Theta Epsilon Chapter was chartered on June 27, 1947 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Throughout the decades, the chapter has consisted of young men from Brown University, Johnson & Wales University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Rhode Island College (RIC), and the University of Rhode Island (URI). These young men have gone on to become successful professionals and prominent members of their community.
BEFORE THE CHARTER
Although no Omega chapter had been established at Brown before 1947, Black Greeks, particularly Omega men, were nothing new to that campus. In 1921, the Alpha Gamma chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha was founded on Brown’s campus. During the mid-1920’s, Samuel Nabrit, a graduate of Morehouse College, came to Brown to start working toward his Doctorate degree in biology. He, in turn, encouraged a second Omega man, James Hope Birnie, to join him during his second year in the graduate program. Birnie received his M.A. in Biology from Brown, and went on to obtain a Ph.D. from Syracuse University.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
In 1947, there were 4,353 male students at Brown and 827 women at Pembroke, instructed by 242 faculty members. Brown had signed its first Ivy Group agreement in 1945, making football, and football only, an Ivy League sport. Black enrollment at Brown had nearly doubled from Nabrit’s time, reaching an all¬time high of twelve Negro students, perhaps three of whom were women. Elsewhere, Omega was thriving in the Black community.
Campbell C. Johnson was Grand Basileus of the Fraternity, which was in the midst of a Golden Age called the “Great Transition.” During this period, more chapters were founded than at any other time previously in Omega’s history. As a result of the urgent need for accurate record-keeping and administration, H. Carl Moultrie I was appointed Omega’s first National Executive Secretary in 1949. In addition,the Fraternity realized its potential as a vehicle for change and mandated its first Social Action programs for the betterment of the Negro race.
America’s victory in World War II sparked a general feeling of optimism about the future of the country and of the world. The War, however, had another, more profound, effect upon America: Black veterans, returning from Europe, the South Pacific, and North Africa, who had experienced true equality overseas and who had fought bravely to defend their country, were refusing to return to the Jim Crowism and other more subtle forms of segregation that existed stateside. Armed with military experience and a GJ. Bill, many of these veterans returned to their college campuses, and many more enrolled in college for the first time.
CHARTER MEMBERS
George S. Lima, a discharged photographic officer with the Army Air Corps, returned to his home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Having had two years of college at North Carolina A&T University before the War, Lima was determined to complete his education, so he enrolled at Brown University in nearby Providence, Rhode Island. As a commuting student with a wife and child, Lima needed a part-time job to support his family while he attended Brown. He found employment at the John Hope Community Center, where he taught photography and boxing to area youth. There he worked under Parris Sterrett, a graduate of Wilberforce University and Boston University Divinity School, who served as pastor of a church in New Bedford, Mass. and Executive Director of the Community Center, now known as John Hope Settlement House. Sterrett, an Omega man who was initiated at Beta Chapter (Lincoln University), had a history of committed service to the Fraternity. A former Vice-Grand Basileus from 1937 -1939, Sterrett saw in two undergraduates at Brown, Lima and his friend, Charles Bentley, the opportunity to start a chapter of Omega Psi Phi in the Providence vicinity. Eventually, he approached the two young men about pledging Omega. Lima had gained knowledge of the Fraternity from his football teammates at North Carolina A&T, and later from his close friends in the Air Corps, most of whom were Omega men. He agreed to pledge, as did Bentley, who had also learned of Omega in the service. Because there was no chapter in the immediate vicinity, Lima and Bentley were required to drive to Boston regularly during their six-month pledge period. Under the tutelage of Sterrett, Dr. Wilmer A. Jennings (initiated at Psi chapter, Morehouse College), and Charles N. Williams (Tau Psi chapter, North Carolina College), Lima and Bentley were initiated into Omega through Gamma Chapter in the spring of 1947. Their initiation resulted in the number of brothers necessary to form the nucleus of a chapter. Sterrett’s knowledge of the National organization, coupled with a general feeling of “manifest destiny” within the Fraternity, led to the establishment of Theta Epsilon Chapter at Brown University on June 27, 1947.
A detailed account of the history of Theta Epsilon Chapter can be found in “The History of the Theta Epsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and Its Legacy in the State of Rhode Island” by Anthony T. Teat.