Probably the most racist thing I've ever seen in an official fraternity publication..
 

Note, written in an early 1920s Catalog of the Fraternity.

At the time in 1866 when we were organizing, in the
academic sphere, for the defense of Southern culture,
another organization, the Ku Klux Klan, was forming,*
in the political and economic spheres, to overthrow the
carpet-bag governments that were bankrupting the
Southern states. The Klan soon achieved its object,
which was just, patriotic and limited, and disbanded in
1869. Its mission was ended. Not so ours. Ours is a
subtler task. The maintenance of the spirit of Southern
youth on a high plane of principle and conduct is a per-
petual interest and duty.

Alpha Tao Omega?

Right Triad, but wrong Fraternity. Kappa Alpha Order.

My next two guesses were the other groups from that triad.

My hunch was KA, given that they were founded in December 1865. As recently as the 1980's, the chapter at my campus was still holding an annual Nathan Bedford Forrest Day, to celebrate the Confederate General. In addition to being a hero of KA, Forrest was also a well-known proponent and member of the KKK. And their annual spring formal was called "Old South" -- some of the brothers actually dressed up in Confederate uniforms and encouraged their dates to dress in frilly hoop skirts a la Scarlett O'Hara.

KA at Washington and Lee was still hosting Old South, with the attire exactly as described, when my daughter was an active there. She graduated in 2016. Their national headquarters is located right behind sorority row on campus, so I can't imagine there wasn't full awareness of the event. I've seen at least one formal picture of the members and dates, so attired.

I just Googled Kappa Alpha Old South and found a 2015 national directive memo banning Old South themed events...along with a lot of event pics that pop up and related news stories.


The Executive Council and adopted the following regulations during their meeting held on November 12 2015 in San Francisco, California. Pursuant to Kappa Alpha Laws Article 5, Section 121, these changes shall take effect January 18, 2016.

R16-113, OLD SOUTH, CHAPTER CANNONS, CONFEDERATE UNIFORMS, AND PARADES
(b) Old South. Chapters shall not sponsor functions with the name Old South or functions with any similar name. All functions and activities must be conducted with restraint and dignity and without trappings and symbols that might be misinterpreted and objectionable to the general public. All functions and activities shall be conducted in accordance with the regulations and policies of the institution where each chapter is located. Adopted November 4, 1984 and amended November 14, 2015 (to take effect on January 18, 2016).

I'm sure with certain chapters, these issues are so pervasive and the revenue HQ receives by way of fees and dues is enough to make them look the other way.

Oddly enough, While ATO would have been a guess for me, I don't think of Sigma Nu in the same way. Not sure why the difference in current views (at least mine) on Sigma Nu.

LOL

That's expected.

For me, the most racist thing was photos of Brothers in blackface in the Torch & Trefoil, the Alpha Phi Omega national magazine.

Don't ask me the date, I can't remember, but I saw it with my own eyes.

Since we voted to accept minorities back in 1969, a lot of our chapters have become pretty diverse. Our Dartmouth chapter actually left Sigma Nu entirely until we integrated. There was a pretty legendary fight over integration at our 1969 Grand Chapter. Future Senator Trent Lott led the fight against integration and was successful the first time it was proposed.

Sometimes I think the question is not "Whose Dartmouth chapter left over integration", but "Whose Dartmouth chapter *didn't* leave over integration".

For my fraternity, we had a chapter at an HBCU in 1947 and are trying to figure when our first African-American member (and yes that predates the term African American)

Sigma Nu expanded beyond the Deep South in a big way. Our Law still requires the big policy items to be somewhat democratic and still allows for our undergrad members some self-determination. It turns out that just around '69, we had expanded so far out of the Deep South that the non-racists slightly outnumbered the racists. I'm not sure that's a great thing to say, and I'll bet many of those racist members would disagree with my characterization, but they were what they were.

When your founding members either fought with or sided with the Confederacy, you've got some foundational issues. I'm satisfied with how far we've come.

Update from GenerallyGreek, who is well familiar with the Lexington Triad (except for ATO, who was booted a long time ago, for some reason that has given way to such a variety of urban legends that no one remembers what really happened). She said "Old South" featured horse-drawn carriages, which picked up all of the costumed brothers and dates, very publicly and ostentatiously, in the quad in the center of campus, right in front of the Colonnade and president's house. FTW, Kevin.

Everyone who didn't go thought the whole thing was ridiculous.

Meanwhile, Sigma Nu was the epitome of the model, diversified chapter, and you know your HQ is also located in town.

I met and hung out with a bunch of guys from the W&L chapter back in '01 when we had our College of Chapters there. We stayed in the dorms. I remember the President of your school at the time was a Sigma Nu alumnus. While he deigned to address us, he came off as fairly anti-Greek.

Was it in the archives, or was it something that happened after you joined?

It was from well before I joined. A chapter had a "jungle" themed fundraiser and the members were dressed as their idea of jungle savages.

It was not from the 90s-era style of T&T. It could have been from the 60s or 50s.

Please remember that even that soon back when, there was a lot of racism going on! In 1965 when I was going to approach Sigma Nu to Colonize my local, the State of Kansas said no Greek Organization with a White only clause would not be allowed to expand.

We were Colonized by LXA in 1966 and never looked back. One of the reasons was I founded Beta Chi on No hazing. The Black GLO's were strong at The Pitt. and I had friends in all of them.

When they faded, we were the first to initiate Blacks on campus. Why, because the were super guys which brought a lot to the chapter.:)

A huge missed opportunity, in my opinion. What jackasses our members were in the early 60's.

There were LOTS of jackasses in the early ‘60s. State laws declaring “separate but equal” were in place in a huge swath of the US. African Americans couldn’t vote, eat where they wanted or marry outside of their race in many places. Don’t forget that even though Rosa Parks helped get a policy changed in 1955, racist laws stayed in place for another 15+ years in some places.
I think many of our Greek organization simply responded to current state laws and social norms—not that it wasn’t RACIST and DISGUSTING, especially now looking back.

I'd say that state laws made a difference, but the founding situations and culture of a Fraternity make quite a difference as well. Certainly not all Fraternities and Sororites have had the same history in this regard. Some members of the NIC *never* had this issue, some still had this type of issue well into the 1980s and beyond.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Dartmouth GLOs.
The Dartmouth chapters of Alpha Chi Rho, Chi Phi, Delta Upsilon, Phi Gamma Delta, Phi Kappa Psi, and Sigma Phi Epsilon all disaffiliated from their national fraternities in the 1960s.

Later in the article specifically for Sigma Nu it says
In response to the national fraternity's segregationist membership policies, the fraternity went local in 1963, becoming Sigma Nu Delta. In 1984, after the national fraternity's policies were changed, the fraternity reaffiliated with the national.

We didn't take until 1984 to change our policies.

I'd appreciate a way to rephrase it, ideas? The 1984 is when Sigma Nu Delta rejoined, not when Sigma Nu's policies changed.

Probably something like:

In response to the national fraternity's segregationist membership policies, the fraternity went local in 1963, becoming Sigma Nu Delta. The national fraternity's policies were changed in <whatever year it happened>, and in 1984 the fraternity reaffiliated with the national.

Now we just need the fill in the blank.

Closest that I've got to filling in the blank is part of a 1965 Time Magazine article (reprinted in the Congressional Record)

A fifth, Sigma Nu, still retains a “whites only” clause, but has permitted chapters, if pressured by college officials, to request special dispensation to admit Negroes.

Not sure whether that means the date to "fill in the blank" then would be before that (with special dispensation) or after (a general removal of the clause)

Also, Trent Lott's Article in Wikipedia says

While an undergraduate at the University of Mississippi, Lott participated in the effort at the 1964 national convention of the Sigma Nu fraternity to oppose a civil rights amendment proposed by the Dartmouth College and Duke University chapters to end mandatory racial exclusion by the fraternity. Lott sided with the segregationists who defeated the amendment. The Dartmouth chapter subsequently seceded from the fraternity, and Sigma Nu remained whites-only until later in the decade.

(Which references the Time Magazine article at https://web.archive.org/web/20040212...399310,00.html)

And Dartmouth wasn't the only location to have chapters cut ties. Stanford had Alpha Tau Omega in 1961 and Sigma Nu in 1962 do so. (https://stanfordmag.org/contents/what-they-stood-for)

So the best I think I can do without further help is (And I'm

In response to the national fraternity's segregationist membership policies, the fraternity went local in 1963, becoming Sigma Nu Delta. The national fraternity's policies were changed later in the decade, and in 1984 the fraternity reaffiliated with the national. (and reference the Trent Lott Time Magazine article)

The 1964 vote was extremely close. I believe in 1968 or 1969, the same factions remained. Future Senator Trent Lott on one side and future President of CNN, Tom Johnson led the other. The anti-segregation measure passed supposedly by single digits.

I had the fortune to visit with an alumnus who had been at every Grand Chapter since sometime in the 1950s (this was back in 2002, I'm sure he has since passed).

I found this...
https://www.sigmanucornell.org/public7.asp

A good amount on the topic. The Sigma Nu chapter at Cornell got a "Waiver with Honor" for the membership policies in 1962. It talks about Efforts to remove the policies at the 1962, 1964 and 1966 Grand Chapters and "Finally, at the 43rd Grand Chapter in Denver in 1968, restrictive membership qualifications were removed from the Law by a nearly unanimous vote."

The fact that it was nearly a unanimous vote surprises me, but given that it probably required more than a majority to change this (2/3 or 3/4) it actually passing might have been a nearly unanimous vote, or the delegates on the "keep" side might have seen they were going to lose in a preliminary vote and decided to vote in favor for the unity of the Fraternity.

So I have 1968 as the year.

I'll change the entry to
In response to the national fraternity's segregationist membership policies, the fraternity went local in 1963, becoming Sigma Nu Delta. The national fraternity's bylaws were changed at the 1968 Grand Chapter[1], and in 1984 the fraternity reaffiliated with the national.

with the [1] being the ref to the Cornell Sigma Nu page.

Look good?

Seems legit.

Done.