As I reflect on this Founder’s Day…I…just like any other Brother, think of the “BIG 3”. Our Founders…A. Langston Taylor, Leonard F. Morse, and Charles I. Brown. There is so much that surrounds their lives…and I could spend all day, or spend this entire letter, talking about them. But I won’t.
I instead will talk about what has happened and what we have found because of them.
You have already seen what an impact their vision had in the State of Kansas, and how that vision carried on to Tuskegee University in the Deep South in the early 1920’s. We have been blessed to find Brother Sheridan Settler before he joined the Omega Chapter. This Brother came from KSAC and worked at Tuskegee with George Washington Carver (a Brother of Sigma who was initiated and was a charter member of Gamma Sigma chapter in Alabama).
We have been blessed to communicate with Brother Clarence Q. Pair, who was initiated into Sigma at Alpha Chapter in 1918. Appointed by Brother A. Langston Taylor, he was on the first committee to start a sister organization at Howard University. The 1st attempt failed in 1919..but Brother Taylor was so determined he sent out a 2nd committee that was successful in 1920. You know the rest. Brother Pair joined the Omega Chapter in 2001.
Our Ancestors led me to “find” Brother Georg G. Iggers, a white, German, Jew who fled Nazi occupied Germany in the late 1930’s. Brother Iggers was initiated in the mid 1950’s into our Brotherhood after being heavily recruited by Brother William H. Pipes. When I say “find”, I say that because during my initial phone call to Brother Iggers, he told me he had not talked to another member of Sigma since Brother Pipes died…which I believe was in the mid 1960’s. Brother Iggers was instrumental in the “Little Rock Nine” court case….and is known as one of the world’s most renowned Historians.
Since I mentioned the “Big 3” at the beginning…I figured that I would just mention “3” other Brothers that we have been blessed to know. I could go on and on…but my appreciation in the Founders is that in their own special way from Above…they have guided us, challenged us, and sometimes teased us…on our way to our Fraternal discoveries.
“When we have turned over a rock…it is because our Founder’s led us down the path to trip over it.”