ΑΦΑ Fraternity History

"The opening of the school year, 1905-1906, found at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, a group of black students distributed in the various colleges of the University, who were desirous of maintaining more intimate contacts with one another than their classroom study permitted. They often met in groups during the Autumn of 1905 and talked of the possibilities of closer contacts among themselves. Different ones among them took the lead in calling these meeting, which were informal in every detail.

As black students in a large American University, they were cut off from the many opportunities for mutual helpfulness which come to groups of students through personal acquaintance and close association. As individuals there were personal contacts of value with other members of the students body, but as a group they were proscribed in their associations. The cleavage, characteristic of this period, had laid the basis for the division even in college life. Many of these students were self-supporting and their resources were limited, and if membership in the university fraternal associations had been permissible, it is probable that advantage could not have been taken of the opportunity. Confronted by the social proscriptions of color common to American institution of this era, hampered by limited means with the attendant circumstances of the average "poor" student, these students faced the future and boldly endeavored to find a way out of their difficulties, scarcely realizing, however, the import of their action on subsequent generations of college students."

Charles H. Wesley

Alpha Phi Alpha (ΑΦΑ) is the first intercollegiate fraternity established by African-Americans. Founded on December 4, 1906, on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Alpha Phi Alpha has initiated over 175,000 men into the organization and has been open to men of all races since 1940. The fraternity utilizes motifs and artifacts from Ancient Egypt to represent the organization.

The founders, Henry Arthur Callis, Charles Henry Chapman, Eugene Kinckle Jones, George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Robert Harold Ogle, and Vertner Woodson 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 and World Policy Council are programs 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 Dr. 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.

Fraternity Mission Statement