Black Greek groups had big role on campus and community. Now UMKC is honoring them

Ken Lumpkins often returns to his alma mater, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and sees new dorms and other construction on campus.

But the latest addition is something he’s never seen there: a tribute built in honor of Black fraternities and sororities.

At 10:30 a.m. Saturday, UMKC will unveil the Divine Nine Monument Garden, nine stone pillars on the busy quad of the Volker campus.

Though the monuments have been planned for three years, the movement for some form of physical tribute goes back before Lumpkins’ time 30 years ago as a member of UMKC’s Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. chapter.

“When you join a Greek organization you do a lot of traveling,” says Lumpkins. “You start to go to other campuses and start to recognize how they have commemorated the cultural impact of Black Greek letter organizations and the contributions of Black Greeks throughout history.”

Though his mother was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., when he entered college in the late ’80s, he was relatively ignorant of Black Greek life.

“When I first got on campus and started to learn about the history, I was constantly like wow, I had no idea this person was an Alpha, and then you learn, oh this person was a Delta, and you really see how deep it goes in our history,” he says.

Black Greek letter organizations go back to the early 20th century, when Black university students were barred from joining white fraternities, sororities and social clubs.

Alpha Phi Alpha, founded in 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was the first, with the other eight in the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) created in the following years. While each has its own identity, they were founded along the same basis of education and community service.

Many prominent Black figures such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou, Jessie Jackson, Shirley Chisholm and John Lewis were members.

“When you join one of these organizations, there is the element of you are meeting cool people who you get along with, of course,” says Lumpkins, a 52-year-old KC native. “But you are really joining something much bigger than you, and you walk away with this sense of you are a part of this legacy of service and you owe it to the community to work for change.”

At the time Lumpkins joined Alpha Phi Alpha, the fraternity and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority were the only active Black Greek chapters on campus. Though UMKC has not hosted all nine organizations, it will pay homage to them all.

UMKC is now home to six Black Greek chapters — but combined they only have 11 members, some with just a single member. (UMKC’s entire Greek system has 300 members.) But they are connected to a strong alumni network.

Clavin Flemons, the president of UMKC’s Alpha Phi Alpha and sole member, feels that the monuments will remind students of the importance of these organizations.

“This is about having something that shows students that we are here as Black Greeks and they do exist on campus and we have been here since the start,” says Flemons, a 21-year-old pharmacy student from St. Louis. “It is about showcasing what NPHC is and what we stand for.”

Following the Black Lives Matter protests around the country, the organizations approached the UMKC administration with a proposal for plots dedicated to the nine groups.

With each organization fundraising through various drives, chapters received donations from alums, friends and family. They raised thousands, though they aren’t revealing the total cost of the project.

“We had a kind of friendly competition between the organizations to see who could raise the most money for the plots,” says Flemons.

Local firm Hollis+Miller Architects donated its services by designing and overseeing the project. Albert Ray, an Alpha Phi Alpha alum and an architect at the firm, worked as the point person.

The monument garden is made up of stone pillars with the names, founding dates and crests of each of the nine fraternities and sororities. UMKC on Saturday will also begin its Legacy in Bloom exhibit on the first and fourth floors of the Miller Nichols Library, with information on each organization and their contributions to UMKC Greek life.

Lynne O’Dell, the assistant director for fraternity and sorority affairs at UMKC, hopes this project will create interest in not just Black Greek membership but across all the Greek organizations on campus. After the pandemic, new membership took a dip across the board.

“I would say it is more difficult to get students to join now,” says O’Dell. “With financial barriers and overall reputations that Greek organizations have had, it has been difficult. But I think what is amazing about our Greek community is that we defy a lot of those typical stereotypes.”

O’Dell says the initiative shows the dedication of the Black Greek community to preserve their history.

“We are very passionate and dedicated to ensuring our students feel a sense of belonging, and when our students tell us they don’t feel that they belong we want to be able to create that space for them,” she says. “I think these monuments provide that physical space for them to host events and celebrate their organizations and see themselves on our campus.”

For Flemons, this unveiling signifies a culmination of generations of Black Greeks fighting for recognition.

“It just goes to show, you always have to be diligent about what you want and you just have to be patient and not give up,” says Flemons. “You have to feel proud because this has been in the works for a long time and the hard work of so many people across all organizations.”