Black students to establish a fraternity under a common cause to relieve these issues. They founded Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity (initially
78 THE JOURNAL ♦ SUMMER 2023
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