Washington, assumed the mantle of Black leadership (at the death of Frederick Douglass in the same year) when he delievered his 'Atlanta Exposition Speech.'' An address that articulated acceptance of segregation and submission to white supremacy.

This condition was allowed to worsen because as the memory of the Civil War faded, so did antagnonism between white Northerners and Southerners, along with sympathy some white Northerners held for former slaves, also hostility toward southern rebels began to subside. In the midwestern states, where the Founders were born, all passed laws that upheld the practice of lynching. In fact, in the year 1900 alone, 815 African Americans and others were lynched. They were also terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan and put to death by their terror tactics of lynching. The socio-political condition in the Southern and Border states for African Americans found them both socially and politically segregated through the passage of the Black Codes. The period that the Ten Founders of Kappa Alpha Psi was born into was the post-Reconstruction period. Kappa Alpha Psi's ' Five Objectives' explains the membership's ability to undermine the Age of Accommodation. These ten men would create a Black Greek-Letttered Organization that challenged the very idea of accommodation and the age in which they lived. However, there was a new generation of African Americans ( ten black men specifically) born during the 1890s, who would reject the spirit of accommodation and yearn for the social benefits promised in the American Dream.

Following this decision, along with other issues, prompted African American leaders to articulate an acceptance of segregation and that Blacks were best served by accommodating white supremacy, as a means of survival. The Federal Government upheld these practices through the Supreme Court's opinion in the Plessy v. This was a world denoted with signs of 'white only' and colored only' to remind you of your place in society. The turn of the century for African Americans, particularly in the Southern and Border states was a world of Jim Crow.

CLICK HERE to hear the Brothers of the Kappa Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incoporated sing the Fraternity's Hymn.

Kappa alpha psi hymn