The Empty Place On the Wall

There is one letter I would give almost anything to find.

It was not written to me. It was written about me, by my father.

If I still had it, I would frame it and hang it on the wall for my daughter, Asa Pearl.

Instead, all I have is the story.

I was a junior at Morehouse College when my friend Michael first got me interested in becoming a member of Omega Psi Phi.

Michael knew more about the fraternity than I did and was already interested in it. When he asked whether I had ever considered becoming an Omega, I told him I had not.

He seemed surprised, especially after I told him that my father was an Omega, and two of my uncles, Thomas and Clyde, were Omegas.

My uncles had pledged at Hampton Institute. My father later followed his brothers into the fraternity through a graduate chapter while he was at the University of Denver.

My uncles were not men who carried their membership casually. They were both devoted Omegas, and they were men I admired deeply.

“You have all those Omegas in your family, and you never thought about it?” Michael asked.

“Not really.”

“None of them ever talked to you about joining?”

“No.”

That was the truth. Uncle Tom had passed away before I arrived in college, and Uncle Clyde was managing health challenges.

And my father had never suggested that I should become an Omega. Neither had anyone else in my family. The fraternity was part of our family history, but it had never been presented to me as a path I was expected to follow.

My father remained financial and was proud of his membership, but he did not spend much time in the social life of the fraternity, or, for that matter, any organizations not directly tied to his work. His work required him to travel constantly, and he mostly stayed surrounded by family when he wasn't working. Even when Ma did get him out socially, he returned home after those events and retreated to his library to work some more. The only thing that broke his work addiction was my mother. They were the definition of the term "best friends."

My mother, who was an elected official during that same period, and far more outgoing than he was, attended many public and social events. My father usually went because he was supporting her.

Pop DID speak often about following his younger brothers to join the fraternity, but the last 20+ years of his life was built around trying to leave something meaningful behind for our community.

So, the push for me to learn about the fraternity and get excited about being a part of it was born primarily from Michael’s enthusiasm, at least initially. I’m sure I told Pop about my growing interest at some point early on, but I did not ask, nor did he offer, his advice or direction in furtherance of this effort. The truth was that ANYTHING I tried to do during school that did not involve classwork, Pop thought should not be my focus. He did not even want me to work. So, I’m sure his ideas about where my focus should be had a material impact on my decision not to give him too many details about my plans to pursue membership in the fraternity. He always reminded me that he had to work his way, all the way, through school, and he was proud of the fact that all my siblings had to do was focus on learning in the classroom.

But my excitement continued to increase nonetheless!

Michael and I went together and found a representative on campus who was part of the graduate chapter. We met with him a couple of times, and he explained what the process might look like since the undergraduate chapter was formally off campus.

He also indicated that there were other students who might be interested and that the opportunity could involve several people.

Michael and I decided we wanted to participate.

At the same time, we did not want the undergraduate members who were off campus to believe that we were intentionally going around them. We were still students at Morehouse with them, and we did not want to pursue a graduate chapter process while treating their presence as though it did not matter.

So we kept them informed.

We met with them periodically at apartments off campus while waiting to learn what the graduate chapter would decide.

For the most part, the people involved were good people.

There were activities and conversations that some might describe as hazing, but nothing happened during the short time Michael and I were involved that particularly concerned either of us. We had not gone very far in anything that could truly be called a process. We were simply meeting with the undergraduate members from time to time while waiting for the graduate chapter to determine whether it would move forward with us.

One experience, however, confused me.

During one of those meetings, a member I barely knew suddenly focused his attention on me.

We may have spent two or three days around each other over the course of a month.

That was about it.

He did not know me well enough to understand how serious I was, what I was willing to do or how I felt about any process. The truth is, I did not even know what the full process would involve because I never got far enough to learn.

Still, he said something like, “You don’t really want this.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think because of who your father is, you don’t have to go through what everybody else goes through.”

“I never said that.”

“You don’t want to be hit. You don’t want to really pledge. Your father wouldn’t approve.”

I was confounded.

He did not know my father.

He barely knew me.

I had never invoked my father’s name, asked for different treatment or suggested that I should be spared anything the others might be expected to do.

“What does my father have to do with me standing here?” I asked.

He never gave me an answer that made sense.

I did not need to challenge him. I was not angry as much as I was legitimately confused.

How had this man decided what I thought?

How had he decided what my relationship with my father meant?

How could he know what I would or would not be willing to do when I barely knew what the process itself involved?

I asked a few friends afterward whether something had been said about me that I had missed.

No one could explain it.

All these years later, I still cannot.

Perhaps he thought my father’s name made me feel protected. Perhaps he believed I was not sufficiently eager. Perhaps he was reacting to something that had nothing to do with me at all.

I do not know.

What I do know is that, once Michael got me excited about Omega, I was genuinely interested. It was not something I could simply take or leave. I wanted the opportunity, and I was proud of the possibility that I might join an organization that connected me to men in my family whom I admired.

At some point, we were told that the graduate chapter would make a decision on a particular evening.

Michael and I had met with the one representative on campus, but I do not remember ever standing before the graduate chapter, meeting its members as a group or being interviewed by the people who would supposedly decide whether we should be admitted.

We waited for the decision.

The word came back afterward that neither Michael nor I had been selected.

The word used was “unworthy.”

That is how it reached us.

I never received a letter from the graduate chapter. No one called me to explain what had happened. I do not know who first used the word, whether it appeared in any formal decision or exactly what was said in the room that evening.

I know only that we were told a decision would be made, and afterward the word that came back was that Michael and I were unworthy.

There were other students interested around that time. I do not remember whether they were considered at the same time we were or whether their involvement came later. I do not know what process they followed.

I know only that, sometime after Michael and I had been rejected, several of them became Omegas.

Some were my friends then, and they remain my friends today.

I have no reason to diminish what they accomplished or question the legitimacy of their membership. I simply do not know enough about what happened after Michael and I were no longer involved to say anything more.

The next day, I called my father.

I had not involved him in the process. I had not asked for advice, and I was not calling because I wanted him to intervene.

I was simply telling Pop what had happened.

“Hey, Pop.”

“Hey, Hawk.”

“The Omega thing didn’t work out.”

“What happened?”

“The graduate chapter made its decision last night. The word came back that Michael and I were unworthy.”

There was a pause.

“Unworthy?”

“That’s what we were told.”

“Did anybody from the graduate chapter speak with you?”

“No.”

“Did you receive anything in writing?”

“No.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Okay.”

That was all.

My father was not a man who reacted loudly. He listened, absorbed things and often made his decisions privately.

Several days later, he called me in my dorm room at Morehouse.

“Hey, Hawk.”

“Hey, Pop.”

“I wrote to the Grand Basileus.”

I sat up.

“You did?”

“Yes.”

The Grand Basileus at that time happened to be a professional colleague of my father’s, someone Pop knew and respected a great deal. That connection was why my father felt comfortable calling on him directly.

Pop told me what he had written.

He had explained that he understood his son had been considered for membership in Omega Psi Phi and that the word had come back that his son was unworthy.

He then wrote, in substance, that if his son was not worthy to become a member of Omega Psi Phi, he could not possibly be worthy to remain one.

He asked that his name be removed from the rolls of the fraternity as though he had never been a member.

He also told me that he had left a copy of the letter at the house for me to read.

I did not know what to say.

My father had followed his brothers into Omega. Thomas and Clyde had pledged at Hampton Institute, and my father had later joined through a graduate chapter while attending the University of Denver.

His membership connected him to his brothers, and to a family tradition he had been proud to continue.

Now he was willing to give it up.

Not because I asked him.

Not because he was demanding that I be admitted.

Not because he was bargaining.

He was not saying, “Take my son or I will resign.”

He was saying something more final.

If you have concluded that my son is unworthy, then I cannot accept your conclusion that I am worthy.

The Grand Basileus responded quickly.

I no longer remember the precise explanation he gave my father. What I remember is that another opportunity was offered to me. I could complete a few meetings or some additional process and still become a member.

My father explained that to me without telling me what he thought I should do.

“If you want to do it, I’ll let him know,” he said. “You can think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it.”

There was a pause.

“What about Michael?”

“I wrote about you,” my father said. “I don’t think this involves Michael.”

“Then I don’t want to do it.”

My father did not interrupt me.

“Michael and I were doing this together,” I said. “He was the one who knew about the fraternity. He got me excited about it. I followed his lead. Nobody in our family had ever brought Omega up to me. I would not have been involved at all if it had not been for him.”

My father listened.

“It wouldn’t feel right for me to take an opportunity to join when the whole thing began with Michael and they aren’t giving him the same opportunity.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He told me he wanted me to think about it and that we could speak again after he returned from his trip.

“Pop, I’m solid.”

“Okay.”

That was one of the things that stayed with me.

My father had already made his own decision, but he did not make mine for me.

He did not tell me that because he had written the letter, I was now required to reject the offer. He did not use what he had done as pressure.

He gave me the facts and allowed me to choose.

I told Michael about the offer and why I had declined it.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.

“I know.”

“You could have gone ahead.”

“I know that too. But I wouldn’t have been there without you. It didn’t feel right.”

Michael understood.

I never went back through the process.

My father gave the Grand Basileus my answer.

As best I can remember, that telephone call was the last time Pop and I ever spoke about Omega Psi Phi.

We never revisited the decision.

We never discussed the letter again.

We simply moved on.

Sometime later, I noticed that the Omega plaques and fraternity items my mother had displayed in our home were gone.

There was no announcement.

My father did not explain.

The plaques were simply no longer there.

In their place were empty spaces on the wall.

For years, I remembered the incident mostly as proof that my father had stood with me.

I was proud of him.

I was grateful.

But as I grew older, I understood that he had given me something more than loyalty.

When the word “unworthy” reached me, I did not receive it with the same weight my father had. I was confused by it, but I did not allow it to define me.

My father’s reaction helped me understand why.

He treated the word as unworthy of belief.

He did not become consumed by it.

He did not ask me to prove myself to anyone.

He did not beg the fraternity to reconsider.

He answered the judgment matter-of-factly.

If my son is unworthy in your eyes, then remove my name too.

That was not the response of a man who accepted anyone else’s authority to define either of us.

It was the response of a man who knew exactly what his son was worth.

All these years later, I think about how calmly Pop handled it.

His response taught me how I should feel when someone calls me unworthy.

Not defeated.

Not obsessed.

Not even necessarily angry.

Dismissive.

Certain.

You do not have to carry another person’s judgment home, study it, wrestle with it or allow it to become a question inside you.

You can simply decline to agree.

Years later, my father told me that he believed the situation may not have been entirely about me. He thought some members may have mistaken his lack of social participation for arrogance. Because he did not spend much time at fraternity gatherings, they may have believed he considered himself better than they were.

That was not my father.

His work consumed him. When he was not working, he belonged to his family.

But people often interpret another person’s absence through their own assumptions.

Perhaps some of those feelings reached me.

I do not know.

This story is not an indictment of Omega Psi Phi.

I respect Omega and the long history of Black fraternities and sororities. These organizations have built community, nurtured leadership, created lifelong friendships and served generations of Black people.

My experience involved particular people, a particular moment and circumstances whose complete details I will never know.

And for me, the story is not really about a fraternity.

It is about my father.

I always knew Pop loved me. His love was present in everything he was to me and to our family.

But now, nearly twenty years after his death and after becoming a father myself, I understand the letter he wrote differently.

My daughter, Asa Pearl, has begun asking about the Asas who came before her. She wants to know about her grandfather, about the men whose name she carries and about what kind of people they were.

If I still had the letter, I would frame it for her.

Not because it involved a fraternity.

Not because it was written by my father.

I would frame it because it contains one of the most important lessons my father ever gave me.

My father did not merely stand beside me. He showed me how to stand inside myself.

That is the wisdom of the heart I want Asa Pearl to inherit.

The greatest thing passed down through the Asas has never been the name. It is the certainty that our worth is not created by an organization, a title, an invitation or someone else’s approval.

The letter is gone now.

I cannot place it in my daughter’s hands or show her my father’s signature at the bottom.

I cannot point to the sentence where he placed his own worth beside mine.

But I can tell her what happened.

I can tell her that when her grandfather heard his son had been called unworthy, he did not ask the world to reconsider.

He simply declined to agree.

The letter is gone, but I can still see the empty place on the wall.

And now, all I have is the story