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Just two years after the American Civil War, the Augusta Institute was founded by William Jefferson White, an Atlanta Baptist minister and cabinetmaker (William Jefferson White's half brother James E. Among Morehouse alumni, traditionally known as "Morehouse Men", the college has graduated numerous " African American firsts" in local, state and federal government, as well as in science, academia, business, and entertainment.
Kappa alpha psi founders buried series#
and Julian Bond, World Series MVP Donn Clendenon, and entertainment icons Spike Lee and Samuel L. The largest men's liberal arts college in the United States, Morehouse has been home to 11 Fulbright Scholars, five Rhodes Scholars, and five Marshall Scholars, and is the alma mater of many celebrated African-Americans, including civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. The college has played a key role in the development of the civil rights movement and racial equality in the United States.
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The three-decade tenure of Benjamin Mays during the mid-20th century led to strengthened finances, an enrollment boom, and increased academic competitiveness. Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, the college experienced rapid, albeit financially unstable, institutional growth by establishing a liberal arts curriculum. Founded by William Jefferson White in 1867 in response to the liberation of enslaved African-Americans following the American Civil War, Morehouse adopted a seminary university model and stressed religious instruction in the Baptist tradition. Along with Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Morehouse School of Medicine, the college is a member of the Atlanta University Center consortium. Anchored by its main campus of 61 acres (25 ha) near downtown Atlanta, the college has a variety of residential dorms and academic buildings east of Ashview Heights. He served as Grand Polemarch for the first six years of the fraternity’s existence.Morehouse College is a private historically Black men's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. Additionally, he established the Kappa Alpha Nu Journal, the first periodical of any national Black college fraternity. He was one of two Founders who pawned his watch to pay for the Fraternity’s incorporation fee.ĭiggs wrote the lyrics to the Kappa Hymn. Diggs assisted Byron & Irven Armstrong in designing the Coat of Arms, assumed responsibility for preparing the initiation ceremonial forms, completed the fraternity’s constitution and took a course in Greek heraldry and mythology to ensure the fraternity was rooted in authenticity. He subsequently earned his Master’s degree of Education from Howard University in 1944.īased on the hostile attitude and circumstances facing Blacks at Indiana University, Diggs decided to establish a fraternity on campus to give African-Americans support and sanctuary based on high Christian ideals and the purpose of achievement. degree from Indiana University’s School of Education in 1916. He was born in Hopkinsville, Christian County, Kentucky, on December 23, 1883, and was the eldest son of three children.ĭiggs enrolled at Indiana University in the fall of 1910 and was the first African-American to graduate with an A.B. Founder Elder Watson Diggs, was quiet, polished, scholarly, a prolific writer and commonly referred to as ‘the Father of Kappa’.
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