When was kappa alpha psi founded

A small donation would help us keep this accessible to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone! Harding, L. Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Previous Previous post: Birmingham Black Barons. The founders wanted a formula that would immediately raise the sights of Black collegians and stimulate them to accomplish higher than they might have imagined.

Fashioning achievement as its purpose, Kappa Alpha Psi set in motion an academic institution that would unite college men of culture, patriotism, and honor in a bond of fraternity.

Asanta and Mark T. They also limited dining options and enacted prohibitions on the manner in which black students were permitted to socialize. To address those concerns, many black students banded together, some organizing social clubs that mimicked the existing fraternities on campus. The following were some of the early attempts at the formation of social fraternities:.

Elder Watson Diggs, a native of Kentucky earned a bachelor's degree from Indiana State University in and enrolled at Howard University a year later to pursue graduate studies in education. His choice of institution may have been Howard's education program, coupled with his cousin, Lucy Diggs Slowe, a recent graduate, who remained in close proximity. In his second year, Diggs met Byron K. Armstrong, a native of Westfield, Indiana, who was pursuing a bachelor's degree.

In spring , Armstrong's cousin, Irven, had visited him from Indiana University. He and recruited his cousin to return home the following fall, which he did and Diggs followed suit. Diggs' decision to move was likely inspired by better prospects for teaching jobs in Indiana if he graduated from a school in state.

Three years before he had arrived, the Indiana state legislature had authorized its board of education to establish a normal primary school system throughout the state. Having adopted a motto which mutually suited them, they carried a sketch of the coat of arms to a commercial engraver in Fort Wayne, from which he made the first metal plate.

For years, in order to safeguard the ritualistic secrets of the Fraternity, Diggs laboriously typed and bound the rituals. It was not until he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he met an old German printer in whom he had confidence, that he entrusted the esoteric materials of the Fraternity to a commercial printer.

In the spring of Diggs wrote in a little blue examination book the first Constitution, which was adopted in with but a few revisions.

This edition remained in use until when it was supplanted by the codified edition jointly written by Diggs, J. Ernest Wilkins, and W.

Ellis Stewart. In the Constitution again underwent major revision. Now substantially established and provided with a Constitution, Ritual, coat of arms, motto, and guiding hand in a dynamic Grand Chapter, the Fraternity was ready for expansion.