University of Alabama Breaks Color Barrier...
 

so read the headline on CNN Headline News. The first African-American to join a U of A fraternity...

I just thought I'd share. I think that's awesome.

Greek Love,
shopgirl

That is awesome shopgirl. I refrained from posting it because of what the Auburn discussion turned into.

I definitely think it's a step in the right direction.

Where is the story? I can't find it on CNN

Hey!
 

I can't find it either, but I'd love to read the article. Can someone give us a link, please? :)

HOORAY
 

Thank you for a postive post or a post that is more toward the positive side of life:)

Changes do not and will not come over night as it has taken so long even up to these times to keep working on these issues!

Re: HOORAY
 

Wonderful point, Tom. :D

Against my better judgement, here it is...
 

Black man breaks color barrier in Alabama fraternity
The Associated Press
11/7/01 6:03 PM


TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) -- A black man has joined an all-white fraternity at the University of Alabama, becoming the first male to break the color barrier in a campus Greek-letter group.

University spokeswoman Janet Griffith said Wednesday the man, who did not want his name made public, joined an undisclosed fraternity this fall after the traditional membership recruitment period called rush.

The lack of blacks in the university's traditionally white fraternities and sororities was an issue earlier this year after a black woman failed to gain a membership invitation from any white sorority.

The woman, Melody Twilley, said she suspected she was rejected because of her race.

Faculty leaders and administrators said at the time they were unaware of any blacks having joined white groups, but white sororities have since said they had two black members in the past, Griffith said.

What took so long?

That is all I have to say.

Maybe no black men were interested in joining a "white" fraternity at the University of Alabama until now. I know that A Phi A has been there since 1974 and is a well-known, historically-black fraternity that draws many interested black men on campus. I'm not sure if there are other historically black fraternal groups currently present on the campus also, but I would expect that the number of black men rushing historically "white" GLO's at the University of Alabama, a state school in the Deep South, has been rather small in the past.

Regardless of why it happened this year as opposed to any other time is irrelevant. We should be happy that it has in fact happened, and look forward to further integration among the groups. :)

Re: Against my better judgement, here it is...
 

Oh wow! Two whole members! And you know , by the end of this decade, there may be even 3 or 4!:rolleyes: Please, is that supposed to be impressive?? Give me a break. They sound like a country club.

NinjaP.

By the way W&B, that comment is NOT directed at you but to U. 'Bama.

You know, there were probably AA men interested in joining years, but were "discouraged" for whatever reason :rolleyes:. After all that's gone down, I think the number(s) will drop. Sorry for being negative, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

Plus, I've always thought it was easier for a male to integrate a GLO than a woman. Compare the dates of integration for NIC and NPC groups, or look at some composites.

This thread is kinda funny. I don't go to UA so I don't know what that University is like. I can't judge whether or not this'll make any difference whatsoever, or if it is even that positive. There are ten million different ways to play that scenario when you don't know the details.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I agree with dzrose93. Remember people -- after Brown v. Board of Education was passed, when public schools and universities began to integrate, they usually only accepted one or two students at a time. Are we to downplay the contributions of the Little Rock 9 or of Charlayne Hunter Gault and the late Dr. Hamilton Holmes (the first African American students to integrate the University of Georgia) simply because it was only a few students who stepped up to the challenge?

Yes, it seems like it took a long time for it to happen, but it has happened. Maybe it'll happen again, maybe it won't -- but it doesn't take away from the historical importance of this moment.

I find it sad that the brother in question feels like he has to hide his identity.. I wonder what that's all about. He's a pioneer and a trailblazer, and I for one would like to send him a letter of congratulations.

Edited because my fingers are faster than my brain sometimes. :D

it doesn't sound so strange...
 

I can understand where he is coming from...perhaps he just wants to be a brother of XYZ, not !!!TA-DA!!! The First African-American Brother of XYZ at UA!!! WOW!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

Being the subject of newspaper headlines is not everyone's cup of tea. Look how much attention Melody Twilley has received...unfortunately a lot of it rather negative, I'm sure.

Think also how pledge/new member programs work - the goal is to shape these new people into full brothers or sisters of your fraternity/sorority. All the programs I've ever heard of involve a lot of activities for the pledge class as a whole - you want them to form a tight bond and as a group be integrated into the personality of your chapter. This can be extremely difficult if one member is a celebrity or views themselves as "special." Think about the challenges your chapter may have faced with pledges who were star athletes at your college, legacies, or otherwise famous.

My assumption is that this young man simply really liked the brothers of XYZ, felt comfortable there, and decided to accept a bid...because he just wanted to be an XYZ, not because he had a special mission to accomplish.

I hope I haven't offended anyone - I certainly don't mean to suggest that UA's Greek system should remain totally segregated or that progress like this isn't important. I just think that a lot of the time, we can accomplish more if we view each other as people first - judging on an individual's qualities, not their race. That certainly seems to be the way that this student approached Rush. I'm happy for him - being Greek, no matter what organization, has lifelong benefits, and I'm glad he was able to find a place to realize those benefits.

G8Ralphaxi:)

As my mom always says, "It's better late, than never!"

I think their excuse of having 2 Afr. Am females that joined NPC is really lame. I always said, if you know how many Afr. Am you have had in your home and can count them on one hand you might have a racial problem. That is just a southern thing. Don't anyone take this the wrong way, but I attend a deep south school and I KNOW what the REAL deal is. We have only had 1 Afr. Am female in the history of my school's NPC. I really wanted to be in a sorority and I knew I would not make it into or be welcomed into a NPC white sorority, so I went out on a BIG limb and brought a multicultural sorority to our campus. Yes, the south is changing, but very slowly and a lot of people's home ideas will not change, (Smile in your face, but never have any contact except hello and goodbye). It really disappoints me that this makes CNN because this is everyday life. It is sad that racism still exists, but we don't see Indians, Chinese, or Japanese on TV everytime they make a new accomplishment.

Re: it doesn't sound so strange...
 

Regardless of his motivation for joining an NIC fraternity, it doesn't change the fact that he's a trailblazer and should be proud of his accomplishments. He might be a regular ol' somebody, but what he did is still historic.

However, I'd forgotten about the whole 'pledge period/initiation' aspect. The articles I've read seemed to infer that he was already an intiated member, not a pledge.

SH80er, Mine too, but ALWAYS added a tail-
"Better late than never, but better never late!"

i just hope...
 

he sticks around and encourages his friends to go greek.
mmcat
:D

Re: i just hope...
 

Do you mean that you hope he encourages his friends to join that particular fraternity, to become a part of the NIC/NPC fraternity system, or to join any GLO, even if it's a BGLO?

One or two sounds like a start to me. We have to remember that people also have to WANT to join these orgs. Progress is progress no matter what. And to a point when we kinda scoff and say one or tow isnt anything, it doesnt help us go any farther and might deter

Well said.

I guess things must be different up here where I go to school. I don't see this as being a huge deal. This guy decided to choose a fraternity that wasn't traditionally African-American, and I see that as being a big deal, but only because that school has nationally recognized African-American fraternities. Where I go to school we don't have these, and African-American students feel free to join whatever greek organization they please. I guess that's why our chapters are more racially mixed. There really isn't a bias here based on race because there are no special places that certain races feel they have to go. If this was the first black student to pledge a fraternity in the school's history and there were no African-American fraternities, yeah, I think that would be a big deal and I would be wondering what took so long, too. I don't know. I know what I'm trying to say in my head but it doesn't seem to be coming out the way I want it here, so if it is a little random, I apologize. Oh, I have a question I have wondered about but never asked: Are white, asian, hispanic, etc. students allowed to join African-American GLO's? Just wondering. :confused:

The Alabama fellow is not in an NIC fraternity.
Check www.cw.ua.edu for a story on him.

Was a press conference necessary?
 

I don't know...I'd feel like I was on display, "Look! The token African-American! Look at how progressive we are!" Ah, to each his own.

I'm actually glad to hear that he's older, and not just some 18 year-old who just wants to hang out with his friends like they did in HS. I get the impression that he might know what he's doing more than most.

I just can't imagine racially mixed sororities and fraternities at your school that were not founded upon those principles. Maybe because I am in the south. To answer your question, there are a lot of BGLO's that have white, asian, hispanic members. Just as though some Afr. Am do not feel welcome in WGLO neither do these people.

I feel bad that this still goes on in schools today. Our organizations don't have a ton of other races joining, but I don't think there's an organization on our campus that doesn't have at least one person that's not anglo as a member. And none of our organizations are special, just the regular national ones from Panhell and IFC and one local fraternity. I've never really thought of the race issue when rushing potential new members. It's more important to me to have a strong chapter on the inside, not one that looks homogeneous on the outside. Hopefully someday schools in the south will catch up and realize different people=better.:(

Being from the South, I was quite offended when I read this comment. Our schools need to "catch up"??? I don't think so. That statement implies that Northern schools are "better" than Southern schools, which is absolutely not true. Please don't assume that Southern schools are "behind the times" when it comes to the race composition of our Greek systems. I think we're doing quite well, and I abhor the fact that a few isolated incidents are constantly used as a means of stereotyping the South as being "backwards" or inferior to the North.

If you take a look at the composites hanging in the houses of southern GLO chapters, you'll find that there are "different" people in nearly every one of them. Maybe there isn't an African-American face in a lot of the composites, but there are certainly other minorities represented - Asians, Indians, Arabs, Latinos, etc. We take the best and the brightest of the rushees who show an interest in us, regardless of color. It IS true that Caucasians make up the majority of the rushee lists. But, come on, what do you honestly expect us to do about that??? We put flyers up in the Student Union, advertise in campus papers, and chalk the sidewalks to notify people about upcoming rush parties. Somebody please show me where in all these advertisements it says "Minorities Need Not Apply."

The simple truth is that we do nothing, absolutely nothing, to deter an interested person - whatever his/her color, race or religion- from going through the Rush process. However, we also are not in the practice of dragging uninterested people into our organizations just so that we can say, "Hey, check us out! See how diverse we are?"

It may be true that some AA people don't feel comfortable rushing a historically white GLO, just as some Caucasians don't feel comfortable joining a historically black GLO. People like being around other people that they have things in common with, and I would assume that this is the case throughout the country, not just in the South. I don't know of any way to change peoples' minds about that.

If anyone from the North has some real advice on how we can make our organizations more diverse down here in the South, then I'd love to hear it. Until then, please don't act as if we Southerners are too ignorant to realize that "different = better."

**dzrose93 stepping off of her soapbox carefully so as not to trip over her antebellum gown**

Well said. I'm including the post because it's worth reading again. dzrose - watch out for my antebellum gown too when you come off that soapbox! ;)

Very well said dzrose93!

Agree 100% with dzrose93, Wine and Blue, and Angels & Arrows!

Way to go dzrose! I agree 100%.

The Greek system at UF has actually tried to increase minority involvement but it's really hard. There are well-established, successful NPHC organizations and several Latin fraternities/sororities (sorry I don't remember the name of their council). They are very active on campus and tend to attract a large % of the minorities who would go Greek.

I mean, maybe I'm simplifying things, but it seems to me that the type of person who wants to go Greek, no matter what type of organization they pursue, is motivated by similar things. There are definitely different strengths of each type of system, but in general, everyone is looking for the friendship, the leadership, the activities, and the service to the community that Greeks provide. Greek life isn't appealing to everyone (even though it should be - people just don't know what they're missing! :p ) so when out of all the minorities who are interested in Greek life, the vast majority don't go through our Rush, guess what folks, the houses will remain majority white.

The other problem we encountered is that when minorities do go through our system, there is a LOT of pressure from their families, friends, etc. NOT to join. They are told that they are "selling out" by joining a "white girl sorority" instead of an NPHC sorority.

Some houses at UF the girls literally are all about the same size and have the same haircut/color. Attack of the Clones! My sorority never looked like "cookie-cutter" sisters. We had a great mix of tall and short, christian and jewish (and a buddhist), every hair color, etc. We had a number of hispanic and asian sisters. It never was a big deal to us. Our whole approach to Rush was looking for girls that we wanted to have as friends. I still remember what our Rush chair told us my sophomore year: "You want the girl who you can picture yourself watching silly TV shows with."

The 4 years that I was an active sister, we had only one black member, and she dropped out before initiation. Her mom made her quit because we didn't have any other black girls. Really made a lot of us upset - she was really sweet - i.e. someone you want to watch silly TV shows with! It's very frustrating when someone criticizes you for not having black sisters, when none will join because you have no black sisters! You can't win.

My post was in response to the quote about not being able to imagine a racially mixed GLO that was not founded on those principles, and they also said that was maybe because they were from the south. I really never thought about things being different until I read that person's reply. This person, going to a school from the south, put this assumption up. Apparently, there are southern people who think that's out of the ordinary. Not all think this way, and I realize that. I also do not condemn that person for thinking that way, that's just the environment they are living in at the moment. They were from a different place than dzrose93, so perhaps that's why there is the differing opinion. Don't forget the previous posts about it being "about time" that an African-American joined a predominately white GLO. Without saying it outright, people are saying basically the same thing I said. I did not mean my post to be interpreted in a way that would say that all southerners are racist or that the North is better than the South. It was just a response to a previous post. I am sorry if it offended anyone.

kristiaxid,

Thanks for responding to my post. I do understand the reason for your comments and I apologize if singling your post out made you uncomfortable. It's just that there have been so many comments concerning racism, GLO's, and the South lately that the whole issue has gotten me, for lack of a better term, "fired up." I'm sure that you meant no real offense.

I just really needed to vent for a while, and I hope you can understand how frustrating it is for Southern Greeks to listen over and over again to criticism regarding diversity issues in our chapters when there is nothing at all that we can truly do about it.

Basically, what I'm attempting to say here is that your opinions are always welcome at GreekChat (whether I happen to agree with them or not :) ) and I hope that my outspoken post will not make you shy away from voicing your thoughts.

:D
Carrie

Yeah. This isn't directed at YOU, but let's not act naive here. We KNOW why it took so long for a black man to join a historically white fraternity. Also, nationwide, there aren't a whole lot of black people in historically white fraternities and sororities either.

You've made a good point. Being in a historically Black sorority, I can see how it would be difficult for historically white sororities and fraternities to get black members. PERSONALLY, I don't see what would attract a black person to a historically white fraternity or sorority. But, there are black students that mingle best, and fit in better, with historically white fraternity and sorority members. In some cases, these people are sell outs, but NOT IN ALL. I would just hope that non-white members of such organizations would use their "opportunity" to educate their fellow sorority sisters and fraternity brothers re: tolerance, diversity, race issues, etc. In turn, the non-white members can gain from, and learn a great deal from their sorority sisters and fraternity brothers as well.

Naive? I don't think so. I'd like to know what you feel is the reason for the length of time it took for a black man to join a historically white fraternity, Chaos.

As for nationwide numbers of black people in historically white GLO's, the same could be said for white people in historically black GLO's. The door swings both ways. Will you agree to that?

I'd also like to reiterate that many black people interested in joining historically-white GLO's are discouraged from the idea by their black peers. One particular instance that stands out in my mind is a story from one of my DZ sisters. A black girl pledged XYZ sorority at my sister's campus and was very happy in the chapter. The girls loved her and she fit in very well. A few weeks before initiation, the Black Student Alliance on campus - angry that she had "sold out" to a white sorority - spraypainted the sorority house. The girl turned in her pledge pin and quit.

Just something to think about while you're wondering why there aren't many black people in historically white GLO's.

Why is a person a sell out for choosing a group that has a white majority? I realize that you said "NOT ALL" of these people are sell-outs, but I'd like you to give me an example of someone who is. I really don't understand the logic here. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, just want to see what your viewpoint is.

Yes, it can be hard for African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans to join because of family and/or peer criticism. BUT, I do not feel that is the reason for such low numbers in certain regions of the country. Let's not beat around the bush here. Do you think that many blacks are going to rush at Auburn next year, after what happened? Do you think scores of African-American women are going to rush at UGa? :rolleyes:

Most of the people are TOO OLD to be this NAIVE.

I don't think many black women will rush at Auburn for various reasons, the main one being that they tend not to dream of Pi Phi or Kappa or the NPC organizations, but of Delta Sigma Theta, AKA, and the other fine organizations of the NPHC. The ones they've heard about all their lives, the ones their sisters and mothers are in. There's a black woman in AOPi at Auburn and I'm glad...I wish Auburn's GLOS and BGLOs were more diverse.

But another reason that they may not rush there, of course, is that they'd feel uncomfortable. I've seen enough posts on GC from members of BGLOs saying that they wouldn't want whites in their organizations to know that I'd feel very uncomfortable at their functions. To each his own...

However, I have 5 non-white daughters and I'm sure that they'll rush NPC sororities. It's all they've ever heard from the family and their friends at school.

What it all boils down to is that people tend to rush where they feel most at home. We have many non-Caucasian members of NIC and NPC organizations on Greek Chat, some from Southern campuses, and they went where their hearts told them to. Didn't we all?