Had it not been for Anna Evans Murray, there would not have been public kindergarten in Washington, DC She was a pioneer fighter for education. Her revolutionary spirit was inherited from her family. Anna Evans was  born in Oberlin, Ohio in 1857.  She was the daughter of Henry Evans, a free man in North Carolina. When the state of North Carolina took away the right of suffrage from all African-Americans, her father traveled on horseback to Oberlin, Ohio where he found work as an artisan crafting cabinets and as an undertaker. In 1858, Henry Evans defied Fugitive Slave Laws of Ohio and was arrested and imprisoned with 18 others in Cleveland. He and his wife Henrietta Leary, the daughter of a French woman, Juliette Anna Meimorial, educated all thirteen of the children (including Anna)  at Oberlin College. Anna Evans great-grand father  Lewis Leary befriended abolitionist John Brown and was shot during the insurrection at Harper's Ferry in Virginia. Another cousin John Anthony CopelandJr., hanged with John Brown.  

Anna Evans Murray mother was Henrietta Leary Evans. Her father and  Murray's great grandfather Matthew Nathaniel Leary, born a free man in North Carolina, worked as a harnessmaker and as an apprentice before branching out into his own wholesale harness and saddling business. Leary employed many youth in Fayetteville, North Carolina and worked until his eyesight failed and hired a white man to oversee the business. Leary purchased a large plantation for his family. His political affiliation was with the Whig party until the war erupted and he became a Republican. Matthew Leary was a staunch abolitionist and became a well known philanthropist giving freely of his time and money to advance the cause of freedom. It has been noted that he often gave money to slaves to buy their times from their masters and assisted them in securing their emancipation. A member of the Protestant church, he organized the St.Joseph's Episcopal Church of Fayetteville and directed the choir. Matthew Leary married Juliette Meimoriel, a woman of French descent who was brought from the French West Indies to what was then Cross Creek, now known as Fayetteville, North Carolina. They were the parents of seven children including Matthew, Jr., a manufacturer and politician in Washington, DC, Libby, Sarah, and Lucy,( who were all school teachers  in Fayetteville). Other children were John, Lewis Sheridan, Sara and Henrietta who married Henry Evans, Nathaniel Murray's grandmother.  Her sister Sara married the brother of Henry,  Wilson Bruce Evans.  
   
Murray's mother Anna Evans Murray graduated from Oberlin College  in 1876. During her marriage, she taught  music at Howard University and at the Mott School.  She dedicated her life to establishing free kindergartens and training kindergarten teachers throughout the District of Columbia.  Mrs. Murray chaired the Education Committee of the National League of Colored Women(NLCW) in Washington and the State Federation of Colored Women's Club. In 1898, she successfully lobbied for a twelve thousand dollar federal appropriation to establish kindergarten classes.  Mrs. Murray published "On Behalf of the Negro Woman" an article in the Southern Workman in 1904.  She was an early advocate for child welfare and for children getting a start early with their education. With her vast contacts, including the wife of a California Senator, she helped to secure a second appropriation from congress  in 1906 for the inclusion of a kindergarten teacher training course at Miner Teachers College in Washington. In 1934, then in her late eighties, she presented a plea at a Congressional hearing for the establishment of a health center in an area where a high percentage of tuberculosis deaths occurred. Very respected in all circles in Washington, Anna Evans Murray was a  renaissance kindergarten advocate, clubwoman, educator and civic leader. She conveyed to her children the philosophy of her mother who said "Education is a pearl of great price by which you will be able to set yourself free in your environment, whatever that may be."  

She married the Assistant to the Librarian of Congress on April 2, 1879, and they were the parents of seven children including Nathaniel Allison Murray.  She died on 1955 at the age of 98.  

Sources:  
Smith, Jesse Carney. Notable Black American Women Book II 
Pittsburgh Courier, May 5, 1955  

The Papers of Daniel Alexander Payne Murray, University of Wisconsin  

PART TWO:  
Dr. Roscoe Conkling Giles: An Unsung Hero in Alpha  
by Skip Mason  

In 1940, some 34 years after the fraternity was established, Brother Roscoe Giles, Alpha's Second General President and a well known and established  medical doctor in Chicago, sat down and painfully drafted a letter to Brother Charles Harris Wesley citing some concerns that he had but "had never  spoken." It was his belief that the general organization of Alpha Phi Alpha  had ignored him. He said,  

"When the first history of the Fraternity came out it contained many claims on the part of men, some of whom are now dead, who did none of the things the credit for which they took unto themselves. In fact some of them were not even in school nor in the town of Ithaca, for that matter"  

Giles further stated in his letter that time would substantiate that he wrote the constitution  and the first ritual and supplied all the Greek for the same.  According to the letter, he served as General Treasurer, traveling to  and from conventions at his expense. Giles was a member of the Pin Committee, set up the chapter at Yale, Columbia University, and Harvard, where he said" I paid out of my own pocket."  He went on to say that he was responsible for the admission of Michigan University and when he served as General President, he delegated Henry Arthur Callis to set up the chapter. After setting of Eta Chapter, he served as its president for three or four years.  Dr. Giles commented on how he had to walk sometimes from 28th Street to Second Avenue to 135th and Lennox to hold chapter meetings in Mr. Thomas's undertaking parlor. "On several occasions I walked from there to Brooklyn  until Mr. Thomas found out my plight and gave me enough carfare on which to get home. "  

What caused him to write this letter is not really known, though a feeling of being overlooked is mentioned.  Giles celebrated his 33 year in the fraternity having been initiated on October 26, 1907, into Alpha Chapter with James P. Boags, Frank V. Plummer, Frank B. Wilson and John Eliot Smith, He  became the first African-American to receive the degree of Doctor of Medicine from Cornell and was elected as the President of the National Medical Association.  

SKIP'S NOTE-Why have I shared this story with you? What causes a brother to feel that he has been omitted from due recognition from the fraternity. Personal differences, omission of contributions to the organizations are just a few. Even though there are 21 citations of Giles in the History book, his dismay comes from the recognition from the body as a whole.  I simply think that we must take time to pay tribute and remember some of the "pioneering brothers in our chapters and communities who gave so much to the early development of our organization. These "old and wise brothers" have so much to share. My love for Alpha is the result of the nurturing that I received from some of the giants in the fraternity (Raymond W. Cannon, Charles Wesley, Lionel Newsom, Sidney Jones, Moses G. Miles,  Henry James Charles Bowden,  Andrew J. Lewis and others with whom I sat listened and learned about the Fraternity.  If some or all of these names are not familiar to you, then I must make it so.  I am 37 years old brothers and have been in the fraternity 17 years. I have spent those 17 years reading, researching, collecting and ciphering material so that I could have a better understanding and more pride. Many of you have written and asked for more about me. I have been reluctant to share because I want to devote these pages to the history. My website will be up very soon and you can go their to learn who this Skip Mason is. I knew in my heart that there was more to our beloved Seven Jewels and the fraternity history that had been shared.  And yes,  my brothers, there is!  

We must constantly seek new light and ask questions.  The primary purpose of  Skip's Historical Moments and my book "The Talented Tenth is to bring some additional understanding of our founders and Past Presidents. Over the last 15 years I have utilize many resources including the papers of Wesley, of Callis both at the Moorland Spingarn Research Library. I have traveled to Washington, New York to use the papers of  the Library of Congress, the Schomburg Center.  I have viewed more rolls of microfilm and periodicals than you can imagine and have gone through more books and collections. Such is the nature of research and of being a historian and I have done it at my own expense and have enjoyed and thank God for every opportunity. I do not think that it was Brother Wesley's notion that his book would be the definitive study on Alpha Phi Alpha nor that we should not question and analyze various facets of our history.  As one past Editor to the Sphinx told me, "Wesley was under great pressure to just stick to what happened in the minutes at at the convention." In an upcoming issue, I will share with you the saga of what it took to even get the first book written. It was drama personified in Alpha. General President Raymond Cannon had the fight of his life. It was a book that was almost not written.  

Guess what I found today while going through the microfilm at the Auburn Avenue Research Library?  A picture of George Biddle Kelley and his new bride at their wedding in 1934. Over 500 persons attended, but no guest list was offered. Was hoping to see if any of his fellow Jewels were present. I am hoping to get to my publisher to include in the book(don't want to delay it  any more). By the way, Kelley was almost 49 when he married. Who says love  
doesn't wait?  

"We must put service before self and put aside all petty differences and undertake to meet the needs of our  race...according to the demands of the times.  
Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray, c. 1956  

"As Christmas is approaching, I have just been wondering when will the Fraternity remember me, or is a life that has been spent in service of my Race to fail of recognition by the organization to which I have given the best part of my life. I have not been as active in the general organization in past years because, very frankly, I  have been keenly disappointed by their failure of recognition."  
2nd General President Roscoe C. Giles, c. 1940  

FROM THE PAN HELLENIC ARCHIVES   
Did you know that in 1950, Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi and Delta Sigma Theta held a convention together at the same time in the same city in Kansas City, Kansas.  

Did you know that Alpha Kappa Alpha was the first sorority to induct white women as honorary members in the 1920's according to an article in the Baltimore Afro-American, c. 1929. The writer mistaken credited to the Delta's and they wrote the editor and said that they take only "NEGRO WOMEN" :-)  

Did you know that Sigma Gamma Rho was established at the Butlers Teachers College in Bloomington, Indiana, the same city as Kappa Alpha Psi? Could that explain why they are sometimes linked together as sisters and brothers.  Perhaps. Maybe we will explore.