Alpha Phi
Alpha is the first intercollegiate fraternity established by African Americans. Founded on December 4, 1906, on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca,
New York, as a social fraternity, Alpha Phi
Alpha has initiated over 175,000 men into the organization and has been open to men of all races since 1945. The fraternity utilizes motifs and artifacts from Ancient Egypt to represent the organization and preserves its archives at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.
The founders, Henry Callis, Charles Chapman, Eugene Jones,
George Kelley,
Nathaniel Murray, Robert Ogle, and Vertner Tandy, are collectively known as the "Seven Jewels". The fraternity expanded when a second chapter was chartered at Howard University in 1907. Beginning in 1908, Alpha Phi
Alpha became the prototype for other Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLO). Today, there are over 680 active
Alpha chapters in the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, the West Indies, and the Virgin Islands.
Alpha Phi
Alpha evolved into a primarily service organization and has provided leadership and service during the Great Depression, World Wars, Civil Rights Movements, and addresses social issues such as apartheid, AIDS, urban housing, and other economic, cultural, and political issues affecting people of color. The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial is a project of Alpha Phi
Alpha and the fraternity jointly leads philanthropic programming initiatives with March of Dimes, Head Start, Boy Scouts of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
Members of Alpha Phi
Alpha include Jamaican Prime Minister and Rhodes Scholar Norman Manley, Nobel Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr., U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Olympian Jesse Owens, Justice Thurgood
Marshall, United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, and Atlanta Mayor Maynard
Jackson. Numerous other American leaders are among the men who have adopted the fraternity’s principles—manly deeds, scholarship, and love for all mankind.
