Nathaniel Allison Murray pursued graduate work after completing his undergraduate studies at Cornell. He later returned home to Washington, D.C., where he taught in public schools. Much of his career was spent at Armstrong Vocational High School in the District of Columbia. He was a member of Alpha Chapter’s first committee on organization of the new fraternal group, as well as the Committee on the Grip. The charter member of Washington’s Mu Lambda Chapter was a frequent attendee of General Conventions. He died in 1959.
To say that your Founders met with discouragement is only putting the matter lightly. I can recall staying up with others as late as three A.M., sometimes four thirty A.M. trying to make some antagonistic brother see a point in argument, only to fail, and tackle the same again the following night.” — Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray October 1936
Born into two families with very rich backgrounds, Jewel Murray’s passion for education was inherited from his parents. Nathaniel Allison Murray was born April 10, 1884 in Washington, D.C. to Anna Jane Evans Murray and Daniel Alexander Payne Murray and was a part of the “Washington Colored Aristocracy,” experienced by very few families during the 1890′s through the turn of the century. He was one of seven children born to the Murray’s, who were married on April 2,1879. Mrs. Murray was born in Oberlin, Ohio. She was the daughter of Henry Evans, who in 1858, defied Fugitive Slave Laws in Oberlin, Ohio and was arrested and imprisoned with 18 others in Cleveland. Her great grandfather and Jewel Murray’s great-great grandfather Lewis Leary befriended abolitionist John Brown. His great grandfather Matthew Nathaniel Leary was a well known manufacturer and politician in Washington, D.C. Our Jewel came from a rich stock of ancestry.
Jewel Murray s mother, Anna Evans Murray graduated from Oberlin College in 1876. During her marriage, she taught music at Howard University and at the Mott School. She dedicated her life to establishing free kindergartens and training kindergarten teachers throughout the District of Columbia. Mrs. Murray chaired the Education Committee of the National League of Colored Women (NLCW) in Washington. In 1898, she successfully lobbied for a twelve thousand dollar federal appropriation to establish kindergarten classes. Mrs. Murray published “In Behalf of the Negro Woman” an article in the Southern Workman in 1904. She was an early advocate for child welfare and for children getting an early start with their education. With her vast contacts, including the wife of a California Senator, she helped to secure a second appropriation from Congress in 1906 for the inclusion of a kindergarten teacher training course at Miner Teachers College in Washington. In 1934, then in her eighties, she presented a plea at a congressional hearing for the establishment of a health center where a high percentage of tuberculosis deaths occurred. Very respected in all circles in Washington, Anna Evans Murray was a renaissance kindergarten advocate, clubwoman, educator and civic leader.
Murray s father, Daniel A.P. Murray, was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 3,1852 to George and Eliza Wilson Murray. Jewel Murray’s grandfather, George Murray was a timber inspector. Originally from Chestertown, Maryland, he came to the city after being freed by William Hopper, who had inherited him by marriage. George Murray was founder of Bethel Church and participated in bringing Daniel Coker, the first African-American teacher to the city of Baltimore around 1808. George Murray died in August of 1890 at the age of 115. His only surviving son, Daniel attended private school in Baltimore and the Unitarian Seminary, where he graduated in 1869. Three years later, he moved to Washington, D.C. where he secured an appointment in the Congressional Library as the personal assistant of Ainsworth R. Spofford.
During his fifty years at the library, he began to classify material for a book he wanted to publish titled The Encyclopedia of the Colored Race. Though much work was done on the book, it was never published. A member of the Washington Board of Trade, Daniel Murray was a staunch Republican and was a delegate to the 1908 convention which nominated William Howard Taft and the 1920 convention which nominated Warren G. Harding. He was vestryman at the St. Luke Episcopal Church. He received an honorary degree from Wilberforce University in 1916, and was cited as the world authority on the Negro. His reputation in Washington society was widespread. Jewel Murray’s father usually attended presidential inaugural affairs in Washington. According to the book Baltimore: The Nineteenth Century Black Capitol by Leroy Graham, Daniel Murray was one of the wealthiest blacks in Washington and was an accomplished violinist. He served on the school board and his brother managed the United States Senate Restaurant.
One of seven children, Jewel Nathaniel Murray’s other siblings were George Henry, a lawyer who had studied at Harvard and Howard Universities and taught at Cardozo Business High School in Washington; Paul Evans, a renown concert violinist; Harold Baldwin, an engineer who also studied at Cornell University and was an engineer in Brazil before becoming a paper manufacturer in Mexico; Helene, Pinckney, and Daniel, Jr., also a violinist. They attended X Street School and the Armstrong Manual Training School organized by their great uncle Wilson Bruce Evans in 1901. Nathaniel Murray graduated in 1905. He would later return to Armstrong as an instructor in science.
In the fall of 1905, Nathaniel Murray entered Cornell University as a student in the College of Agriculture and made the acquaintance of his fellow classmates and Charles C. Poindexter, who worked in the department of Agriculture. They enjoyed the camaraderie and discussions of possibly establishing a fraternity. Jewel Murray remembered:
As was to be expected, some opposed and some favored the new proposition. After drifting along for several weeks with no definite decision forthcoming, I offered the motion that I believed the time was ripe to disband the social club and organize a Negro College fraternity.”
When the motion was made to become a fraternity, Jewel Murray seconded the motion. Murray recalled the tension:
“Did we have fights? Yes, but only verbal fights. Did we call names, only to be balled out by the chairman? Did we have personal grievances? Yes, yet despite personal grievances, we put Alpha Phi Alpha first and when the time came to go home at the hours indicated, we all gave the good hand of fellowship and left ready to resume the battle the next night, or the next called meeting.”
Murray recalled the lack of faith of the organization during its early days of some members of the school and community:
People not familiar with the determined spirit that actuated your Founders to continue to carry on, hurled verbal epithets at us such as: You will be the laughing stock of the town ; You cannot hope to do what white folks do ; You are too poor and you have no money ; You will lose your jobs as waiters if you try to imitate your employer ; You will go bankrupt after your first dance.
After graduating from Cornell, Jewel Murray returned to Washington, D.C and made it his home for over 30 years. In 1923, he along with Jewel Robert Harold Ogle, future General President Charles Harris Wesley and numerous others charted the Mu Lambda Chapter. Jewel Murray was elected Chaplain and would always open the meeting with the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer.
As an educator, Jewel Murray taught in the District School System as an instructor in agriculture and biology at Armstrong Manual Training High School. In 1945, Jewel Murray was the only African American to enter the among 300 competitors in the Third Annual Victory Garden Harvest Show sponsored by the Washington Gas light company. He won three prizes for his plant specimen which included a Swiss Chard plant, a salad vegetable and three winter squash fruits that he raised at the Phelps Vocational School.
In 1936, Jewel Murray spoke compassionately about the brutality of initiation:
“Who has not heard of the so called Hell Week? Who has thought more than once of some way of reducing the brutalities and permanent physical injuries that many Brothers have carried and will continue to carry to their graves… The first stages of the initiation are utterly brutal. I have stopped many a blindfold prospect from being beaten at the hands of an irresponsible Brother. The ceremonies as carried on in many chapters throughout the country were not the ceremonies that your Founders planned or intended for you to use. Too much of the element of personal prejudice enters into some of the initiation ceremonies and should not be tolerated. This merciless brutality must he stopped!….When Brother Eugene Kinckle Jones was initiated in ceremonies, in which I took part, there was no prolonged after effects in evidence. He can testify to that!”
His compassion to reach out to children and inspire became evident in the same speech:
“Do what you can by example, or by precept to encourage Negro boys and girls of college grade, as well as those of high school, to carry the banner of racial achievement into places where it has never been waved, when placed in Negro hands. Do this even though we as a group are in the minority or the majority. Believe in ourselves. Have a vision like Benjamin Banneker, Samuel Armstrong, Henry Ford, Booker T. Washington, Charles Wesley, Col. Lindbergh… Don’t let anyone persuade you to change your goal. Keep your vision on your dream always ahead and work on and on.”
Jewel Murray was invited to give the Founder’s Address at the Twenty- eighth Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 30, 1940. The speech was titled “Improving the Economic Status of the Negro”. In the speech, he highlighted the following:
“Concerning Alpha Phi Alpha Negro Citizenship Campaign, which is also based in part upon economic status, it is a well known truth that the man or woman who owns property and has a bank account has always proven himself to be a better citizen. Those who possess none of these desirable economic traits are not inclined to be motivated by the same desires…All fraternity brothers of AFA must continue to strive to aid all Negroes to obtain a guarantee of equal opportunity to enjoy life, liberty and happiness. Each chapter must continue to support whole heartedly, all local and national issues affecting Negroes in the U.S… Lend your aid to all worthy AFA candidates who aspire to political leadership. Remember that A Voteless People is a Hopeless People.”
At the Thirty-second General Convention in Columbus, Ohio in 1946, in what was one of the highlights of the convention, Jewel Murray harked upon the reclamation of brothers. In essence he said do whatever is necessary to reclaim a brother:
“Don’t get discouraged in your personal visits and efforts to rehabilitate Brothers who will tell you yes in order to get rid of you and then fail to show up. All who are interested in the strayed Brother or Brothers should grasp this opportunity to put Service before Self. Go after that Brother in your own auto or even hire a taxicab, if necessary, to impress him with the real need the local chapter has for his presence and influence. Expense should be nil, when the reward justifies the expense. For after all, what good is Alpha Phi Alpha to any of us if it does not teach us that as a servant of all, we must transcend all through service.”
On the selection of officers, Jewel Murray said in that same address:
“Aim to cut out too much politics in the selection of your chapter officers. Select only those Brothers for nomination who possess qualities of leadership, scholarship and character that you feel proud in having them as leaders. Get rid of the machine politics whereby so many chapters are handicapped in carrying out any kind of program, which program would always react to the glory and fame of dear old Alpha Phi Alpha…If chapters will but work to assimilate their membership and through their programs keep up a rich spirit and enthusiasm, the worries about taxes and assessments will be a thing of the past. A rich chapter life will replace the tendency to need dance and entertainment features. Brothers, Alpha Phi Alpha needs a real awakening from its lethargy! It is asleep and things are transpiring in many of the local chapters that would humiliate and shame your Founders.”
Jewel Murray enjoyed the role and distinction of being a founder of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Unfortunately, not all brothers accorded the Jewels the due respect they deserved. He recalled at the 34th Annual Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1948, the following incident:
“Despite the fact that the business sessions of the Convention were a grand success, there was, however, a lack of Courtesy shown the Jewels by those in charge of the local Committee of Arrangements. To be concrete, when at the close of the afternoon session, preceding the Banquet and it was too late to get home when I, in company with Jewel Brother Callis, presented myself at the place where the Banquet was being held, I was refused admittance, because I did not happen to have a ticket, even though local chairman knew full well that both Brother Callis and myself were “Jewels.” In fact, we both had worked with the local Chairman at previous Conventions. I considered such action entirely uncalled for, and should not occur again.”
At the 50th Anniversary Convention in Buffalo in August of 1956, Jewel Murray in his founder’s address recounted some of the early days of the fraternity:
“At Cornell during the early days of the fraternity, we helped to keep our membership intact and to prevent any of us from Busting Out by preserving all exam papers and filing them with our secretary to be gone over by any Brother who felt he was weak in any particular subject and wanted coaching. We also helped each other get jobs as student sellers, or in any way possible to earn an honest dollar.”
Alpha Phi Alpha was quite a family affair for Jewel Murray. His first cousin Joseph Henry Brooks Evans was the fraternity s Executive Secretary and his uncle Roy W. Tibbs, also an Alpha, was a renowned musician and piano instructor at Howard University. Tibbs was married to Murray’s cousin and Evans s sister, Lillian Evans, who went under the stage name “Madame Lillian Evanti.” She was a renowned contralto who performed throughout the country. Their son and grandson Thurlow Tibbs, Sr. and Jr., were active members of Mu Lambda Chapter.
Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray was married though efforts to locate his wife’s name have been unsuccessful. He was the father of two daughters Pauline Murray Garcia and Eunice Catalina Murray. In the early part of 1949, he moved to Los Angeles, California and affiliated with the Beta Psi Lambda Chapter. It is believed he moved to be closer to his daughters. The move did make him closer to site of the 37th General Convention in Berkeley, California.
At the start of the second session of the 37th General Convention in Berkeley, California in 1951, General President Belford Lawson granted a special privilege to Jewel Murray in what would be one of the most compassionate displays of brotherhood on the part of the Fraternity for a beloved Founder. Jewel Murray made a passionate plea for the Fraternity to remain steadfast and strong. He also made a request for financial assistance. Brother Herman K. Barnett offered a resolution to the convention for adoption that a monthly pension be authorized and established for the use and benefit of the surviving Jewels in a sum adequate for its purposes and that a monthly pension for Jewel Murray in the sum of $50 per month beginning in January 1951 be approved. The convention granted Jewel Murray an immediate, outright grant of $600.00 for medical attention. Jewel Murray informed the convention that that sum would take care of his immediate medical needs. The motion carried.
Jewel Murray entered “Omega” chapter on December 12, 1959 in Los Angeles, California. General President Myles Paige in his “Report to the General Convention” cited his death and said Jewel Nathaniel Allison Murray passed and was buried without our knowledge. Reasons as to why the National Headquarters was not notified of his death are unknown. However, the 45th General Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio in December of 1959, adopted a resolution in memory of Jewel Murray. But it was his own words shared in the October 1936 edition of The Sphinx that best speaks to his legacy:
“Founded on a platform of service, loyalty and reverence to God and our fellow brothers, we have learned that the greatness of any group of men lie not in the fine buildings they erect, or the numerous air castles planned but never erected, but rather in service to God and your fellow brothers, whether it be in the fraternity house on the street, on the school campus, at a public gathering or in your home.”