Some Facts About Kappa Alpha Order

The school year is starting again, which means the collegiate Greek-letter organizations, including the Kappa Alpha Order, are active again. That means I’ll face the same questions again: am I still active in KA, and why am I still active in KA?

I haven’t seen my KA badge in years. I was given the badge my cousin Robert Wingate wore. Years ago, my wife put them somewhere for safekeeping; wherever she put them, they’re still there if I can get her to remember where and tell me.

I maintain my membership in KA, although I haven’t attended any functions in quite a while. After I graduated, I spent five years raising money to renovate the Alpha Mu KA house at Millsaps, all the time saying that would be my last official act. It’s my belief that allowing young men to handle these matters for themselves is the reason KA exists.

I’ve never believed that KA is better than any other Greek-Letter fraternal organization. I joined KA because I would be a third-generation member, and I had some old friends there. I had a lot of friends who were Pi Kappa Alpha’s, too, and it was a very tough choice because, in the eighties, the Pikes were more fun than anybody, although they didn’t have a cannon.

Having studied Greek-Letter organizations for many years, I can comfortably say that none are clearly superior to any of the others. They all focus on academic excellence, community engagement, and fraternal bonds, all of which are incredibly important qualities for young men to develop. I honestly believe some of these qualities are more important than some of the things they are taught in class. Membership in a Greek-letter organization also gives young men a chance to develop leadership and organizational skills, which are incredibly important.

When he was president of Millsaps, George Harmon made no secret that if it were up to him, there would be no more Greek-letter organizations for men at Millsaps. He thought they were destructive and disruptive, and there were serious issues about providing equal opportunities between Greek and non-Greek students.

I mention this because people in Greek Letter organizations need to remember that they exist on the edge of a razor. Should they make enough bad decisions or consider themselves superior to non-Greek students, they exist at the pleasure of the host institution, and no powerful or well-connected alumni can protect them should the tables turn.

Tens of thousands of young men abandoned their education and careers to join the Confederate army during the American Civil War. While Union forces had to rely on conscription to fill their ranks, in the South, it became a cultural phenomenon. Southerners tend to be very dramatic, and they like to fight.

After the war, thousands of young men realized they had spent the years bridging boyhood into manhood, fighting for a cause they had lost. They returned home to realize that whatever opportunities they thought they had were ruined as their homes were destroyed and their economies were in rubble.

Four young men, very young veterans of a bitter war, enrolled at Washington College in Virginia because they found themselves with no other opportunity. Late into their first year, they learned that their former general Robert E. Lee had been asked to become president of the small college, which was left in desperate financial condition after the war.

Having lost his entire fortune and constantly threatened with arrest and imprisonment, Lee received several offers for lucrative positions owing to his name recognition and popularity in the South. He turned them all down in favor of the job offer at Washington College, which offered him little more than a small home and a stable for his horse.

Before the war, Lee was appointed the Superintendant at West Point, where he wrote he spent some of his happiest years. After the war, Lee felt a strong obligation to return something to Virginia, which he believed he helped destroy and continue leading the young men who the war left with diminished opportunities.

At Washington College, four young friends banded together to form a “secret society,” which wasn’t very secret and was a growing fad among college students. They were soon joined by a slightly older Samuel Zenas Ammen, who led them into becoming a group bound by the romantic ideals of the Christian knight and concepts about excellence found in the Old Testament. Having all five served under Lee during the war and again at Washington College, they adopted him as their “spiritual founder” when their future was very uncertain.

The principles and rituals of Kappa Alpha are known as “the customs.” They come in a little book, and you have to get permission from the Knight Commander to borrow a copy, or at least you used to. I’m pretty sure the process is very similar now.

Most of the Kappa Alpha Order Customs come directly from the Old Testament. Besides that, it contains long passages about the history of the Christian Knight. The rest are ideas about fidelity, fraternity, and excellence that are almost verbatim to what you find in Free Mason Rituals and the rituals of nearly every other Greek Letter organization.

You won’t find anything about race, racial or cultural superiority, or racial fidelity in the Kappa Alpha Customs. They have never been there.

During the culture wars in the South, particularly those regarding segregation, KAs were prominent on both sides. The head of the Citizens Council in Jackson, Mississippi, was a KA. Reading the names of those who signed the “Statement of Belief and Intention,” I counted at least a quarter of them as KAs, including a former province commander. There were KAs who fought to keep Mississippi churches segregated, and there were KAs who signed the “Born Of Conviction” document. Like every other Southern organization, there was a great deal of infighting among KAs during the culture war. We generally keep it to ourselves, but it’d be a mistake to believe the organization represents one side or another.

The Old South party resulted from the popularity of the film “Gone With The Wind” and first happened when costumes made for the Atlanta opening of the film became available to rent. I attended the Old South Ball. There are photos of me in a ratty, rental confederate costume that my date tried to dress up with a golden sash she found somewhere. For many years, the national office has forbidden the party and the name “Old South.” To be perfectly honest, the Luau party we had every other year because Old South was so expensive was a lot more fun and a lot less trouble.

For a while, it became fashionable for KA chapters to find small bore cannons to put in front of their fraternity lodges. One was at Millsaps, and it was quite a lot of fun. Giving an actual cannon to a bunch of nineteen and twenty-year-old boys is a terrible idea, though. Although there were none at Millsaps, there were some pretty awful accidents involving KA cannons, and it eventually became impossible to get insurance if a house had one. The cannon at Millsaps was a post-war Union naval cannon. It’s long since been filled with concrete.

Kappa Alpha has been integrated for almost fifty years. Our bylaws contain pretty strict rules against segregation and racism. It’s considerably harder to attract non-white members to an organization born in the wake of the Civil War, but it does happen. The night I was initiated into KA, two of my fellow initiates were practicing Jews.

Southern culture and history are filled with KAs who became prominent in religious, medical, political, and business arenas. Mississippi has sent five KAs to Washington, and the current Governor of Mississippi is a KA. While I disagree with him quite a lot, I find myself agreeing with him quite a lot as well. There are Republican KAs, and there are Democratic KAs. Despite what you’ve heard, there’s a great deal of political and social diversity in the organization, which sometimes causes friction, but we work beyond it.

In summary, I’m going to stop short of recommending that you or your child join a Greek-letter organization. It worked very well for me and most of my friends, but I’ve known people for whom it didn’t work out well at all. It’s expensive and takes a great deal of time, but there are advantages to filling the idle time that collegiates sometimes find themselves with.

I’ll stop short of recommending KA to boys who have decided to join Greek Letter Rush. Your experience in a fraternity depends entirely on the boys already in the chapter and the boys looking to join it. Consider first the kind of boys you want to spend your time with, not whatever their alumni have accomplished in life.

When you graduate, you’ll find yourself in a much larger fraternity of fellow graduates, regardless of whatever Greek-letter organization you joined, if any at all. That ultimately is far more important than anything concerning Fraternity Row and its activities.