After the hand-wringing over a hazing death comes a period of reckless behavior leading to yet another death. Will we stop the cycle?
A little more than 20 years ago, during the third week of October, as I returned to my apartment my neighbor said, “Kimbrough, one of the Alphas is dead!” Panicking, I hurriedly turned on the television and began making phone calls. I thought he meant a brother in my chapter. However, the deceased turned out to be Morehouse College student Joel Harris, who was pre-pledging Alpha Phi Alpha without the approval of the fraternity or the college. His heart condition could not take what he witnessed — his line brothers being beaten at an off-campus apartment
Twenty years later, in the third week of October, I opened my e-mail to learn about another death, this time Prairie View A&M University student Donnie Wade Jr., who, along with a group of aspirants, was engaged in what sounds like early morning physical training at a high school nine miles from campus. Wade apparently passed out and was driven some 30 miles to a hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival
As we approach Feb. 17, the 20th anniversary of the meeting when the presidents of the largest Black fraternities and sororities collectively agreed each would end pledging, students still experience injuries and occasional deaths from trying to join. In fact, there is a rhythm of death, roughly occurring every fi ve years from 1983 to 2009
So it was time, and as I said often, I felt we were overdue for a death
So now we’ll go through a season of renewed debate, hearing the same old thoughts and arguments. They’ll go something like this: He should have walked away. Why do we make aspirants responsible for enforcing our rules? The end of pledging is like prohibition and is riskier now than when it was legal — bring it back
People were injured and died before pledging ended so bringing it back is idiotic. It’s his fault for agreeing to be hazed. He had no choice because those who don’t illegally pledge are ostracized and sometimes assaulted
