In the early spring of 1926, a group of prominent Houston businessmen, educators, attorneys and physicians were informally socializing with visiting Omegas Carter Wesley, Jasper “Jack” Atkins and law student James Nabrit Jr. During their gathering, one of them presented the idea that they needed to organize a fraternal club. These men, undoubtedly influenced by Wesley, Atkins and Nabrit, decided that they wanted to be part of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. The enthusiasm for a chapter in the Omega organization had enveloped their hearts and the sensation was well on its way. Within a few weeks, these young men were meeting formally to exchange procedural ideas on establishing a new graduate chapter.
The first meeting was held at the Odd Fellows Temple located on the corner of Louisiana and Prairie streets in downtown Houston. James Nabrit and Carter Walker Wesley provided written information on how to organize a chapter. Brother Nabrit, acting as chairman, asked H.P. Carter to select several prominent men to serve as the nucleus and submit those names to Grand Basileus George E. Vaughn for consideration in establishing a chapter in Houston.
Former Grand Basileus (1921-24) and Houston attorney, Jack Alston Atkins, developed the goals and objectives for the new chapter. After long hours of work, the documents requesting a charter were finally completed and submitted to Brother Walter Mazyck, the Grand Keeper of Records and Seal.
After submitting the proposal and waiting patiently for months, the Houston men received word from the National Office that their request for a new chapter (the first graduate chapter in Texas) had been granted. With this good news in hand, Brother Nabrit began the process of organizing the chapter. Brother Pritchard Willard, an Omega man from Wiley College, assisted him and played an integral part in the establishment of this new chapter – a chapter that would become the pulse of the Houston community.
On Thursday August 26, 1926, during the second year of Grand Basileus Vaughn’s administration; this new chapter was founded and given the name NU PHI Chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Future Grand Basileus Albert W. Dent of Louisiana and Brother Willard of Beaumont conducted the ceremony. W.P. Terrell, of Rho Omega, assisted and would go on to be the Chapter’s first Vice Basileus. Nu Phi’s official charter was issued on October 1, 1926.
Charter members were Howard Payne Carter, Dr. D.F. Barclay, James Delbridge Ryan, Gilbert T. Stocks, E.A. Chester, Richard G. Lockett and Olen P. Dewalt.
The charter members of Nu Phi and the men that worked so diligently to establish the chapter were all men of distinction, dedicated professionals and fierce civil rights champions.
James Nabrit Jr.
Jasper (Jack) Alston Atkins
Carter Walker Wesley
Dr. Rupert O. Roett
James Nabrit, Jr., was born in Georgia on September 7, 1900. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1923 and from Northwestern University Law School in 1927. Nabrit taught school in Louisiana and Arkansas from 1927 to 1930. From 1930 to 1936 he practiced law in Houston and later taught law at Howard University from 1936 to 1960. In 1938, he started the first formal civil rights law course in the United States and would later become president of Howard University. Beginning in the 1940s and through the 1950s, Nabrit handled a number of civil rights cases for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, working with prominent attorneys such as ThurgoodMarshall, who became the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Notably, Nabrit argued Bolling v. Sharpe, a companion case of Brown v. Board of Education.
Carter Walker Wesley, a native Houstonian, attended Fisk University and Northwestern University’s Law School. He met Jasper (Jack) Alston Atkins at Northwestern and the two practiced law in Oklahoma for five years during the 1920s. After earning a large sum in the Leonard Ingram case involving oil claims, Wesley and Atkins moved to Houston and set up a law firm that included James M. Nabrit Jr. – an Omega man from Howard University. (At one time, Wesley, Richardson and Carter were business partners and owners of the Houston Informer).
Jasper (Jack) Alston Atkins, a native of Winston-Salem, NC received his B.A (magna cum laude) from Fisk University in 1919. He received his LL.B (cum laude) and J.D. in 1922 from Yale Law School where he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal. He practiced with the firm of Saddler, Atkins & Wesley in Muskogee and Tulsa, OK until he and Carter Wesley moved to Houston in 1927. In 1935, J.A. Atkins argued the case of Grovey v. Townsend, an early civil rights case involving the Texas primaries, before the U.S. Supreme Court and later cases against the North Carolina School system. He died June 28, 1982.
\Born in Barbados, Dr. Rupert O. Roett graduated from Meharry Medical College. He completed his internship and residency at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. On his way to California, he was persuaded by other Black physicians to stay in Houston. Together in 1919, they founded Union Hospital, Houston’s first Black hospital, at the corner of Howard and Nash Streets in Houston’s Fourth Ward. In 1927, this same group was also the nucleus that established and built The Houston Negro Hospital, which is now named Riverside General Hospital. His residence at 3274 Holman in the Third Ward was named and is a City of Houston Landmark. Rupert O. Roett, also thought to be a charter member of Nu Phi, was possibly an Honorary Member of Delta Chapter – Nashville, Tennessee.
On May 5th and 6th of 1937, the Ninth District of Omega Psi Phi, Inc., was formed under the direction of Nu Phi’s, Dr. J.D. Bowles. He was appointed the first Ninth District Representative by Albert W. Dent – who had risen to the position of the 16th Grand Basileus of the fraternity.
None of these bridge builders is with us today, but their foundation will forever remain and be a vital part of the history of Nu Phi Chapter and Omega Psi Phi.
Olen P. Dewalt
Olen P. DeWalt graduated from Prairie View College, after which he worked as a real estate agent. He was principal of Independent Heights School for a brief period before opening the Lincoln Theater – the first Black owned, exclusively Black theater in Houston. During the 1920s he was president of the Houston branch of the NAACP and also pushed for the establishment of a branch of the National Urban League in Houston. He was heralded as an influential civil-rights leader who stood up to the KKK. DeWalt remained NAACP president until his death. On April 24, 1931, the 41-year-old Texas civil rights leader was assassinated after speaking passionately against the Klan. Brother DeWalt is buried in Livingston, TX.
Howard Carter
Howard Payne “H.P.” Carter, a native of Tennessee, began his teaching career in Seguin, Texas. After military service, he came to Houston, eventually becoming the first African-American secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). After organizing the first football team at Old Colored High School, he became the Texas manager for National Benefit Life Insurance Company. The Carter Career Center was built in 1929. H.P. Carter was Nu Phi’s first Basileus (1926) and was appointed the second District Representative of the southwestern area. This area would officially become the Ninth District in 1937.
Gilbert Stocks
Gilbert T. Stocks, a World War I veteran, graduated from Walker Baptist Institute in Augusta, Georgia. The Valedictorian of the 1910 class of Morehouse College – Atlanta, Georgia, later taught at Western College in Macon, Georgia before serving as a Dean at Rogers Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee – a historical black college created in 1866 as an educational facility for newly freed slaves. Professor Stocks was the first Chaplin of Nu Phi.
On Nov 5, 1926, C.H. McGruder and Clifton Frederick Richardson, Sr. – both of whom were long thought to be charter members – along with J.B. Morris and J.W. Beverley, were initiated.
James D. Ryan
James Delbridge Ryan, a graduate of Prairie View A&M University, received his Masters from Wiley College in Marshall, TX. He taught at Second and Third Ward schools in Houston and eventually became principal of the Colored High School (now the reconstructed Gregory Museum) and later, Jack Yates High School. J.D. Ryan Middle School was named in his honor. Brother Ryan is buried in the historic Olivewood Cemetery near Houston’s Fourth Ward. He was Nu Phi’s first Keeper of Finance.
Richard Lockett
Richard G. Lockett was a native Houstonian born in 1882. He graduated from Atlanta University in 1905 and returned to Houston where he taught in and later coached at the Colored High School for Blacks. Because Blacks were not allowed to use Houston’s public libraries, he along with Walter L. D. Johnson, Sr. and Leonard Spivey (all of whom would later become Omega men) championed and succeeded in the establishment of Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library which opened in 1913. In 1926, he was also involved in the establishment of and a charter member of the Houston Affiliate of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas, Free and Accepted Masons of which Dr. Roett would later become a member. Brother Lockett continued teaching and R.G. Lockett Junior High School was named after him in 1959.
E.A. Chester
E.A. Chester, a graduate of Wiley College, worked at the Tuskegee Institute as a contemporary of Dr. Booker T. Washington. From 1926 to 1927, he was principal of the school in Independent Heights, TX – the first incorporated Black city in Texas (the area is now known as Studewood). In 1927, he became principal of Harper School. He was Nu Phi’s first Keeper of Peace.
Dr. D. F. Barclay
Dr. D.F. Barclay, a graduate of Houston High School, entered the Student Army Training Corp at Howard University in September of 1918. He entered Dental School in 1919 – graduating in 1923. He was Nu Phi’s first Keeper of Records and Seal.
