Alpha Phi Alpha
ZyKeria Gambrell
Mission Statement
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. develops leaders, promotes brotherhood, and academic excellence, while providing service and advocacy for our communities.
To Become An Alpha
Becoming a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity requires an investment of your personal time, talents, and money. We are not looking for candidates who are not interested in serving the communities in which they live. We are not seeking candidates who do not take academic excellence seriously. Most importantly, We are not interested in individuals whose actions will put the organization’s brand and well-being at risk. This ship does not need anchors.
An Alpha Phi Alpha member’s greatest interest is outside himself. We value those who believe that their membership in Alpha Phi Alpha is the presentation of their personal commitment to time-valued words such as KNOWLEDGE, ACHIEVEMENT, SERVICE, INTEGRITY, QUALITY, HONOR, EXCELLENCE, and COMMUNITY.
5 Interesting Facts Facts
- On December 4, 1906, seven undergraduate students at Cornell University, “The Seven Jewels,” organized Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.
- Alpha Phi Alpha is the first African American, inter-collegiate Greek-lettered fraternity.
- First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend All is their motto.
- Jamaican Prime Minister Norman Manley, Nobel Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr., Olympian Jesse Owens, Justice Thurgood Marshall, United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, Singer Lionel Richie and Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson are all members of the fraternity
- They were Henry Arthur Callis, who was born in 1887 in Rochester, New York, the son of an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Minister; and Charles Henry Chapman, an older student and cafe owner in Ithaca. Other founders included Eugene Kinkle Jones, the son of a Virginia Union University professor, after graduation would become the first Executive Secretary of the National Urban League; George Biddle Kelley of Troy, New York who later became New York State's first registered African American civil engineer; and Nathaniel Allison Murray, son of the first black employee of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Robert H. Ogle also of Washington, D.C. and the only married member of the founders, later became a staff member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations. The last of the Jewels was Vertner W. Tandy, the son of a Lexington, Kentucky building contractor who later became the first registered African American architect in New York.