The most remarkable leadership
in the African American community in the 20th century has without
question come from the ranks of Alpha
Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Since its founding on December
4, 1906, the Fraternity has supplied voice and vision to the
struggle of African Americans and people of color around the
world.
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
meetings, which were informal in every detail.
Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate
Greek-letter fraternity in the United States established for
men of African descent, was founded by seven college men who
recognized the need for a strong bond of Brotherhood between
African Americans. The visionary founders, known as the “Jewels”
of the Fraternity, are: Henry Arthur Callis, Charles Henry Chapman,
Eugene Kinckle Jones, George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison
Murray, Robert Harold Ogle and Vertner Woodson Tandy.
Since
1906, Alpha Phi Alpha has stood at the forefront
of the African American community’s fight for civil
rights and human dignity. From the Fraternity’s ranks
have come outstanding civil rights leaders such as, W.E.B.
DuBois, Adam Clayton
Powell, Jr., Edward Brooke, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Thurgood Marshall, Andrew Young, William Gray, Paul Robeson,
Julius Chambers, Maynard Jackson and many others.
