Dr. George Washington Carver is now a Phi Beta Sigma, Inc. brother for all the world to see – or at least that part of the world that passes through the Griot Museum of Black History in St. Louis.
Phi Beta Sigma, Inc. International President Jonathan Mason pinned the fraternity’s pin on the wax likeness of Carver installed at the Griot Museum, 2505 St. Louis Ave., in a small, fraternal ceremony on Saturday morning.
“Dr. Carver is a brother we hold in high esteem, and it is an honor for our organization to enter this historic facility and place a fraternity pin on his replica,” said Mason, who was visiting St. Louis for the local Sigma chapter’s Centennial Gala at the Sheldon. The fraternal organization is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2014.
Dr. Carver (1864 – 1943) was a charter member of Gamma Sigma Alumni chapter at Tuskegee University, organized in 1918.
The closest observers when President Mason pinned their historic brother were Sigma brothers Brandon Henry and Brandon Harvey. The ceremony was their idea, adapted from another Greek organization, Omega Psi Phi, having pinned the likeness of Dr. Carter G. Woodson exhibited at the Griot Museum.
“We took our youth auxiliary club on an enrichment field trip to tour the facility,” said Brandon Henry, second vice president of the local Sigma graduate chapter and a detective with the St. Louis County Police Department.
“We told them Dr. George Washington Carver was a member of our organization, but we could see he did not have a fraternity pin on, where we saw the replica of Dr. Woodson did have one.”
They contacted Lois Conley, founder and executive director of the Griot Museum (who also crafted the figure of Dr. Carver, working from a mannequin), and asked the museum to collaborate on the event when the organization’s international president was in town.
“The museum did a great job and made everything feel like home,” said Brandon Harvey, chair of the local Sigma graduate chapter’s Membership Committee and a teacher at Hazelwood Southeast Middle School.
Conley encouraged more organizations to collaborate with the museum and interact with its exhibits.
“This is a perfect example of what I hope the community will do, which is to take some ownership of the museum,” Conley said. “It’s a good way to support each other.”
Robert T. Jordan Jr., president of the local graduate Sigma chapter and a human resources specialist for the City of St. Louis’ Civil Rights Enforcement Agency, said the organization also wanted to honor Dr. Carver as an exemplary brother.
“Dr. Carver exemplifies scholarship and creative thought process,” said Jordan, who is also a retired city cop. “He took a peanut – something minute – and did miraculous things with it. Sigmas can take something minute and do extraordinary things.”
Dr. Carver’s work in plant science and agriculture went far beyond developing new uses of the peanut. In 1935, he was appointed to the Department of Agriculture by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to address the Southern farming crisis. Among other things, he advised farmers to use crop rotation, which restores nutrients to the soil. Dr. Carver was awarded the Roosevelt Medal in 1939 for saving Southern agriculture, which was later instrumental in feeding the United States during World War II.
Mark Pacich, international historian for Phi Beta Sigma, Inc. and curator for the Phi Beta Sigma History Museum, said Dr. Carver was instrumental in developing the scientific careers of Sigma brothers.
“He would recruit Sigma men that were practicing veterinary medicine and agriculture and have them come to Tuskegee to study, work or get advanced degrees,” Pacich said. “One of the schools he specifically targeted was Kansas State University in the late 1920s. Many of the African-American men there were members of Phi Beta Sigma, Inc. and many of them were studying veterinary medicine and agriculture. They graduated from KSU and matriculated down to Tuskegee to work with Bro. Carver.”
Jordan said a scientist and scholar like Dr. Carver is an apt emblem of a fraternity like Phi Beta Sigma, which is rooted in higher education.
“To be a member of our organization, you have to have college – you can’t just sign up,” Jordan said. Jordan said it was powerful for the men to honor their fraternal connection to one of the great minds of American science.
“This helps us recognize we are brothers of his,” Jordan said, “and that’s a special feeling in your heart.”
Phi Beta Sigma was founded January 9, 1914 on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. The national centennial celebration will be held July 16-20 in Washington. For more information: www.phibetasigma1914.org.
For more information on the Griot Museum of Black History: www.thegriotmuseum.com.
Follow this reporter on Twitter @chriskingstl.
