BETA Boulé CHRONICLE OF 100 YEARS CHICAGO

Celebrating the Boulé Centennial One hundred years after six Philadelphia professional men founded Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, the organization returned to Philadelphia with a cloud of blue-ribbon witnesses, living and dead, a record of 10 decades of achievement, and an expanding vision of an international band of brothers committed to service, brotherhood and excellence. More than 3,000 archons (members) and archousai (wives) attended the Grand Boulé Centennial Celebration, the largest gathering in the history of the fraternity, which is oftentimes called the Boulé, meaning, in fraternity parlance, “a council of noblemen.” The delegates and attendees, meeting in style in the salons and the grand ballroom of the Marriott Hotel, presented to themselves and to others a telling contrast with the restricted and largely segregated world of 1904 Philadelphia, where on May 15, 1904, a pharmacist, a dentist and two physicians— Henry McKee Minton, Dr. Algernon B. Jackson, Dr. Edwin C. Howard and Dr. Richard J. Warrick— met and announced to themselves, and to others, that a new world was coming. Within two weeks, two more doctors—Robert J. Abele and Eugene T. Hinson—joined, increasing the membership by 50 percent. In 1906 that council of Noblemen grew in number and the second enclave of Noble Black Men emerge in Chicago and that is how Beta Boule begun. This is that story .