An Open Letter to the President – #1

Dear Mr. President:

Today is the day we celebrate the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King; a day which has always had special meaning to and for me. For the twelve years that I served as the Executive Director of Phi Beta Sigma, I always worked in the office on this special day. In fact – I always worked on all holidays (derived from the term holy days), Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.  However on MLK Day, I always worked extra long as a tribute to a man who gave all that he had to make America live up to the ultimate goals of its founding fathers.

On this special day, I rededicate myself to the fulfillment of the ultimate goals of our Founders – the Founders of our great fraternity. Phi Beta Sigma is not great because of what it does – because it really does not do very much of what it was created to do. Phi Beta Sigma is great because of its ultimate goal-purpose.  The Founders of Phi Beta Sigma established a new fraternity on the campus of Howard University in the winter of 1914 because they did not feel that any organization existed which properly bound college trained men to the communities from which they had come. Our Founders developed a very simple and straight-forward formula. They said that the ultimate goal-purpose of college-trained men should be “Service??? to those from whom they had come – to all humanity. To be able to give the proper “Service???, our Founders believed that college-trained men should pursue the necessary “Scholarship??? – to gain the specific knowledge required to provide assistance to the community. And to be properly oriented and organized, our Founders believed that men should be bound together in a fraternal “Brotherhood???.

As I sit and write this letter to you today and over the days that it will take to complete it; any honest Sigma will have to admit that we are far from the goal-purpose of our Founders. There are specific reasons for our being off track. I wish to share those reasons with you; and to share those reasons with the general membership beyond you who, like you, may not be aware of the reasons for our being so far off track.
I joined Phi Beta Sigma almost forty years ago – about a decade before you became a brother in this great experiment in fraternity life. Because my membership predates yours, and that of many current members and officers, I intend this letter to be instructive – not confrontational. I recognize that you and others may take my letter as confrontational; but I wish to clearly state that that is not the purpose for my writing. I feel an absolute responsibility to advocate for the position of our Founders. I concede to no man any greater right to Phi Beta Sigma than mine and I take no greater right to Phi Beta Sigma than is granted to my brothers. And, if we are to be faithful to our founding principle of “Scholarship???, we should be willing to engage in a dialogue designed to both explore the reasons for our founding and the important mechanisms that our Founders left us to preserve the direction and goal-purpose that they entrusted to us to fulfill. I invite you, therefore, to join in a colloquy that will help to better elucidate the structures and mechanism that we might put back in place as we seek to move to our 100th Anniversary celebration. I recognize that you might not wish to engage in this dialogue or any dialogue at all; but it seems to me that the highest titular officer of our fraternity should be interested in any and all situations that can help to better achieve the goals of our Founders. I write to you in this spirit and for that purpose.

In this writing; I intend to discuss three topics:

1. The importance of restoring the Conclave
2. The importance of fully establishing the position of Executive Director and,
3. The importance of refocusing the position of the program directors.

Restoration of the Conclave:

The defining Article of our constitution (Article III – Section 3) reads, “The supreme body of the Fraternity shall be the Conclave, and it shall be composed of the delegates from the several chapters as provided for in the By-laws of the Fraternity, together with the Present Elected Officers, Immediate Past International President, and the Present Directors of the Regions of the Fraternity.”

It was the intention, both of our Founders and of the constitutional scholars who initially wrote this provision that our chapter delegates, working as a unit, act as the supreme authority of Phi Beta Sigma. And while this provision still stands on paper; in truth and in fact this provision is violated on a daily basis by our officers and by our chapters.

I will discuss the restoration of the Conclave in three sections:

1. The basic function and structure of the Conclave
2. How we got off track
3. What steps must be put in place to restore and implement the Conclave

The basic function and structure of the Conclave:

The Founders organized Phi Beta Sigma to be a brotherhood in the African model. In the African model, power is retained by the member chapters (designated as the bottom level in a hierarchical structure); and the assembly of those member chapters (the Conclave) is the supreme policy and program designating body of the organization. This African designed structure is completely opposite the European model which concentrates power in the hands of a few persons designated as officers (seen as the top level in a hierarchical structure). Under the structure that our Founders gave to us our chapters assembled in the conclave and represented by their respective delegates would be (and are) the body that preserves the direction and organizes the on-going development of the international fraternity.

Phi Beta Sigma has three divisional components which must work cooperatively together in order for the fraternity to function properly; the Conclave, the General Board and the office of the Executive Director. It is the job of the Conclave to define policy and programs. It is the job of the Executive Director and his staff to translate those policies and programs into a workable process of operation, and once approved (by the board on behalf of the Conclave); to carry out that program as approved. And, it is the job of the General Board (on behalf of the Conclave) first to approve the program and then to monitor that the will of the Conclave is being properly carried out by the Executive Director and his staff as agreed to. The Executive Director cannot define policy and, except in the most critical situations, the General Board must not define policy. In the model given to us by the constitution, Phi Beta Sigma operates in a manner drastically different from a European-styled corporation – because it is at base not a corporation; but is, instead, at base a brotherhood.

A corporation satisfies the legal structure defined in the American system; but speaks, in no way to the moral structure required by the Founders of Phi Beta Sigma. A brotherhood is a moral structure where the members are tied to each other morally as well as legally. A legal structure is a low-level structure whereas a moral structure is a high-level structure. Things are often said to be legal (meeting the minimum requirement of law) while the same thing might be highly immoral (not meeting in any way the requirement of morality).

What was envisioned by those who initially designed our shift to a full-time operation was that the Conclave would assume many of the duties that the General Board was forced to carry out at a time when our facilities did not allow us to operate at the level required by a full-time organization. Under the full-time operation plan we should have by now established the mechanism for the Conclave to set up national committeemen for all of the primary committee functions. Prior to full-time operation these major committees were appointed by the president. With movement to full-time operation all committees should be appointed by and become responsible to the Conclave. These Conclave committees would be answerable to the Conclave rather than to the General Board; and would be coordinated by the Executive Director rather than by the General Board. By never expanding to a full-time operational format, and in fact thwarting such a transition, the General Board of Phi Beta Sigma has usurped the normal functions associated with a full-time organization and frozen Phi Beta Sigma into a format that works to keep the fraternity small and ineffectual. The result is predictable.

Members of Phi Beta Sigma are continually dissatisfied with the lack of proper service delivery in Phi Beta Sigma. Most members blame the Executive Director; a created impression from which our board members do nothing to dissuade the membership. In truth, the International Executive Director of Phi Beta Sigma has less authority than the National Executive Secretary had prior to the time we opened the National Office. The actual day-to-day activity of the fraternity is presently designed and effectuated through the International President – who is possibly the least able to direct the fraternity as he has received not a single day of training to carry out the tasks which one president after another attempts to achieve.

Over the past several administrations, each current International President rather than “presiding??? over the board (the actual duty implied by his given title), has attempted to “direct??? the fraternity (the duty implied by the title held by the International Director. I served for a dozen years under a series of presidents who served at most four years. Most of them tried to “direct??? the fraternity rather than preside over the General Board. The result has been the lack of any semblance of consistent forward movement.

I do not fault you, Mr. President, for the manner in which you are conducting your office. You are simply doing what your predecessors did before you. And sadly, to my way of thinking, your administration is proving to be no more successful than most of those which preceded you. Phi Beta Sigma is a membership organization. The organization belongs to the membership. And until the membership sets the priorities independent of what is good for any particular officer, Phi Beta Sigma will remain what it has been for most of the last twenty years – fifth in a four man race.

Beyond giving the membership the impression that the Executive Director is the source of the problems in Phi Beta Sigma, the refusal of the board to relinquish to the Director and Conclave the authorities that they should have received almost thirty years ago removes the one body from review and monitoring that was organized for that purpose. One of the primary reasons that the General Board should refrain from making policy decisions is that to do so makes it impossible for them to review and monitor themselves. The Conclave should make policy – the Executive should carry out policy – and the board should monitor the implementation of that policy.

On the one side the board is usurping the function of the Executive Director who should be free to design policy implementation and then carry out that implementation on a day-to-day basis without interference (so long as he is adhering to the previously agreed to plan). On the other side the refusal of the board to coordinate the proper organization of the Conclave means that there is no consistent policy development or follow-up at the Conclave level. If the policy was developed by the Conclave, rather than by a series of presidents, there would be some basis for consistency and organizational memory. The reliance on one president after another developing his own program (a program which under most circumstances is only a political gimmick to get elected) means that every time we get a new president, we also get a new program direction.

How We Got Off Track:

The direction that the Founders gave us was usurped in 1980 at the February meeting of the General Board. At that meeting, I (acting as Executive Director) presented a report of more than 100 pages (a program which had been mailed to each board member thirty days prior to the board meeting) outlining the on-going development of the fraternity. I presented my report as I did because I understood that the Executive Director had the sole responsibility of translating the will of the Conclave into a workable plan of action. At the 1980 General Board Meeting the then president (Charles B. Wright) requested that the board table my report and plan in favor of a plan that he said that he had personally developed. By the presentation of his plan, and the board’s acceptance of that program, the then president and General Board committed what I consider to be organizational treason against Phi Beta Sigma.

From the point of the 1980 meeting of the General Board until today, the successive presidents have believed (quite mistakenly) that it was their right and function to “direct??? the international fraternity. This impression is caused by not understanding the critical difference between a tri-partite structure (such as the United States) and a unitary structure (which is what we have in Phi Beta Sigma). In the United States, the president is in charge of charting a direction for the nation. The only control that the people have is through their elected representatives who, in theory, control the purse strings. In Phi Beta Sigma, all units are fully subservient to the Conclave and the president is primarily the presiding officer of the General Board. In this position, the president has almost no authority to develop policy at all.

The General Board of Phi beta Sigma is formed to give a balanced and uniform review on behalf of the Conclave. Ultimately; no member of the General Board outranks any other member of the General Board. The president is no more important than the vice president or the treasurer. Each elected member has one vote and no one vote carries more weight than another. Moreover, the president, rather than being more powerful –  is in actuality more limited than any other member of the board. As the presiding officer of the board, the president should refrain in most cases from taking any personal position at all, as is common for most presiding officers. Presiding officers must maintain a sense of impartiality so that the other board members can feel that they have a fair opportunity to be heard.

Beyond having a presiding officer who can take unfair advantage of fellow board members, there have been specific cases within the fraternity when legal counsels (or those on the board with legal licenses) have also kept important information from other board members on the basis that the matters kept secret were legal in nature and therefore only able to be understood or acted upon by attorneys. Boards are set up to include persons of various backgrounds with the understanding that at times the decisions they reach may not be the most legally protective; but hopefully will be the most uniformly satisfactory.

What steps must be put in place to restore and implement the Conclave:

Phi Beta Sigma initially came to Washington, DC to follow the “Delta??? model. Under the administrations of Hon. Patricia Roberts Harris who served as Delta’s International President (later to become Secretary of H.E.W. and H.U.D.) and Hon. Dorothy Height who served as Delta’s Executive Director (later to become President of the National Council of Negro Women), Delta was able to utilize federal monies to expand their office staff from 6 to 36 workers. The initial purpose of locating in Washington was to be able to work with the federal government fulfilling the necessary contracts that groups of our type and function can perform because of our varied, professional membership while expanding our office staff base.

During my service as Executive Director, I was the single fraternal director who attended the many tiresome White House and Congressional meetings and conferences to which national membership organizations are routinely invited. The result of my diligence was an invitation for our president (Hon. Demetrius C. Newton) to the White House to meet the President of the United States. That situation had not happened prior to my service and has not happened, to my knowledge, since.

Also, in Delta, the Executive Director plans and executes all regional conferences insuring that all members of all regions are properly prepared to make decisions on the important questions facing the sorority at the international meeting. In Phi Beta Sigma, there is no correspondence at all between the various regional meetings and the Executive Director is treated, in most cases, as an outsider rather than as the Executive Director of the entire fraternity. There is also, within Phi Beta Sigma, the tendency to restrict the Executive Director to the administration of the national Office rather than the directing of the entire fraternity and all of its operations.

To put Sigma back on track, the membership, acting through their individual delegates to the Charlotte Conclave, must restore the Conclave as the policy making body of our fraternity. The delegates must take charge of the Conclave, adjusting both the rules and agenda to identify the two or three most important questions facing the fraternity. Once identified, time must be created to debate and discuss the pros and cons of that limited number of questions and a uniform decision made as to how to proceed to reach a consistent uniformly agreeable solution to those problems.

Beyond setting Conclave policy in the two or three most important areas, the Conclave must elect national committeemen for all of the important committees and set before those committeemen the task that they are expected to perform for the upcoming Conclave years.

Finally; and only after the Conclave has decided its direction, should officers be elected. These officers should be elected on the basis of their ability to watch over and preserve the Conclave’s policy directives rather than upon their personalities or the slickness of a campaign. In fact – no officer should be chosen based upon a campaign. Rather; officers should be nominated by their fellow brothers on the basis of their allegiance to the principles of the fraternity (Brotherhood – Scholarship – Service) and their willingness to carry out the Conclave’s policy rather than trying to force the Conclave to follow their policies.

This is the first elaboration of a process to which I will give additional time over the coming months as chapters begin to move to reclaim the authority initially designed for them by our Founders and the elder who assisted them.

The Elevation of the International Executive Director:

When the full-time operation was conceived by Phi Beta Sigma it was premised upon the elevation of the position of Executive Secretary to one of an Executive Director. Our Executive Director, consistent with the Delta plan, would direct the fraternity rather than being restricted to directing the administrative office.

Presently our Executive Director has no overall directorial responsibility for the general fraternity and no control over either the design of the fraternal budget or it annual disposition. By allowing the various International presidents to set the policy course in the fraternity, we have wandered without consistency from one administration through another with little visible accomplishment.

In order to make our Director what he must be; we will have to strengthen his authority in our constitution and to resolve other inconsistencies that have been put into the constitution in recent years. Bro. William Doar served as Executive Secretary for thirty years while remaining as a loyal member of Kappa Beta Sigma Chapter. I served as Executive Director while serving as president of Alpha Sigma. There was never any hint that either one of us was giving any possible favor to our home chapter. Yet; now the Executive Director is specifically banned from chapter membership in the constitution.

As a matter of logic, no officer of Phi Beta Sigma should be divorced from chapter membership and specifically not the Executive Director. All of our officers should be “in the member’s faces??? not simply because we are a member-based, chapter-based organization; but also because they must be directly accountable to those who they are to serve. Of late, becoming an officer has meant that you became superior to regular chapter membership – something which should never be allowed. Many of our past presidents become divorced from chapter membership during their presidency and seldom return to regular, participatory membership after serving as president. This action is diametrically different from the actions taken our Founders who also served in national offices; but remained loyal and active chapter members until their deaths.

At present, there is discussion that a new Executive Director is being sought. My personal view is that such a search is both ill-timed and ill-conceived. First – I do not personally believe than any current board member is properly prepared to choose either an old or a new director; as few are conversant with the actual duties required. Moreover, the fraternity has made a significant investment in the current director; who, while he may not have been the best candidate when selected, has now gained important knowledge on the job as he has progressed.

We stand seven years from our 100th anniversary. The position of Executive Director should not be a political plum to be awarded to favorites. The Executive Director must be accountable to all membership and represent all membership. And while presidents are specifically chosen for short periods; Executive Directors, for the good of the organization, are appointed for long periods.

As the process that will lead either to the appointment of a new director or the reappointment of the current director proceeds, as member, and as the longest-serving past Executive Director, I request that the membership be made aware of the candidates who have applied in the same manner that you, Mr. President, shared the application of the present director.

A previous Executive Director was passed off to the membership as a man who held a PhD and paid a commensurate salary when, in fact, he had only earned a B.A. and had been in the organization for only about four years when appointed executive director. The appointment of that director and the misrepresentation of his credentials was either a deliberate falsification or a gross example of nonfeasance. We do not wish to have such a situation created again. The board has demonstrated its inability to properly investigate candidates; the membership must become involved to preserve the integrity of our fraternity. I request that the names of all candidates and their credentials be made public as was the name of the present director.

Refocusing the Program Directors:

Prior to the advent of integration, the program directors had the responsibility for examining the various programs of the chapters for special award. The program directors had little responsibility to set up programs.

As a chapter-based organization, the chapters have the responsibility of designing programs under the three primary program areas (Education, Social Action and Bigger & Better Business) which can best bring assistance to their local communities and campuses. A program which might work well in one area might be completely unsuitable for another area. The important principle is that all action takes place on the local level and member chapters must make the decision as to which programs best fit both the needs in their area and their ability to bring resolution to those situations.

I was present in the early 1980’s when Vernon Jordan (then head of the Urban League) called the officers of the primary African-American organizations to a series of meetings in New York. At the meetings, we were instructed as to how we would have to change the focus of our organizations in order to be able to receive corporate sponsorships. The change required that we become “top-down??? rather than “bottom-up??? in structure. I did not realize it at that moment; but the change that was being suggested was exactly counter to the direction that our Founders had given us.

Under our previous structure, chapters were asked to do an assessment as to how our programs might be effectuated within their local communities; carefully documenting the outline and conduct of the program in their annual chapter reports o their respective regional conferences. The job of the program directors was to come to the local communities and to highlight the chapters for their achievements and to award them credit in their local communities or on their campuses based upon the conduct of those programs. The best programs could them be compiled and passed up the structure to the national body. This process provided a record as to how programs could best be carried out. With the shift to programs being designed by the program directors rather than by the chapters; chapter reports have virtually disappeared and there is no longer a compilation of successful programs to which new chapter can refer for ideas. Moreover the local highlighting of chapters in their communities or campuses has all but ceased. We must return to the original format given to us by our Founders so that the programs of Phi Beta Sigma can once again become viable and our chapters highlighted in their local communities or on their campuses.

This has been a long letter; but you knew that at the moment you saw my name on your email. You, Mr. President, are the titular head of the fraternity. You are in place not to lead us; but instead to serve us. You are our drum major. We need you out in front effectively leading the Sigma band.

But to be effective, you must understand the function of the drum major. The drum major has flash – he has the lights on him – folks see him in front. But the drum major does not lead the band. That job belongs to the bass drum. The bass drum sets the beat for both the drum major and the band.

And when, from time to time, the drum major drops his baton; he must quickly do two things. First – he pick up his baton and then he must listen for the steady beat of the bass drum. And as long as he brings his left foot down in cadence with the drum, he will be back in step. And with him in step; the rest of the band will be in step also.

In Phi Beta Sigma, the Executive Director is the bass drum. He sets the steady beat to which you, while serving as president, must temporarily march.

I have written to you, in this first letter of several, to urge you to work with drum that the fraternity now has and to begin moving Sigma in a corrective direction. Many of us have already decided that we are going to see Sigma become what it was created to become. I have known and liked you for a quarter-century. I would like to see you give presidential leadership to the restoration of the Founder’s direction. But I am honor bound to also inform you that neither I nor the membership will not follow you if you decide either to continue in the present direction or to move counter to our joint efforts.

Phi Beta Sigma is a brotherhood and our eventual direction must be consistent both with the direction set in place by our Founders and the progression of those programs as enumerated through the various policies and programs put in place by our Conclave. We cannot any longer be governed by the will of a few or the personal direction of a small clique within our wondrous band. We must become “one for all and all for one???. That, for me, is the real message of the power of one. We must be a corporate ONE; not just ruled by one.

Mr. President, you can help to salvage the remnants of what our Founders established. I call upon you to do so.

Godbless.