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.