Bishop Edgar A. Love (1891-1974), minister and fraternity founder.
Edgar Amos Love was born in Harrisburg, Virginia, the son of a minister, and
grew up in Baltimore. He attended high school at the Academy of Morgan College
before enrolling at Howard University. At the beginning of his junior year in
1911, Love and his close friends Frank Coleman and Oscar J. Cooper decided to
form a Greek-letter fraternity. This was part of a broader movement in the
black community to fight for racial equality through black institutions such as
literary societies, women’s clubs, and now Greek-letter organizations, in part because
African Americans were excluded from white groups but primarily because of a
desire to have their own institutions that they could control and use in culturally
a appropriate manner. Two other organizations had previously been founded at
predominantly white universities, but the vast majority of black college
students attended black universities like Howard, and Love and his friends felt
that creating a fraternity at a historically black college could help inspire
young African Americans to fight against discrimination. As he later
remembered, the fraternity was “born out of a dream.” On the evening of
November 17, 1911, Love, Cooper, Coleman and faculty member Ernest Everett Just
founded Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, along with the motto “Friendship Is Essential
to the Soul.” The men quickly inducted other members and selected officers.
They initially met opposition from Howard’s administration, but Love’s
perseverance eventually convinced the president and faculty to recognize them
as an official campus organization and allow them to organize other chapters.
In 1914, Omega Psi Phi was nationally incorporated, with Love serving as the
first Grand Basileus (national leader). While still in college, he held this
office for two terms, overseeing the creation of new chapters and induction of
new members, including his brother John.
After completing his
bachelor’s degree in 1913, with high honors for his scholarship, Love earned
additional degrees from Howard and Boston University and also took graduate
courses at the University of Chicago. When the United States entered World War
I, he entered the Officers Training Camp at Fort Des Moines, where he was
commissioned a first lieutenant and established a “War Chapter” to induct more
men into the fraternity. He was sent to France as chaplain for the 368th
Infantry, displaying his manhood in several conflict zones despite being
exposed to poison gas. Love also developed a literacy program for uneducated
soldiers; this eventually grew into a full-fledged school. After leaving the
service in 1919, Love worked at Morgan State University as a professor of
history and the Bible and as athletic director. He then accepted a pastoral
position at a Methodist Episcopal church in Fairmount Heights, Virginia, later
serving other congregations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Baltimore.
During the 1950s, he was elevated to the level of bishop. He also sought to
uplift the black community by working with the Maryland Interracial Commission,
to which he was appointed by the governor. In addition to his fraternal
service, Love was an active member of the American Legion, the Prince Hall
Masons, president of the Alumni Association of Howard University School of
Religion, president of the Inter-denominational Ministers Alliance of
Washington, and district superintendent of the Washington District for the M.E.
Church. “It’s easy to go along with the
crowd,” he reflected later in life, “but the man or woman who carries
civilization afar is the individual who takes leadership and goes against the
public opinion if it is not in harmony with the highest ideals of the
individual.” Edgar Amos Love died in 1974, the last surviving founder of Omega
Psi Phi. As of 2020, more than 250,000 men had been initiated into one of the
750 chapters around the world.
©David
Brodnax, Sr.
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