I'm looking for information on the original school colors and school
mascot of Howard University, DC. Did the Bison and current school
colors change since the school was founded? If so, why and when?

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Request for Question Clarification by mother-ga on 09 Jul 2002 20:40 PDT

Sly,

Do you have reason to believe that the mascot and colors are not the
original ones? I can find no evidence that they have ever been
changed. If you can provide some evidence or some clue that prompted
your question, that may help a researcher find the answer.

Good luck!
-- mother-ga

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Clarification of Question by sly-ga on 09 Jul 2002 23:13 PDT

Trying to find a solution to a fraternal Urban legand. Word has it
that Howard's  original colors were purple and gold and that the
mascot was a bulldog. One of the founding fathers of the Omega Psi phi
fraternity, Ernest Everett Just got into a altercation with I believe
it was the president of the university because the fraternity Omega
Psi Phi was going to use the same color and mascot for their
organization. The president opposed they idea and changed the colors
and the mascot.I was told that this information could be found in the
Moreland -Spingarn researh center at Howard university. I wanted to
know if this was actually true. If it was I wanted to try to request
some documentation to inform the mis-informed. I hope this is enough
info and clarification.  Thanks in advance. Sly

Hi Sly,

   Definitely an interesting story.  Although I couldn't find anything
that suggested that the colors had been changed, I did find something,
written by Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, that promises that they have
NEVER endorsed or supported the use of a mascot.  This is not the
Fraternity's official site, but I saw it in many histories.  One of
these pages is :

http://www.geocities.com/en1911quepsi/page4.html


Hope this helped to refute some of the story,

-Rebekah

Also,
  You are correct that the Moreland-Springarn Research Center offers
written information about the history of your University.  The first
20 or so pages are available online (which I read, and no info about
the color/mascot was available).  After that, you can contact the
center and order the book, which is entitled "The Long Walk."  Don't
know if you want to pay just to refute an urban legend, but it seems
like it would be a memorable piece of history that you'd want about
your University anyway, so it may be useful to you.

For more information about this, go to: 
http://www.howard.edu/hu-homepages/HowardPast.htm

-Rebekah

Rebekah, who is the author of " The Long Walk "? If I were to try to
purchase this book, would I have to go through Howard to get ? Can I
get it through on of the majoe bookstores? Also, thank you for the
information so far.

Sly

Hi Sly,

     Here is the information you asked for on the book:

The Long Walk: The Placemaking Legacy of Howard University

by     Harry G. Robinson, III
       Hazel Ruth Edwards

Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
Howard University 1996

It seems that since this was a University Publication by the Research
Center -- that it's not available for sale in public stores... but let
me check just in case:

I was able to find it at Amazon.com, but with VERY limited
availability.  Here's the link if you'd like to order; 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/104-6822974-4675911

I'll keep looking for more info for you,
Rebekah