When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the nation’s toughest immigration law, Arizona Senate Bill 1070, it instantly put the nation’s oldest African-American college fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., in a tough spot. With their national convention scheduled to take place this July in Phoenix, Alpha Phi Alpha General President Herman “Skip” Mason and its board…

Freaknic.  Mention the name of the famous-some would say infamous-Atlanta spring break festival to those who attended, and you get a myriad of responses.  Some remember the early years of the 1980s, when students from HBCUs from throughout the Southeast could meet and fellowship during a four-day picnic. Others remember the ugliness that plagued the…

It’s the closest thing to Armageddon that many Black Greeks have seen since Laurence Fishburne’s character, Dap, ran around the fictitious Mission College campus yelling, “Wake Up!” in the classic movie, School Daze. Stepping, a bastion of black Greek life, has just undergone a revolution, and some black folks are pretty ticked off about it.…

In the final part of this special 3-part series on Black Greek Letter Organization hazing, author Lawrence C. Ross Jr. on why it may be a case of life or death, for both the pledges and the organizations themselves. Part 1 of this series is here. Part 2 of this series is here. All black…

In Part 2 of a special 3-part series on Black Greek Letter Organization hazing, author Lawrence C. Ross Jr. on why dangerous “underground” pledging still exists, and if the BGLOs are effectual when it comes to dealing with the root causes. Part 1 of this series is here. The belief in physical violence as a…

In Part 1 of a special 3-part series on Black Greek Letter Organization hazing, author Lawrence C. Ross Jr. on the physical and mental hazing that has injured (and in some cases, killed) scores of college students for decades. Pledging. For most black fraternity and sorority members initiated before 1990, pledging is when they formed…