‘Greek' Pride and Pain

During the late 1960s and the Vietnam War era, the Black fraternity and sorority movement suffered a loss of prestige because many young African Americans viewed them as too traditional and middle class to be "cool." However, the success of affirmative action and academic outreach programs brought an unprecedented number of Black students to traditionally White campuses in the mid-1980s and 1990s.  Many of these young men and women embraced Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs) as a welcome source of social support.
In addition, many of the children of the brothers and sisters who had pledged BGLOs at historically Black instituitons (HBCUs) in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s arrived on campuses across the nation and formed a second, (or even third or fourth) generation of  "legacies" who sought to join BGLOs, which had now become family traditions.
The last 15 years, have seen individual Black Greeks achieve their greatest triumphs since Alpha member Thurgood Marshall won the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which outlawed segregation in public schools.  Omega ‘brother' Doug Wilder, became the Black governor of Virginia. Two Alphas, David Dinkins and Willie Brown respectively became the first Black mayors of New York City and San Francisco. And Johnny Cochran, a Kappa, won the "trial of the decade" in the O.J. Simpson case.
During this same period, Carol Moseley-Braun  (D- Ill.), a Delta, became the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, AKA soror Mae C. Jemison became the first Black woman astronaut, and her ‘sister' soror, Hazel O'Leary, became the U.S. Secretary of Energy.
Unfortunately, these same years that have seen the explosive growth of BGLOs, became a double-edged sword bringing almost as many problems as opportunities for the organizations as a whole. Chapters expanded faster than the national offices' ability to supervise them and America's youth culture became more aggressive and violent. At the same time, most campus and state authorities became much less tolerant of the alcohol abuse, sexism, and hazing traditionally associated with fraternity life.
Because the BGLOs tradition of  "hard pledging" has always contained elements considered hazing, Black Issues has sadly watched and reported as the BGLOs most important ritual has turned into their greatest legal, financial, and even spiritual liability.