Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was founded on this date in 1906. The fraternity was the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for Blacks.
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has supplied voice and vision to the struggle of African Americans and people of color around the world. It was founded at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, by seven college men who recognized the need for a strong bond of brotherhood among Black African descendants in this country.
The visionary founders, known as the "Jewels" of the fraternity, were Henry Arthur Callis, Charles Henry Chapman, Eugene Kinckle Jones, George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Robert Harold Ogle, and Vertner Woodson Tandy. They served as a study and support group for minority students who faced racial prejudice, both educationally and socially, at Cornell. Alpha Phi Alpha chapters were developed at other colleges and universities, many of them historically Black institutions.
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 Blacks. In the 20th century, Alpha Phi Alpha stood at the forefront of the African American community's fight for American 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.
