His isolation from the academic community, errors in organizational records, and the renaming of the fraternity caused Edmonds to lose contact with his co-founders and other fraternity members.Įdmonds married Willa Mae Forte and settled in Stevenson, Indiana. Edmonds withdrew from school to support his family, working as a coal miner like his father. While there, his father died from pneumonia. The Los Angeles Sentinel described the founding of the fraternity by Edmonds and his co-founders as 'the vision of these astute men that enabled them in the school year 1910–11, more specifically the night of January 5, 1911, on the campus of Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana, to sow the seed of a fraternal tree whose fruit is available to, and now enjoyed by, college men everywhere, regardless of their color, religion or national origin.' Įdmonds returned home in the summer of 1911. The fraternity was the first intercollegiate fraternity incorporated as a national body. Soon thereafter, he and nine fellow classmates, all men, founded Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated, as a way to increase the ambition of black youth and encourage them to achieve more than what was expected. He attended Carver Elementary School, and graduated Clark High School in Evansville, Indiana in 1910.Įdmonds entered Indiana University at Bloomington in the fall of 1910.

Edmonds was born on August 13, 1890, in Knight Township, Vanderburgh County, Indiana.

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