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Post by Vudu_Prince on Jul 3, 2008 13:48:13 GMT -5
I'll Start it off Edward P. Hurt bigtime Track and Field and Football Coach of Morgan State University. He was like the Up North Eddie Robinson  |
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Post by tremab on Jul 3, 2008 14:17:26 GMT -5
 Bro. Harold Washington. Destroyed and rebuilt the political game in the Windy City. Nowadays, Sen. Obama cites him as one of his primary influences to enter politics. |
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Post by tremab on Jul 3, 2008 14:23:29 GMT -5
 sure, lots of folk know Bro. Huey P. Newton pledged Sigma... but did you know that Bro. Bobby Seale helped bring him in? |
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Post by huey on Jul 3, 2008 16:30:59 GMT -5
sure, lots of folk know Bro. Huey P. Newton pledged Sigma... but did you know that Bro. Bobby Seale helped bring him in? ah, so it is true. i talked to another Sigma a while ago on this board and i couldn't get a confirmation on whether Seale was a member. Even though Seize the Time wasn't necessarily a full auto-biography, he never mentioned it as Huey did in his. |
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Post by tremab on Jul 3, 2008 20:00:48 GMT -5
it is, indeed, true...
i'll see if i can find the photos from the recent event at HU where he spoke, Alpha chapter bros hosted...
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Post by inquisitive1906 on Jul 3, 2008 23:10:09 GMT -5
Disclaimer: All of our Brothers are famous!!!!!  Ok, a few of our "little known" Alpha Brothers......................... Bro. Wayne Embry, who was the First African-American NBA General President. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Embry Bro. William Packer & Bro. Rob Hardy, Owners of Rainforest Films www.rainforestfilms.com/index.html Bro. Fritz Pollard, The First NFL Head Coach. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Pollard Bro. Charles H.Houston, Noted Civil Rights Attourney en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hamilton_HoustonBro. Eric Jerome Dickey, Author www.ericjeromeDickey.com/ Bro. John Hope, First African-American President of Morehouse College en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hope_%28educator%29 Bro. Frederick D. Patterson, Founder of the United Negro College Fund en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_D._Patterson Bro. Jamar White & Bro. Derek Fordjour, Producers of the Black Sorority Project www.blacksororityproject.com/Bro. Stan Verrett, ESPN News Anchor en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Verrett Bro. Garrett A. Morgan, Inventor of the Traffic Light, Gas Mask, etc. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_A._Morgan Bro. Wyatt Tee Walker, Founder SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyatt_Tee_Walker Bro.Lloyd L. Gaines, Central Figure of the Demise of Separate but Equal Practices. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_L._Gaines ...................... just to name a few |
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Post by tremab on Jul 3, 2008 23:41:20 GMT -5
VP...did you mean famous members of NPHC organizations that aren't widely-known or recognize as being members of their specific organization? or locally famous folks?
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Post by Vudu_Prince on Jul 4, 2008 18:11:30 GMT -5
Any of the above. Starting it up again Brooklyn Dodger JOE BLACK is the BRUHZ shown here in a Baltimore Uniform  |
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Post by naijaqueen06 on Jul 4, 2008 21:01:21 GMT -5
hmmm I didnt know that Eric Jerome was an Alpha...I absolutely love him!
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Post by what on Jul 4, 2008 21:03:04 GMT -5
heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, where have you been naija! |
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Post by naijaqueen06 on Jul 4, 2008 23:57:55 GMT -5
u know work has got me tiiiiiied down! workin with highschool kids is tiring!
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Post by what on Jul 5, 2008 0:04:02 GMT -5
who are you tellin'?! lol I'm about to quit teaching....fa real
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Post by tremab on Jul 5, 2008 12:57:44 GMT -5
admittedly, this is a lot to read, but it's worth it...very inspirational...
SIGMA Bro. Hosea Williams (1926-2000)
initiated into Zeta Chapter
Hosea
Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hosea Williams
Williams, a former aide to Martin Luther King Jr., was a principal leader of the civil rights movement. Renowned for his militancy and his ability to organize demonstrations and mobilize protesters, he was arrested more than 125 times. Williams helped coordinate the 1965 protest march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery, served as pastor of King's People's Church of Love, and was executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He also took on more traditional governmental roles: he served in the Georgia General Assembly from 1974 to 1985, on the Atlanta City Council from 1985 to 1990, and as a DeKalb County commissioner from 1990 to 1994.
Hosea Lorenzo Williams was born on January 5, 1926, in Attapulgus, in Decatur County. His teenage parents were unmarried. They were also blind and had been committed to a trade institute for the blind in Macon. Because his mother ran away from the institute upon learning of her pregnancy, Williams never knew his father. His mother died while giving birth to her second child, and Williams was raised in Attapulgus by his maternal grandparents, Lela and Turner Williams. Nearly lynched because of his alleged involvement with a white girl, Williams left home at the age of fourteen. He held menial jobs for several years until he enlisted in the U.S. Army at the outset of World War II (1941-45) and served in an all-black unit attached to General George Patton's Third Army. Severely wounded in battle, which earned him a Purple Heart and left him with a permanent limp, Williams spent a year in a military hospital in Europe.
Upon his return to Georgia and civilian life, Williams completed the requirements for a high school diploma at the age of twenty-three. He enrolled at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, with the aid of the G.I. Bill, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. After completing a master's degree in chemistry from Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University), Williams became a chemist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Savannah. In 1976 he founded the Southeast Chemical Manufacturing and Distributing Company, which specialized in cleaning supplies. Over the years Williams founded three more chemical companies and a bonding company. In the early 1950s he married Juanita Terry, with whom he had five children and adopted four more.
In the 1950s and early 1960s Williams encountered his share of racism. He spent five weeks in the hospital after being beaten for drinking from a "whites only" water fountain at a bus station in Americus, and he was fired from the Department of Agriculture in 1963 for speaking out against racist policies (he was reinstated through an appeals process but resigned later that year).
After
Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hosea Williams
his children were refused sodas at a segregated lunch counter in Savannah in the early 1960s, Williams devoted himself fully to the cause of civil rights. He joined the Savannah chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as vice president under W. W. Law. Williams led marches and sit-ins to protest segregation. As a result of his efforts, Savannah was the first city in Georgia with desegregated lunch counters. He also helped to integrate the Nancy Hanks, the South's first passenger train, and the public beach on Tybee Island. In 1962 King acknowledged Williams's role in making Savannah the most integrated city in the South. Williams resigned from the NAACP that same year, after learning that his candidacy for the national board of directors had been rejected.
In the summer of 1961 Williams took part in the campaign to register voters, and in 1963 he led protests by the Chatham County Crusade for Voters. He was arrested after several white citizens swore out peace warrants against him. Williams was jailed for sixty-five days, the longest continuous sentence served by any of the civil rights leaders. During the riots that followed his arrest, the Sears and Firestone stores in Savannah were burned. Led by Mills B. Lane Jr., president of Citizens and Southern Bank, prominent white Savannahians, fearing for their city, formed a "Committee of 100" to secure Williams's release and to work on completing the desegregation of the city.
It was also in 1963 that Williams joined the SCLC at the urging of King, the organization's president. Two years later King asked Williams and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to lead a march from Selma, Alabama, to the state's capital, Montgomery. The goal of the march was to peacefully deliver to Alabama governor George C. Wallace a petition for African American voting rights. The protest on March 7, 1965, became known as "Bloody Sunday" after several hundred marchers were beaten with clubs and whips and fired upon with tear gas while crossing Selma's Edmund Pettis Bridge. After watching national television coverage of the incident, U.S. president Lyndon Johnson forced the Voting Rights Act through Congress in August 1965.
Williams continued his close association and friendship with King and was at his side when King was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Williams held several positions within the SCLC. He was special projects director from 1963 to 1970, national program director from 1967 to 1969, and regional vice president from 1970 to 1971. He also served as national executive director
Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hosea Williams
from 1969 to 1971 and again from 1977 to 1979, when he was removed by then-president Joseph Lowery, who accused Williams of not devoting his full attention to the position.
In 1971, while he was still serving the SCLC, Williams founded in Atlanta the Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless program, which he ran for thirty years. The program continues under the direction of his daughter, Elizabeth Williams Omilami, and provides thousands of people with food, medical attention, and clothing. In 1984 he founded the annual Sweet Auburn Heritage Festival to celebrate and revitalize the Sweet Auburn historic district.
In 1968 Williams entered the political arena. That year he ran unsuccessfully for the Georgia House of Representatives. He switched to the Republican Party and lost the race for the secretary of state's office in 1970. Returning to the Democratic Party, he lost the U.S. Senate primary in 1972 and the Atlanta mayoral primary the following year. But Williams's persistence paid off, and in 1974 he was elected as a Democratic senator to the state senate, where he served until 1985, when he resigned to run again for the U.S. Senate. Williams lost to Wyche Fowler but was elected the same year to the Atlanta City Council, on which he served for five years. Williams lost the 1989 mayor's race to Maynard Jackson and was subsequently elected to the DeKalb County Commission, where he served until 1994. Juanita Williams, Hosea's wife, was elected to fill her husband's former seat in the Georgia legislature. An activist, educator, and writer, she served four terms; she was the first black woman to run for public office in Georgia since Reconstruction, and the first black woman to run for statewide office.
In 1987
Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hosea Williams
Williams received international attention when he led two marches in all-white Forsyth County to confront the Ku Klux Klan. The "Brotherhood March" was planned to honor Martin Luther King Jr. on the observance of the national King holiday. During the first march on January 17, Williams and 75 supporters were confronted by 400-500 Klan members and sympathizers who broke through police lines throwing rocks and bottles. Public outrage was such that on the following weekend, Williams led 20,000 marchers, including Coretta Scott King, Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, Colorado senator Gary Hart, and activist Jesse Jackson, protected by more than 2,000 National Guardsmen and police, in what became the state's largest civil rights demonstration. Williams gave Forsyth County a list of demands that included fair employment, the return of property lost when blacks were expelled from the county by the Klan in 1912, and a biracial council. A jury later awarded $950,000 to the marchers in a class action suit filed by Williams against the Klan.
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Post by tremab on Jul 5, 2008 13:03:11 GMT -5
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Post by Vudu_Prince on Jul 5, 2008 13:33:15 GMT -5
Z. ALEXANDER LOOBY (1899-1972)  Longest standing Grand Basileus in the history of Omega Psi Phi 1940-1945Zephaniah Alexander Looby, the son of John Alexander and Grace Elizabeth (Joseph) Looby, was born in Antigua, British West Indies, on April 8, 1899. After the death of his father, young Looby departed for the United States, arriving by 1914. Looby received a bachelor's degree from Howard University, a Bachelor of Law degree from Columbia University, and a Doctor of Juristic Science from New York University. In 1926, the year that he received the doctorate, he came to Fisk University as assistant professor of economics and remained until 1928. Later he served brief periods as a lecturer at Fisk University and Meharry College. In 1929, Looby was admitted to the Tennessee bar. He practiced law in Memphis for the next three years and met a school teacher named Grafta Mosby, whom he married in 1934. Unwilling "to pay the moral price" demanded of Memphis' attorneys and "Boss" Edward H. Crump, Looby returned to Nashville. He helped to found the Kent College of Law, Nashville's first law school for blacks since the old Central Tennessee College's department of law (1877-1911). When the Negro civil rights movements of World War Two began, Looby became the local leader. From 1943 to 1945, he presided over the James C. Napier Bar Association. He ran for the city council in 1940, although a white opponent beat him in a runoff election. In 1946, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hired Looby, Maurice Weaver, and Thurgood Marshall to represent the blacks of Columbia, Tennessee, who were charged with murder following recent race riots in that town. Looby's legal defense helped acquit twenty-three of the defendants. He criss-crossed the state in the company of other black lawyers, arguing against Jim Crowism and discrimination. Looby is credited with desegregating the Nashville Airport's dining room and the city's non-private golf courses. Soon after the momentous U. S. Supreme Court decision of Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), Looby filed a suit against the local public schools on behalf of A. Z. Kelly, a barber, whose son Robert was denied access to a nearby white school. During the sit-in demonstrations and civil rights marches of the 1960s, Looby and other black attorneys provided money and legal services for local college students who were arrested and jailed. On April 19, 1960, his Meharry Boulevard home was destroyed by dynamite. Looby viewed politics as a way to change an oppressive system. In 1951, he and fellow attorney Robert E. Lillard became the first blacks to be elected to the city council since 1911. In 1962, he ran for a seat on the Tennessee Supreme Court but lost. In 1963, Looby became a member of the Metropolitan Charter Commission. In 1971, he retired after serving on the old city council and the new Metropolitan Council for a combined total of twenty years. Z. Alexander Looby died on March 24, 1972. On October 8, 1982, the Nashville Bar Association, whose white members had denied Alexander Looby's membership application in the 1950s, posthumously granted a certificate of membership in his name. His contributions to Afro-American Nashville are recognized in the Z. Alexander Looby Library and Community Center erected by the city on Metro Center Boulevard. |
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Post by Worthy Most Ancient Matron on Jul 5, 2008 21:09:04 GMT -5
Bro. Maynard Jackson/Former Mayor of ATL
Bro. Andrew Young/Former Mayor of ATL
Bro. David Patterson/1st Black Governor of NY
Bro. Emmanuel Lewis/Actor
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Post by frozenmenace on Jul 5, 2008 22:43:54 GMT -5
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Post by sigmapoodle on Jul 5, 2008 22:52:46 GMT -5
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Post by grits n gravy on Jul 5, 2008 22:56:18 GMT -5
Now this is good stuff!
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Post by tremab on Jul 6, 2008 16:56:14 GMT -5
 SIGMA's longest serving President: 1926-1934 Arthur Wergs Mitchell (December 22, 1883 - May 9, 1968) was a U.S. Representative from Illinois. Mitchell was the first African American to be elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat. Mitchell was born near Lafayette, Alabama. He left home at 14 to go to the Tuskegee Institute. He worked on a farm and as an office boy to Booker T. Washington while attending the institute. Mitchell attended Columbia University briefly and qualified for the bar. He then moved to Chicago, Illinois and began to work for the Republican Party. Mitchell switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party after finding that his views on issues aligned himself closer to the Democrats. Mitchell was elected to the House of Representatives in 1934, defeating African American congressman Oscar De Priest. Mitchell introduced bills banning lynching and against discrimination. He filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Central and Rock Island Railroads after he was forced into a segregated train car just before it passed into Arkansas. Mitchell's suit was advanced to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the railroad violated the Interstate Commerce Act. He voluntarily chose not to seek re-election in 1942. He moved to Petersburg, Virginia and farmed twelve acres (49,000 m²) of property in his retirement. |
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Post by ClassyZeta on Jul 6, 2008 17:12:11 GMT -5
SOROR CYNTHIA WILLARD-LEWIS New Orleans City Council Member Councilmember Willard-Lewis was Louisiana State Representative for District 100 since 1993, prior to her election to the Council in October 2000. Then, as now, she is recognized as an aggressive legislator for children and for the rights of the elderly, and for her passionate and effective voice for women and the disadvantaged. A former Miss Black New Orleans and Miss Black Louisiana, she was first runner-up in the Miss Black America pageant. |
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Post by Blu on Jul 6, 2008 17:30:12 GMT -5
 Brother Dr. Georg Iggers was a German born native and possibly the first white member initiated into Phi Beta Sigma. His family fled Nazi Germany when he was 12 years old when the German army began rounding up Jewish citizens to put them in concentration camps. He became involved in Civil Rights in the 40's while attending college in Virginia. Dr. Iggers was involved with the Civil Rights movement in the United States and has been an active member of the NAACP since the 1940's. He became a member of Phi Beta Sigma in 1954 at Philander Smith College. In the 1950s, he spearheaded and co-funded the precedent-setting legal challenge to the Board of Education of Little Rock, Ark., beginning a grass-roots resistance to racism that marked a milestone in the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Dr. Iggers was also instrumental in the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. As a writer and orator for both the past East and West Berlin his influence is a part of what caused the wall to come down. |
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Post by coldfront06 on Jul 6, 2008 17:35:35 GMT -5
Herman Branson Beta Gamma Chapter:
President of Central State University and Lincoln University; Co-discoverer of the Alpha helix; Sickle cell physicist
Thomas W. Cole, Jr. Alpha Sigma Chapter:
First President of Clark Atlanta University, President of West Virginia State University, Interim Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Amherst
Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Delta Zeta Lambda:
Chief Justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court; South Carolina House of Representatives; Interim President of South Carolina State University
Norman Francis Sigma Lambda:
President of Xavier University; President of Louisiana Recovery Authority; 2006 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient
John Hope Eta Lambda Chapter:
First Black President of Morehouse College; President of Atlanta University; Co-founder of the Niagara Movement and NAACP; 4th President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH); 1936 Spingarn Medal recipient
Frederick D. Patterson:
Third President Tuskegee University; Co-founder of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF); 1987 Presidential Medal of Freedom and 1988 Spingarn Medal recipient
Henry Ponder Beta Kappa:
President of Talladega College, Fisk University and Benedict College; 28th General President of Alpha Phi Alpha; vice-chairman World Policy Council
Kelly Miller Beta
Mathematician; First Black admitted to Johns Hopkins University; Author of Out of the House of Bondage
Samuel Pierce Alpha Chapter:
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Martin Luther King Jr. and the New York Times in the important First Amendment case styled New York Times v. Sullivan; first African-American to serve on the Board of Directors of a Fortune 500 company
Drew Watkins Beta Chapter:
Producer, Inside the NBA; 2-time Emmy Award winner
Rayford Logan Omicron Chapter:
First Executive Director of the National Urban League; Member of President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet; 2nd Executive Director of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH); 1980 Spingarn Medal recipient; 15th General President of Alpha Phi Alpha
Joe Rogers Omicron Tau Chapter:
Lieutenant Governor of Colorado
Samuel L. Gravely, Jr. Gamma
First African American Admiral, United States Navy; First African American to command a U.S. fleet.
Henry Minton Zeta Omicron Lambda:
Co-founder of Sigma Pi Phi fraternity; co-founder of Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia; 1891 Valedictorian of Phillips Exeter Academy
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Post by ClassyZeta on Jul 6, 2008 17:39:47 GMT -5
Soror Violette Anderson Born in 1882, Soror Anderson became the first African American woman attorney admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court on January 29, 1920. To go along with this historic accomplishment, not only was Soror Anderson the first African American woman to practice law in the U.S. District Court Eastern Division, but she was also the first female city prosecutor in Chicago, Illinois. She was a member of the Zeta Zeta Chapter in Chicago, Illinois. In addition to being a well-accomplished woman at law, she was elected Grand Basileus of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. in 1933, and served as Grand Basileus from 1933-1937. |
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Post by tremab on Jul 6, 2008 17:39:56 GMT -5
BLU...a little known fact about Bro. Iggers...
in the mid 70's he was offered an honorary doctorate from his alumna mater, the University of Richmond...
he turned it down because he felt they still practiced racist and discriminatory admissions practices.
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Post by Blu on Jul 6, 2008 17:43:23 GMT -5
 Robert Russa Moton (August 26, 1867 - May 31, 1940) was an African American educator and author. He served as an administrator at Hampton Institute and was named principal of Tuskegee Institute in 1915 after the death of Dr. Booker T. Washington, a position he held for 20 years until retirement in 1935. |
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Post by Blu on Jul 6, 2008 17:50:43 GMT -5
BLU...a little known fact about Bro. Iggers... in the mid 70's he was offered an honorary doctorate from his alumna mater, the University of Richmond... he turned it down because he felt they still practiced racist and discriminatory admissions practices. Very interesting |
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Post by Blu on Jul 6, 2008 17:51:54 GMT -5
 Alain LeRoy Locke (September 13, 1885 – June 9, 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. He is best known for his writings on and about the Harlem Renaissance. He is unofficially called the "Father of the Harlem Renaissance." His philosophy served as a strong motivating force in keeping the energy and passion of the Movement at the forefront |
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Post by Worthy Most Ancient Matron on Jul 6, 2008 18:30:49 GMT -5
 Edward K. (Duke) Ellington Born: 1899 Died: 1974 Born 29 April 1899 in Washington DC, composer, bandleader, and pianist Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington was recognized in his lifetime as one of the greatest jazz composers and performers. Nicknamed "Duke" by a boyhood friend who admired his regal air, the name stuck and became indelibly associated with the finest creations in big band and vocal jazz. A genius for instrumental combinations, improvisation, and jazz arranging brought the world the unique "Ellington" sound that found consummate expression in works like "Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated Lady," and the symphonic suites Black, Brown, and Beige (which he subtitled "a Tone Parallel to the History of the Negro in America") and Harlem ("a Tone Parallel to Harlem"). |
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Post by Worthy Most Ancient Matron on Jul 6, 2008 18:34:34 GMT -5
 Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr. (March 23, 1938 – June 23, 2003) was an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and the first African American and arguably most popular and respected mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. He served three terms, two consecutive terms from 1974 until 1982 and a third term from 1990 to 1994. Jackson became the first African-American mayor of Atlanta in the same week that Coleman Young became the first African-American mayor of Detroit. |
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