The Detroit Alumni Chapter
If Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity is truly a child of its time, then the Detroit Alumni Chapter is an echo from the same mold. The national organization filled a social, economic and political need for Negro male college students which prior to its incorporation did not exist. This was a era immediately following World War I when the Negro population in the industrial cities of the north nearly doubled. Kappa men could count on their fraternity brothers for help and support as they settled in urban areas of our nation.
Four Delta (Wilberforce) graduates, residents of Detroit saw a need similar of the Kappa men in Chicago within their own city. Following the Eighth Grand Chapter Meeting in Chicago 1919, McKinley Carey, Joseph D. Duplessis, Leoniadas Curtis and Fred Jones petitioned to have a graduate chapter in Detroit. Dr. E. A. Carter and Newton Dolphin joined them to become the charter members. On April 3, 1920, by proclamation of Grand Polemarch Irven Armstrong, the Detroit Alumni Chapter was chartered with McKinley Carey as its first Polemarch. G.R. Dorsey, an initiate from the Zeta Chapter (Ohio State) served as Vice Polemarch. Founder Henry T. Asher was Keeper of Records, Newton Dolphin, Keeper of Exchequer and Fred Jones, Strategus. Becoming the second alumni chapter of the fraternity. As of our charter date, the fraternity now had fourteen active chapters, 12 undergraduate and two alumni. Among the earliest members of Detroit Alumni were founders Bryon K. Armstrong and Henry T. Asher. Members Victor LaNier Hicks from the Beta Chapter (University of Illinois) and Ossian H. Sweet, a charter member of the Delta Chapter (Wilberforce) and Former Grand Lieutenant Strategus, were also early members. Among the first members to be initiated into the chapter were Herbert U. White, Fred Hart Williams, Willis Graves and Leon Wheeler. In 1927 Detroit Alumni was instrumental in the chartering of Alpha Beta undergraduate chapter Wayne State University. That same year 1927 Detroit Alumni hosted the Seventeenth Grand Chapter Meeting, a first for the chapter. April 15, 1945 Detroit Alumni unveiled the “Kappa Kastle”, fraternity house, 269 Eskines, Detroit, MI. The house was designed by famed Detroit architect Albert Khan. Seventy-one years later the Historic Detroit Kappa House continues to serve the fraternity and community. Over the years Detroit Alumni has been the home chapter of a multitude of civic, religious, educational, industry leaders, men of achievement within southeastern Michigan. 2014 Detroit Alumni donated historical fraternity memorabilia to be apart of a permanent display in the Smithsonian Museum, dedicated to African American Fraternities and Sororities. Detroit Alumni in the proud curator of unique Kappa Alpha Psi artifacts, documents, paraphernalia and photos of fraternity history in our Diggs Historical Room spading 95 years for view. Flagship of the Mighty Northern Province, Detroit Alumni has become the hub and mecca for Kappa men in the Midwest.
DETROIT ALUMNI MOST NOTABLE MEMBERS
FOUNDING MEMBERS
