Alpha Phi Alpha was founded at Cornell University on December 4, 1906. It is the oldest of the Black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs) which form the National PanHellenic Council (NPHC). The seven founders, the “Jewels” of Alpha Phi Alpha, are Henry Arthur Callis, Charles Henry Chapman, Eugene Kinckle Jones, George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Robert Harold Ogle, and Vertner Woodson Tandy.
More than 5,000 Alpha Phi Alphas and their families and friends gathered in Washington, D.C. on August 26, 2011. The celebration was the culmination of an idea which took more than 25 years to become a reality. And the story began about another 35 years before that.
On June 2, 1952, Martin Luther King, Jr. became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha’s Sigma Chapter while he was a graduate student at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. When he moved to Montgomery, Alabama, he joined the Alpha Upsilon Chapter. His fraternity was a part of his life.
His Alpha Phi Alpha brothers supported him in his civil rights movement work. He networked with chapters. During the Montgomery bus boycott trial, Alpha Phi Alpha’s National President was with him at the courthouse. Fraternity brothers donated funds to his Montgomery Improvement Association.
At Alpha Phi Alpha’s 50th Anniversary celebration in 1956, he was honored with the Fraternity’s highest honor, the Alpha Award of Merit.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the King Holiday bill which made Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday. Shortly thereafter, a grass-roots campaign began to honor Dr. King with a memorial on the National Mall. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed congressional legislation authorizing the memorial. It would take another 10 years before the ground was broken on the project. The project cost $120 million. Alpha Phi Alpha members donated $3 million. Those funds joined with schoolchildren’s donations of coins, contributions from individuals, large checks from 100 corporate sponsors, and $10 million in funds from the federal government.
The unveiling and dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial was to take place on August 28, 2011, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. While the Fraternity’s private dedication took place as planned, Hurricane Irene caused the dedication to be postponed until October 16, 2011.
