Since its founding on December 4, 1906, Alpha
Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has supplied voice and
vision to the struggle of African Americans and people of color around
the world.
Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate
Greek-letter fraternity established for African-Americans, was founded
at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York by seven college men who
recognized the need for a strong bond of Brotherhood among African
descendants in this country. 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.
The Fraternity initially served as a study
and support group for minority students who faced racial prejudice,
both educationally and socially, at Cornell. The Jewel founders and
early leaders of the Fraternity succeeded in laying a firm foundation
for Alpha Phi Alpha's principles of scholarship, manly deeds, and
love for all mankind.
Alpha Phi Alpha chapters were developed at
other colleges and universities, many of them historically black institutions,
soon after the founding at Cornell. While continuing to stress academic
excellence among its members, Alpha also recognized the need to help
correct the educational, economic, political, and social injustices
faced by African-Americans.
Alpha Phi Alpha has long stood at the forefront
of the African-American community's fight for civil rights through
leaders such as: W.E.B. DuBois, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Edward Brooke,
Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Andrew Young, William
Gray, Paul Robeson, and many others.
