KA Cancels Old South

Kappa Alpha has cancelled the 2010 Old South Parade. First, some background information, KA was founded at Washington and Lee in 1865. In 1923, Robert E. Lee was established as the "Spiritual Founder" based on his ideals, chivalry, and overall southern gentleman qualities, traits that ALL men should value. Old South is a weeklong celebration of the ideals of the Old South, not slavery, but Christianity, chilvary, state's rights among others. The celebration includes a parade around campus, the men of Kappa Alpha dress in Confederate uniforms, and their dates wear hoop skirts. Last year, while picking up girls from their sorority houses, the trucks carrying the brothers coincidentally stopped for a short moment in front of the Alpha Kappa Alpha house, a black sorority. AKA was having a 35th anniversary celebration that day with almost thirty alumni present. The AKAs were outraged and over seventy alumni signed a petition to Dr. Robert Whitt, President of the University of Alabama, asking him to end the Old South Parade. The parade has gone since before Vivian Jones or James Hood ever came to the University, and now it has been cancelled. The AKAs say that KAs need to move on and see the progress that we have made since the civil war and stop being racist. It is in the view of Team Seamen that the KAs are not being racist, simply honoring the past, the history of the South. The AKAs are the racist that are unable to see that this is a celebration that represent the values of the Old South, they immediately assume its about slavery. The flag flying at the Kappa Alpha house does not stand for slavery, it stands for state's rights and fighting for what you believe.