History of Hazing

Pledging is the process by which a non-member of an organization becomes a member. As mentioned, before the 1990s, pledging was an acceptable and legal process used by BGLOs to choose the best possible candidate for membership in their organization. Brittni Danielle writes in her Ebony blog about the film Burning Sands, "pledging may be rooted, for some members, in the value of weeding out some pledges while preparing those remaining to be effective and productive members in the organization. Especially when considering that BGLOs have brought in new members who have been “free riders” who just wear letters, or just party, or just disappear" (2017). Still, there are no clean cut answers to where pledging tactics stemmed from. Walter Kimbrough (1997, 2) attributed a possible start to the hazing of incoming freshman, a culture that had been present since the 1850s. These tactics were carried over into the 1890s and incorporated into fraternities as it faded in first-year students (Kimbrough, 1997, 3). Still by the 1900s, pledging in BGLOs were performed different. Check out the link below to see how pledging was facilitated early in BGLOs.

What's the Difference?

The words 'pledging' and 'hazing' are used interchangeably throughout this project, but also in the Greek world. The two have been defined in many ways, but a common understanding is that "pledging tends to refer to the overarching process potential members are subjected to, which may or may not contain elements of hazing, while hazing specifically refers to acts of violence including verbal and physical brutality, forced consumption, sleep deprivation, humiliation, intimidation, and similarly harsh activities" (Rogers et al., 2012, 44).

Most members, if not all, agree that pledging should never result in the lost of a life. In fact, members today would actually say "it is the wrong way to pledge" and would constitute such actions as hazing rather than pledging. Foster notes in his article, a statement from an Anonymous member of a black fraternity, who affirmed that "the difference between pledging and hazing is not in whether or not physical violence is used, but rather what goals the violence serves. Violence to instill values is described as a venerable activity and integral to pledging, while violence that is inflicted for pleasure constitutes" (2008, 9). Many members of BGLOs would agree. These 'goals' are the lessons learned, the clarity gained, and the self-awareness discovered, but tend to vary even the slightest across BGLOs. This subjectivity is what let to the incidents above, and later, the ceasing and banning of all pledging activities associated with the rite to membership.