Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406020041
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By NANCY FEIGENBAUM ORLANDO (FLA.) SENTINEL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Not so De Larse Montgomery, 26. When he didn't get a chance to join during college, he applied as a graduate working in Columbia, S.C.
Omega Psi Phi gave him an instant kinship with a group of black men - the kind of peers and mentors he had missed growing up without male relatives. The fraternity came to his aid again when Montgomery moved to Orlando recently, providing the sales representative for Pillsbury Co. with a circle of acquaintances.
``I called our national [fraternity] office and I told them, `I'm looking to move in the next month or two. Can you put me in touch with a brother down there?''' he said.
Montgomery's experience is typical of how fraternity life can continue after college - especially for black professionals, said Dr. Michael Gordon, executive director of the National Pan-Hellenic Council in Indiana. The council represents the eight predominantly black fraternities and sororities. They have 1.5 million members nationwide, on and off campus.
When Alpha Phi Alpha held its first meeting in Orlando in 1953, it had eight doctors and four educators. Felton Johnson, who would become one of the area's longest-serving school principals, liked the camaraderie - ``brotherhood, that kind of stuff,'' he said.
He still does. Forty years after his first Alpha meeting in Orlando, Johnson is part of a small group trying to unify the black sororities and fraternities, pushing them to play a larger role by working together.
``The Elks have their hall, and the Masons have their hall. We can do our own too,'' said Alfreda Gary, a reading specialist at Mid-Florida Technical Institute and president of the Central Florida Pan-Hellenic Council. ``But we have to be really committed.''
The council's chapters represent people young and old, from recent grads to great-grandparents. Members include a cross-section of black professionals: teachers and politicians, doctors and entrepreneurs.
``Most white people will say, which fraternity did you belong to in college?'' Gordon said. But black fraternity brothers ask that question in the present tense because many members stay involved all their lives.
Black graduates stick with their chapters because of the historically important role of fraternities and sororities, Gordon said. The groups were formed by black students who could not get into exclusively white organizations in the early 1900s.
After graduation, they faced the same obstacles.
``When black folks graduated from college, they couldn't even join civic organizations,'' Gordon said. ``And these people were educated. They were the most educated among black people, and they wanted to have some way to contribute to their community.''
It is ironic, Gordon said, that ``black'' sororities and fraternities recently have been criticized as segregationist. They have always been open to people of all races, he said, unlike the white organizations they were modeled on.
Graduate chapters nationwide pool their members' dollars and time. They give hundreds of scholarships, build old-age homes, tutor children and register voters. Members refer work to each other and help each other out when money is tight.
The most devoted remain brothers and sisters literally until death. ``When we die,'' said Gordon, a Kappa, ``we have a Kappa Alpha Psi funeral.''
On the graduate level, chapters give up much of the party atmosphere of their undergrad counterparts - though not all. Central Florida chapters hold annual balls and dances, always as fund-raisers.
Nor are the graduate chapters entirely free of that most controversial aspect of the Greek system: hazing. In 1991 the Pan-Hellenic Council's chapters agreed to end pledging, when most hazing took place, but before then even some graduate chapters had tested their pledges with humiliation and fear.
Though created to combat segregation, the chapters have flourished since college campuses opened up to black students, Gordon said. With each new school that admitted black students, new chapters were formed.
But Gordon worries that Greek popularity will wane during the 1990s. Like all fraternities and sororities, the groups must combat an image as elitist and out of touch with ordinary people, he said.
``We're viewed as rather conservative,'' he said.
Black Greeks need to reach out more to the rest of the community, Gordon said. And while they are more active than mainstream Greeks, black members could do still more with the resources they have, he said.
by CNB