An Open Letter to Brother Smith

Dear Brother Smith,

I write to you today not simply as a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., but as the last man you personally endorsed for initiation into this Grand Fraternity, back in 1998. I have carried that distinction for nearly three decades, and I have come to understand it not as an honor to be held quietly, but as a responsibility to be lived out loudly, in service to this organization and to the public at large.

You were, by every account and by my own witness, a man whose life gave full meaning to the words we speak as Kappa Men. You were a caring husband and a loving father. You wore the uniform of this country and served it with distinction. You gave yourself to the classroom and to the young people who passed through it, believing, as our fraternity teaches, that scholarship and education are the surest paths to a better life. And you broke a barrier that had stood for generations when you became the first, and to this day, the only Black mayor to lead the City of Lewes, a trust the people of the city placed in you not once, but across multiple terms.

There were not many things you set out to do that you did not finish. But there was one. In 1993, you attempted to establish a dedicated alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi to serve the residents of Sussex County. There simply were not enough active Brothers in the area at the time to bring that vision to life, and the effort did not succeed. I imagine that unfinished work stayed with you. A dream deferred, and for a long while, denied.

Brother Smith, I write to tell you that it is finished now.

It is with tremendous pride, and with you fully in mind, that I announce this: on October 1, 2026, the Grand Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. issued a charter establishing the Lewes (DE) Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., to serve Lewes and the greater Sussex County community. A group of Kappa Men from Lewes and the surrounding areas took up the work you began, and we have carried it across the finish line. The chapter you could not build in 1993 now stands, more than three decades later, because you planted a seed that refused to stop growing.

As I step into the role of Polemarch for this new chapter, I feel the full weight of what this moment means. This is a full-circle moment. I was the last man you called Brother for the first time. Now I lead the chapter you were the first to imagine. Sussex County will have, once again, men of achievement standing ready to serve and to be a positive force in the community you loved and led.

You remain a motivating factor in everything I commit myself to, in this Fraternity and beyond it. I hope that in the way we build this chapter, in the way we serve our neighbors, and in the way we hold scholarship, service, and integrity as our standard, you would recognize something of yourself in us. That is the legacy I intend to carry, in your likeness, for as long as I am given the privilege to lead.

Rest well on the Golden Shores, Brother Smith. The dream deferred has been achieved.