The History Of Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc.

Growing up, many of us have obtained some knowledge on greek-letter organizations somehow. Whether we have all seen movies about colleges that are fraternity and sorority based or through social media. They’ve given us a little insight on the college life and if you’re like me, these moves have gotten you inspired and excited for college. They’ve shown us the crazy parties, the popularity, the step battles, and the harsh hazing as well. Even though we see an abundance of what goes on in these organizations, these movies do not give us a full understanding of greek letter organizations. There is just so much more involved into it. They do not show you the origin of it all and where Greek life initially came from. Greek life should be encouraged …show more content…
So to understand why Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. was founded you have to understand where it was founded which is upstate New York at Cornell University. It was founded by 7 black men which are called the “Jewels” according to (apa1906). There names were Henrey Arthur Callis, Charles Henry Chapman, Eugene Kinckle Jones, George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Robert Harold Ogle, Vertner Woodson Tandy. According to cornelluniversity.edu The first black intercollegiate fraternity founded for African American males. Their official symbols colors are Sphinx, Black, and Gold according to BlackGreek. They paved a way for a lot of other organizations to follow after it. They were founded at Cornell University because they saw a need for the educational upliftment for African Americans as well as a social significance and gathering. At Cornell University back in 1906 that was a time not to far from slavery and African American’s weren 't really accepted in America. So the fraternity was really founded based on a lot of racial issues and discrimination acts that they were facing back in those days. Alpha Phi Alpha has taken lead on overcoming those racial biases all the way in to the civil rights movement and even today. The organization was first a literate society, basically a group to help African American men to stay in college but they met up in secret because it was banned for African American males to gather at any point in time. So these 7 men had to band together to survive, imagine being black men at an ivy league college in 1906. Even now they have national programs to uplift the black community. There are National Program they established where they go to high schools in minority areas and encourage them to go to college and