NATIONAL FOUNDERS’ DAY THE BAHAMAS
“THIS FRATERNITY IS MADE UP OF MEN WHO WERE MADE NOT TO SEEK OUT COMFORTABLE SPACES ...” - The Honorable Albert Bryan Jr., Governor , United States Virgin Islands.
commitment looks like. The evening was moving, carefully and deliberately, when Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford (Nu Alpha 1993) approached the podium. He was there to introduce Governor Albert Bryan Jr. (Mu Xi 1987) of the United States Virgin Islands. Governor Bryan could have recited his resume, spoken about rebuilding infrastructure after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, navigating his territory through the Covid-19 pandemic, and stabilizing a pension system weakened by decades of underinvestment. Instead, he began somewhere else entirely. “I just came from Africa,” he told the room. Brother Bryan described traveling to Ghana. Standing at the shoreline where enslaved Africans were processed through the Door of No Return. Looking into the water where heads had been shaved before forced departure into a world none of them had chosen. Then he shared what someone there had told him. “They took the best of you,” the voice had said. “And they took you to the West.” The ballroom went quiet. Brother Bryan’s message did not linger in the past. It moved quickly into the present. “The number one leading cause of death in the world is
access to clean water,” he said. “We urinate in clean water. That’s how rich we are.” The sentence landed with force, not because it was dramatic, but because it was true. The Kappa Men in the banquet hall—some who are first-generation professionals who are beneficiaries of sacrifices they themselves had witnessed—were being asked to reconsider what prosperity meant. Comfort, Brother Bryan suggested, is not simply a reward. “We spend our weekends watching Netflix and figuring out what to do next with idle time,” he continued, “when most of the world is trying to figure out what they’re going to eat next.” He did not accuse the members assembled of abandoning responsibil- ity. He reminded us of our inheritance and responsibility. “This fraternity is made up of men who were made not to seek out comfortable spaces,” he said. “This fraternity was made of men to create comfortable spaces for others.” Institutions like Kappa Alpha Psi were not founded to preserve status. They were founded to extend opportunity. Brother Bryan described a warning he had learned from a mentor he called his
personal guru: “Hard times make hard men, hard men make soft times, soft times make soft men, soft men make hard times.” The cycle is not theoretical. His own life provided the clearest exam- ple of what institutional patience looks like when it becomes political power. “It had taken twenty-three years,” he explained, “for a group of friends organizing together to move from community leadership into governing a territory.” Twenty-three years. “We can do it again collectively,” he proclaimed. By the time Grand Polemarch Jimmy McMikle stepped forward near the close of the evening, the room already understood what was coming next. “Put your phones away, there are no photos, there are no videos,” he thundered. “We’re going to secure the room.” Doors closed. Devices disap- peared. Conversation stopped. The Oath of Rededication and the Tribute to the Founders would follow. A living bridge between 1911 and the present moment. A reminder that our organization’s success spans more than a century, and its success is built on achievement. Brothers came to Nassau to celebrate our fraternity’s founding and left being reminded why it was founded. ♦
WINTER 2026-2026 ♦ THE JOURNAL 53
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