Leadership Highlight

Leadership Highlight: Damien Seabrook, The President of The Xi Phi Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha in Summerville, SC

In an effort to highlight the people who are leading graduate chapters across the nation, we at Watch The Yard reached out to the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.’s Xi Phi Lambda Chapter in Summerville, South Carolina and did an interview with Damien Seabrook the president of the chapter.

The position of president of a Black fraternity chapter is a highly respected role and there is a special pride that one takes. Seabrook, who is a police officer, has served in the position of chapter president for three years.

We interviewed Seabrook and talked to him about his position, goals, future and what it means to hold this type of leadership position in the digital age.

Read the full interview below.

What does it mean to be a chapter president to you?

It means a lot to me because you get to lead a group of men to do the work of Alpha! I believe you lead from the front! Get out there and do it with your brothers do not just bark orders. Lead by example and I love building upon greatness.

What specific initiatives is your chapter heading up this year and how do you think they will improve the surrounding community?

We are planning on launching our mentor program, Political Platform Program and our Project Alpha Program. The Project Alpha Program is an interactive program and I believe it has never been done before. We actually did the first one last year and it was mega!

What made you want to pledge Alpha Phi Alpha?

When I read the history on Alpha on the internet, I was impress buy the significance of those 7 men. Also my mother’s boss was an Alpha and I respected him a lot! The ultimate decision for me was looking around the campus and seeing those guys do meaningful work. I was already involved in community service so it was natural for me.

What is it about your specific chapter that makes it so unique?

Xi Phi Lambda was always a small chapter. In 2017 we turned from just being an average chapter to heading toward greatness chapter. We revamped our chapter and our thinking. The reward was we started to get recognized by our district, region and chapters. All we really did was brand ourselves and came up with a [hashtag] and added summervillescalphas. So we created a hashtag specifically for our chapter and we just got really active working and showing our work on social media. Since we felt like we didn’t get any respect being a small chapter we also created this slogan “Respect the X.” The first letter in our chapter is X so we just added the respect the part.

We now live in a digital world, what do you think alumni chapters across all orgs need to do to represent themselves online in 2019?

I would say put everything you do online! We salute brothers on their birthdays, accomplishments and give a Bio. We just believe in branding the chapter!

What does leadership mean to you?

Leadership is the ability to motivate and execute with a group of people. You must have a vision and get people to believe in your vision. Being creative is huge for my leadership style, we do not want to be like no other chapter! The buy into greatness is crucial you must have that to lead.

Why do you think Watch The Yard is important to Black greekdom?

The content! It is relevant from good stories to bad stories and I find no bias with the site. We need to highlight our GREEKS as much as possible especially because it seems to have taken a step backwards lately.

What does brotherhood mean to you?

Honor, Respect and Loyalty among men! The same as a blood brother at the end of the day I got your back no matter what!

How is your chapter providing for the undergraduate chapters you support?

We always had a good relationship but we recently came to the conclusion that we have to be more supportive in their events. We always supported with money but that’s not enough. We now mentor those guys to become better brothers and leaders.

We at Watch The Yard would like to commend Damien Seabrook for his work as the president of the Xi Phi Lambda Chapter which has a long legacy that spans back to 1984.