How many kappa alpha psi founders

His battery enjoys the unique distinction of having been the first Battery of Negro Artillerymen ever to open fire upon an enemy in WWI. He was an associate editor of Modern Artillerymen, the official record of Battery F. He was assigned to the th Pioneer Infantry unit of the U. Founder Marcus Peter Blakemore enlisted with the U. Army in World War I and served in the U. Army as the rank of Private with the 30th Company, th Depot Brigade.

Click here to see a list of notable members of the fraternity who have served in high ranks in the US Military. Because of a disastrous fire in the Fraternity house in which he was employed, he never finished his sophomore year. Brother Caine went into the catering business in his hometown, later attended Columbia University, set up a catering business in Gary, Indiana, and published a book on catering, which was copyrighted in by the Hurst Publishing Company.

Brother Caine was instrumental in setting up the Gamma, Delta, and Zeta chapters. He later went into business in Peoria, Illinois and was fatally burned during an explosion of gaseous materials in his business in George W. In the fall of , George entered Indiana University at Bloomington. He joined nine other students in founding Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

After George returned home for the summer of , his father became ill with pneumonia and died. His father had worked in the coal mines of Vandenburgh County for many years. George, being the eldest son, became head of the family, thus preventing his return to school. With the new responsibility of supporting the family, George took a job with the area coal mines and worked with the coal mines and the railroad until he died of pneumonia on June 13, Fraternity History.

Chapter History. It is the third-oldest active Greek-letter organization established and incorporated by African American college students. Kappa Alpha Psi has over , members with undergraduate and alumni chapters across 46 states of the United States, and seven countries internationally. The fraternity is sub-divided into distinct administrative regions, which improve the efficiency of decision-making and communication for its chapters and members.

The climate for establishing a black fraternity on a predominantly-white campus was influenced by the modern fraternity movement and the black collegiate movement , which coincided in Members of the student body, faculty, and university staff routinely denied housing to black students.

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. Shelton, III, Esq. Louis Alumni. Kappa Alpha Psi, a college Fraternity, now comprised of functioning undergraduate and alumni chapters on major campuses and in cities throughout the country, is the crystallization of a dream.

It was the vision of these astute men that enabled them in the school year — 11, more specifically the night of January 5, , on the campus of Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana, to sow the seed of a fraternal tree whose fruit is available to, and now enjoyed by, college men everywhere, regardless of their color, religion or national origin. It is a fact of which Kappa Alpha Psi is justly proud that the Constitution has never contained any clause which either excluded or suggested the exclusion of a man from membership merely because of his color, creed, or national origin.

The Constitution of Kappa Alpha Psi is predicated upon and dedicated to, the principles of achievement through a truly democratic Fraternity. Chartered and incorporated originally under the laws of the State of Indiana as Kappa Alpha Nu on May 15, , the name was changed to Kappa Alpha Psi on a resolution offered and adopted at the Grand Chapter in December Thus, the name acquired a distinctive Greek letter symbol and Kappa Alpha Psi thereby became a Greek letter Fraternity in every sense of the designation.