The Early Years

 There is a common story told about African American racial uplift in the Twentieth Century. One part is that fairly simplistic organizations—those with a single purpose—helped bring about social change for African Americans. The other is that men and women, in and of themselves, but largely as members and leaders of these organizations, helped to bring about such change. However, scholars like Theda Skocpol and Corey D.B. Walker have helped to debunk that myth with their work on African American brotherhoods and sisterhoods—more specifically, secret societies—and their racial uplift work. In recent years, scholars have extended this analysis to  even more complex organizations, those balancing multiple organizational identities. This research has focused directly on African American, intercollegiate fraternities and sororities—those that emerged during the early portion of the Twentieth Century.

In fact, “[b]efore the Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act there was Alpha Phi Alpha.”1 In the years leading up to the formation of the Fraternity, African Americans faced racial segregation and the separate but equal doctrine articulated in the United States Supreme Court’s 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson decision.2 It was the period of the Nadir, the low point of American race relations, as delineated by historian and Alpha Phi Alpha brother, Rayford Logan, when the Fraternity came to be. One of the central debates of the day was how African Americans could and should be uplifted, bookended by ideologies of Booker T. Washington on one hand and Alpha Phi Alpha brother W.E.B. DuBois on the other. Critical to Alpha Phi Alpha’s beginnings, in 1905, Brother Dubois and others initiated a meeting, the Niagara Conference, and issued a Declaration of Principles and Responsibilities for African Americans, which influenced Alpha Phi Alpha’s formation and ultimate work.3

Similarly, the very life experiences of the men who would ultimately go on to become the founders—The Jewels—as well as those of their families, not only influenced their decision to create a fraternity. It also influenced the Fraternity’s aim and purpose. For example, the father of founder, Jewel Henry Arthur Callis was born into slavery but was eventually liberated by Union soldiers; he was educated at the Hampton Institute, going on to become a successful pastor within the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church.4 The status of his relatives as former slaves was a significant influence on Jewel Callis’ perspective on the “Negro” experience in the United States. His father was stolen from slavery at a young age by Union troops, and Jewel Callis’ mother was stolen from Maryland with her child in her arms.5 On the subject of his parent’s status as slaves and its influence on his decision to found Alpha Phi Alpha, Jewel Callis remarked: “Was not that enough to found Alpha Phi Alpha with its fundamental purposes of education and unfettered citizenship?”6 Indeed, Jewel Callis himself had been deeply influenced by Brother DuBois.7 In turn, Brother DuBois had a deep connection with the Fraternity from its inception. His writings had been the topic of discussion in the Social Study Club that served as the Fraternity’s foundation.8 In 1909, Epsilon Chapter (University of Michigan) initiated Brother DuBois as an honorary member.9

In the time between when he graduated from high school and began at Cornell University, Jewel Callis spent some time in Boston, Massachusetts where some of his relatives lived. Jewel Callis stated that in his time there he met several other Ivy League students of African descent, yet felt that they were still not accepted as equals in society, despite their high academic pedigree.10 Jewel Callis later remarked that, “[i]n 1906 discrimination and the stigma of segregation were large in one-third of our nation. In the remaining two-thirds, discrimination was overtly supported and habitually practiced.”11 During this period, many African Americans sought higher education after Reconstruction, and Cornell University began accepting some such students.12 Some of these students lived in the Ithaca, New York community, which served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.13 At the turn of the Twentieth Century, Cornell’s African American students began socializing among one another, as they had been ostracized from white students outside of the classroom.14

Among these Cornell students, Jewel Callis began his studies at Cornell University in the fall of 1905, striving to become a physician. Though there were other African American students enrolled at Cornell, retention rates were low and many of the already small population of African American students did not return for the next year.15 The majority of African Americans on campus worked their way through school, often in the houses of white fraternities.16 The exposure to these organizations, coupled with the isolating experience of being a minority at a predominately white institution, instilled a desire in some African American male students to form a fraternal order of their own.17 To wit, a small group of African American students began having weekly social study club meetings at each other’s residences.18 The first group of men included Jewels Callis, Charles Henry Chapman, George Biddle Kelly, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Robert Harold Ogle, Vertner Woodson Tandy, as well as Charles Cardoza (“C.C.”) Poindexter, Morgan T. Phillips, and George Tompkins.19

Late in the fall 1905 semester, with Poindexter as their president, these students formed a Social Study Club, holding informal meetings throughout the academic year.20 The chief focus of the organization was its members’ social and academic pursuits; however, the group was also concerned with the African Americans’ struggle for racial equality.21 While the Social Study Club flourished during the 1905–1906 academic year, the idea of a fraternity gained traction among a number of the members.22 Ultimately, Jewel Callis would devise a name—Alpha Phi Alpha—for the evolving organization, now Literary Society, which was adopted at a March 1906 meeting and formally approved on May 23.23

The following academic year, the minutes from the October 27, 1906, meeting show that the members again voted on the name Alpha Phi Alpha, this time acknowledging a more fraternal influence by stating, “henceforth the group [will] be known by these three Greek letters.”24 Three days later, on October 30, three men  were initiated into the Society—Jewel Eugene Kinckle Jones, Lemuel Graves, and Gordon Jones.25 At the organization’s November 6 meeting, the fraternal idea was again raised but went unresolved. Poindexter was reported to have said that he knew of no “historical background” on which African American’s could base a fraternity.26 Realizing the inevitability of the Society’s move toward a fraternal orientation, Poindexter failed to attend the group’s next meeting on December 4, tendering his letter of resignation, which was read by Jewel Callis. At this meeting, the majority voted for the organization to become a fraternity. The seven founders, designated “Jewels” by the organization, would be Callis, Chapman, Jones, Kelley, Murray, Ogle, and Tandy.27

Jewel Callis encapsulated the thrust of the Fraternity, in part, when noting that “[s]ociety offered us narrowly circumscribed opportunity and no security; out of our need, our fraternity brought social purpose and social action.”28 Elsewhere, he noted that “Alpha Phi Alpha was born in the shadows of slavery and on the lap of disenfranchisement. We proposed to . . . bring leadership and vision to the social problems of our communities and the nation; to fight with courage and self-sacrifice every bar to the democratic way of life.”29 Indeed, the aim of the Fraternity was to “destroy all prejudices,” and the desire to join in this cause arose on other campuses and in other communities.30 Not unlike its white counterparts, Alpha Phi Alpha expanded, chartering its second chapter at Howard University (Beta Chapter) in 1907.31 In recruiting new members, the focus of Alpha Phi Alpha brothers was to rush members of “scholarship, fellowship, and devotion to the cause.”32 In a somewhat more revolutionary fashion, Alpha Phi Alpha also established “Alumni Chapters,” the first of them in Louisville, Kentucky (Alpha Lambda) in 1911, to allow those men who were not enrolled in a university or whose university did not have a chapter of the Fraternity an opportunity to participate in the brotherhood.33 While it may not have initially been by design, Alumni Chapters also provided Alpha Phi Alpha brothers the opportunity to continue their racial uplift work well-beyond college.

In the second decade of the Twentieth Century, Alpha Phi Alpha was still in its nascent stage as a national organization. In 1910, the Fraternity held its Third General Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from December 27 to December 30.34 The Howard University Journal stated that the convention marked the moment where the Fraternity “passed form the formative and constructive stage into an organization based on fundamental ideas and universal truths.”35 Even in its earliest years, Alpha Phi Alpha’s reach in the area of racial uplift was being felt. Among the numerous organizations that were founded during the Twentieth Century to advance African Americans, the National Urban League (“Urban League”) was one of  the chief civil rights organizations. Founded in 1910, over the decades, most of its national heads would be drawn from the ranks of Alpha Phi Alpha. The Urban League’s first Executive Secretary, Brother George Edmund Haynes, was a trained sociologist, played a key role in getting the Urban League —at that time called the “Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes”—off the ground.36 Under Brother Haynes’s leadership, the Urban League addressed issues facing the great numbers of African Americans who moved into the urban centers of America in the early decades of the Twentieth Century.

The Fraternity’s Sixth General Convention was held from December 29 to December 31, 1913 at Beta Chapter in Washington, D.C.37  During the convention, the Fraternity journal, The Sphinx, was established.38 It was made to be a quarterly journal with 50 cents subscription,39 and intended to contain Fraternity news and editorials.40 It would serve as a major chronicle of the Fraternity’s history and vision. In the inaugural issue of The Sphinx, in March 1914, it chronicled that brothers from different chapters came together at the General Convention for “the general uplifting and bettering of an organization which stands for the uplifting of the race.”41 Looking beyond itself, George William Cook, Secretary of Howard University, called for Alpha Phi Alpha members to “assist the NAACP in its noble work of curbing prejudice against the race.”42 Heeding Cook’s call, every member pledged support for the N.A.A.C.P.43 This commitment should have been of little surprise, because in reflecting on the purpose of the Fraternity, it was noted that Alpha Phi Alpha’s purpose was to “labor[] for the greatest purpose that can animate the conscience of man . . . to try to lessen the painful achings of the souls of black folk— discriminative prejudice.”44 The founding brothers sought “to accomplish the great and imperative need of humanity—equal justice.”45 In January 1914, chapters of the Fraternity underscored this vision by sending letters of thanks to Oswald G. Villard, a founding member of the N.A.A.C.P., for his efforts on behalf of African Americans.46

Many months later, in July of 1914, when World War I arose, many African Americans hoped that the war would bring about the demise of the racial inequality that existed in America. Large numbers African American men had served in the Armed Forces throughout the war and Alpha Phi Alpha successfully lobbied for a government camp to train African American officers in the military.47 The training camp was located in Iowa. Despite the success of the training camp, African Americans still struggled with the segregation in the military during this time. Many African American soldiers returned home to find that the conditions of inequality had not changed despite their hopes.48

In the June 1915 issue of The Sphinx, Brother Roscoe Conkling Giles, a member of one of the first group of Alpha Phi Alpha initiates and first African American graduate of Cornell Medical School, wrote about the state of the race at the time. He noted that progress had been made in regards to race relations and vis-à-vis conflict between the North and South. Critically, he noted, however, that Northerners had become less active in vindicating African American’s rights and indifferent in defending them from the “assaults of the enemy.”49 Brother Giles then challenged the men of Alpha Phi Alpha to be men of action during these pressing times and to fight against prejudice and discrimination.50 During the same period, Zeta Chapter (Yale University) initiate, Brother William M. Ashby, published a book, Redder Blood, offering solutions to the race question and “refut[ing] the many superficial and unsatisfactory solutions that law-makers would impose upon us.”51

Even though the Fraternity had yet to develop an official racial uplift agenda, the Fraternity’s vision and the work of its brothers left the impression on Fraternity members that Alpha Phi Alpha was “destined to be so important a factor in shaping the lives of the colored men of this country.”52 This was to be achieved by alumni brothers who would go on to be active in serving their communities.53 To this point, Brother Frederick H. Miller, in an April 1916 article in The Sphinx titled “To Alumni,” articulated his belief that one of the Fraternity’s goals was to recruit intelligent community leaders as undergraduates so that they can later attempt “to fully emancipate the downtrodden millions and lead the twenty millions of tomorrow to an abiding place in the history.”54 He argued that the Alpha Phi Alpha spirit was what was needed to break African American’s obeisance to whites; he went on to add that in this struggle, no organization was greater for “the future of the American Negro” than Alpha Phi Alpha.55

This work was not simply reserved for alumni chapters or members. In 1916, the Fraternity began to contemplate establishing a chapter at a southern university, in their words, to “do the race a great good.”56 It was hoped that Alpha Phi Alpha’s presence would be a positive influence on and betterment to these schools and their students, which seemed to the Fraternity to be so far substandard and misled about the realities of the world.57 In Connecticut, Zeta Chapter reported that it had been involved in the new movement in the country to uplift African Americans, specifically by being engaged in social service work.58 In the Midwest, members of Epsilon  Chapter (University of Michigan) were active in organizing a local branch of the N.A.A.C.P.59 In Philadelphia, members of Rho Chapter—the first city- wide chapter—developed a Racial Welfare Committee dedicated to offering a series of lectures in large churches to discuss issues pertaining to racial conditions and developments.60

Despite these efforts, there remained some debate among the membership about what the purpose of the Fraternity should be. In his article titled “The Aim of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity,” that appeared in the December 1916 issue of The Sphinx, Brother Numa P.G. Adams proposed that the Fraternity’s purpose be to work for “the higher education of the Negro,” which would entail providing education where lacking or encouraging it where extant.61 On the other hand, the Fraternity could devote itself to a particular social work. For Brother Adams, he believed that the focus should be on higher education, because African Americans needed more educated individuals to lead the race.62 As the fraternal year closed, the Ninth General Convention was held in Richmond, Virginia from December 27 to December 30, 1916.63 General President Howard Hale Long urged that education be adopted as an aim of the Fraternity,64 setting the stage for the Fraternity’s Go-to-High-School, Go-to-College movement.65

Back on the campus of Cornell University, in 1917, Alpha Chapter members held debates between Fraternity members on subjects “concerning the present day Negro.”66 They hoped to broaden this dialogue to the wider public in hopes that it would be an educational opportunity for them.67 Later that spring semester, Alpha Chapter created a weekly public forum in which African Americans could hear and discuss issues their race was facing.68 During the same period, Zeta Chapter went beyond their regular “smokers” for African American Yale students for the “benefits of association and solidarity” and their musical and literary club.69 They also helped New Haven high school students plan for college.70 In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sigma Chapter (previously Harvard University) members attempted to solidify the “proper racial and social consciousness” among the members of the Fraternity by having regular discussions on topics such as “Migration of the Negroes.”71 In Philadelphia, Rho Chapter members planned a series of lectures and public meetings in an effort to increase its work for good among all people of color.72 At the University of Pittsburgh (Omicron Chapter), alumnus and attorney R.L. Vann, was “instrumental in securing employment for about two hundred and fifty colored men” in Pittsburgh.73 More generally, chapters on the East Coast distributed information to boys in YMCAs in an effort to dispel beliefs that college would be too expensive and thus unattainable.74

The year 1917 saw Alpha Phi Alpha, particularly through issues of The Sphinx, debating the ambit of its racial uplift vision in some ways and sharpening it in others. In one piece, “Ideals for which Alpha Phi Alpha Stands,” J.M. Sampson argued that the Fraternity operated on the idea that knowledge is the most effective means of combating prejudice.75 Brother Numa P.G. Adams, in his article titled “The Place of the Fraternity in Negro College Life,” stated that fraternities aid students in larger universities to escape a feeling of isolation and social ostracism. Students organize into fraternities “for their own protection and for social advantage.”76 He went on, stating that these fraternities form “a strong bond of union among the Negro college men who are destined to become the leaders of tomorrow.”77 However, the most definitive assessment came from Jewel George Biddle Kelley. In his “The History and Purpose of Alpha Phi Alpha,” Jewel Kelley made it plain; Alpha Phi Alpha was founded, in part, to show that African American college men were “united for race uplift.”78

With the United States reaching a critical point in its conflict with Germany, Alpha Phi Alpha began its initial movement to obtain positions of leadership in military service. After the United States declared a state of war on April 6, 1917, Beta Chapter began  a movement that led to the establishment of an Officers Training Camp.79 With the backing of Howard University, Beta Chapter undertook the project of interviewing government officials in order to convince them that African American troops were fit to become military officers.80 On June 15, 1917, a training camp was established in Des Moines, Iowa.81 In total, fifty-eight Alpha Phi Alpha members joined the camp.82 The Fort Des Moines roll of honor at the completion of the training camp saw thirty-two Alpha Phi Alpha brothers commissioned, with five commissioned members receiving a captaincy.83 Of the remaining members of the group of thirty-two, ninety percent were commissioned as first lieutenants.84 Alpha Phi Alpha brothers also made impacts in the Medical Officers Training Camp at Fort Des Moines, as fifteen brothers were selected as medical officers. Additionally, three Alpha Phi Alpha brothers were chosen as dental officers.85 At the close of the training camp, General President William Pollard issued a statement commending the organizing efforts of Beta Chapter. All told, the training camp saw nearly 600 African American men receive commissions from the hands of the United States government. In light of this achievement, General President Pollard noted:

If for another ten years, we should do no more than continue as before to furnish to the various communities strong, influential men, we may yet consider that we have accomplished this year a feat sufficient to justify the existence and claims of the Fraternity. In this one accomplishment, we have rendered to our race a service that shall mark an epoch in its history.86

In 1918, one of the leading intellectuals of his era, Alpha Phi Alpha Brother Kelly Miller penned a piece in The Sphinx, directly articulating what role educated African Americans should play in American life but also, indirectly, Alpha Phi Alpha members. In his piece, Brother Miller stated that the highest function of the “college- bred Negro” is to state the cause of his race before the bar of public opinion. Brother Miller, in this piece, urged college-educated African Americans to plead the case for the African Americans and not allow whites to be the spokesmen.87

Alpha men were also engaged in direct action against racial discrimination. For example, Brother Daniel David Fowler wrote a letter detailing the rising occurrences of prejudice and discrimination in the state of Ohio.88 In his letter he requested help from the Fraternity’s General President and noted that white colleges in Ohio— i.e., Western Reserve, Case School of Applied Science, Oberlin, Ohio State University, and Wittenberg College—refused to accept African American students. Brother Fowler suggested that an Alpha Phi Alpha delegation meet an Ohio representative to investigate and resolve the discriminatory acts.89 In response, Brother W.H. Hughes sent a letter to all white college presidents in Ohio. In the letter, he posed that there is no reason why African Americans should not be admitted into any college having the Student Army Training Corps (“S.A.T.C.”). Dr. Thwing, of Western Reserve University, replied that African Americans may be admitted when it is the usual custom of the institution.90 Captain Francis M. Root, of Oberlin College, replied that without any orders from Washington he would take no notice of their communications. Since African American students had to be housed separately from white students, and only six or eight African Americans applied, he suggested they attend schools where there was a larger African American population. He noted that no discrimination is intended; rather, he was carrying out the Army’s orders that African American and white troops are better if they are separated.91 The United States War Department ruled that students should be admitted regardless of race as long as they measure up to the standards of the corps, which did not include skin color, with “no segregation, no discrimination.”92 Xi Chapter (Wilberforce University) expressed regret over the negative attitude toward the inclusion of African Americans in the S.A.T.C. organizations in northern colleges. The chapter advocated using the Fraternity’s influence to stop it as much as possible in Ohio, where Wilberforce was located.93

By the time World War I ended in late 1918, Alpha Phi Alpha brothers found themselves transitioning leadership in major civil rights organizations like the Urban League. National head, Brother George Haynes, stepped down to take a position in President Woodrow Wilson’s administration as director of the newly established Division of Negro Economics.94 In his place at the Urban League, Brother Haynes was succeeded by of Alpha Phi Alpha’s founders, Eugene Kinckle Jones.95 Jewel Jones directed the organization until his retirement in 1941.96

In 1919, General President Daniel Fowler urged the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha to act in unanimity and “step in and strike a blow that will advance the interests of our race or prevent the occurrence of some dastardly outrage that may tend to depress our advancement.”97 During the Twelfth General Convention, at the close of 1919, the delegates discussed the current conditions with regards to race in America and issued “an appeal to the college men of the country to take the lead in the fight for equal citizenship.”98 At the convention, Emmett J. Scott— close advisor to Booker T. Washington—spoke to a public audience about racial progress and urged “the stamping out of lynching, higher wages and improved labor condition,” along with equal voting rights and adequate education facilities.99 The Fraternity’s Vice-President, Brother Lucius Lee McGhee, denounced the leadership of individuals who advocated the doctrine of submission or meekness. In his words, he critiqued the spirit of “this is good enough for us, and this is all we can expect.” He underscored that “we are in a battle for human rights.”100

With world peace on the horizon and the Armistice signed, Alpha Phi Alpha turned its attention to efforts that encouraged young African Americans to embrace education. At the Twelfth General Convention, the Fraternity created the Commission on Graduate Work and Public Affairs.101 The Commission was tasked with the following duties:

 

To (1) conduct the work of the Fraternity in aiding graduate brothers in all matters affecting the welfare of such brothers in their lives and their own personal advancement, (2) to meet at some place to be decided upon by the committee at a time prior to each convention and to recommend the action, if any, which the convention should take toward specific public questions affecting the Fraternity or any particular chapter, or the Negro people generally or any part of the same, and (3) to send out immediately a form of questionnaire to every Alpha Phi Alpha man whose address could be obtained ascertaining the name, address, occupation or profession, his standing, influence and connection in the community.102

 

During the discussion of the duties of the Commission, Brothers Simeon S. Booker and A.E. Robinson—along with other brothers— made remarks about an educational movement sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha. The movement’s initiative was toward “influencing colored students of the country to go to high school and college.”103 With the backing of the delegates of Pi Chapter (Case Western Reserve University), the Go-to-High-School, Go-to-College movement began. In fact, Brother Raymond W. Cannon had introduced what would become one of Alpha Phi Alpha’s largest and most enduring initiatives.104 It was intended to, as the name suggests, help young African American men matriculate through high school and college. The Fraternity believed that more enlightened churches, better schools, better homes, and more banks and other businesses were operated by intelligent people. Encouraging more youth to pursue an education will improve the state of the race.105 The General Convention set aside the first week of June  as “Go to College and Go to High School Week” during which chapters distributed informative materials and sent speakers to local schools and churches to urge parents to put their children through higher education by showing the advantages of higher education.106

Chapters also heard that call for action, more generally, in 1919. For instance, Beta Chapter published a piece in the March 1919 issue of The Sphinx, noting the recently returned veterans from the war that were desirous of their “full portion of rights and privileges as any other class of people.”107 They went on to note that they did not condone taking the law into one’s own hands, but they urged no one to let an opportunity to “further the cause of freedom” pass by them.108 Rho Chapter (Temple University) planned to hold meetings open to all at the Philadelphia Academy of Music on different subjects. One was on education that focused on “how much we have accomplished in industrial and higher education.”109 Another celebrated the role of African Americans in American music. The third was on Alpha Phi Alpha men’s role in the war. Rho Chapter urged other chapters to have similar programs in their cities to celebrate racial accomplishments.110 In the June 1919 issue of The Sphinx, the Fraternity highlighted the paradox of the United States government fighting to secure liberty abroad but flouting it with regards to a group of its own citizenry. A very pointed cartoon included among the last pages depicted a lynching with the caption: “The Records of History will show that the United States of America in 1918 fought valiantly for—Democracy IN EUROPE.”111 By the time the Fraternity’s Twelfth General Convention was on the horizon in December of 1919, it was formally proposed by Brother Roscoe Giles that the Executive Committee of the respective chapters should act as a Vigilance Committee.112 In that capacity, they worked with social service agencies to safeguard the Constitutional rights of African Americans. The purpose was intended to offer sound advice to the race in crises, to fight Negro-baiting propaganda in the press, to demand equal opportunity, and keep the chapters informed of new developments.113 Drawing upon his own professional expertise as a physician, Brother Giles also suggested that members aid in collecting reliable health statistics on the Negro population in order to combat “medical” racism.114

 

1 DVD: The Beginnings of Alpha Phi Alpha. A Video Lecture.

2 DVD: Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership (W. Drew Perkins), www.mpt.org;

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

3 Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership, supra note 2; CHARLES H. WESLEY, HENRY ARTHUR CALLIS: LIFE AND LEGACY 16 (1997). The origin of Alpha Phi Alpha coincided with a period of social organization for African Americans generally, with the organization of the National Afro-American Council in 1900, the National Association of Negro Teachers in 1903, the initial stages of the National Urban League in 1905, and one of the forerunners to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—the Niagara Movement—in 1905. CHARLES H. WESLEY, THE HISTORY OF ALPHA PHI ALPHA: A DEVELOPMENT IN COLLEGE LIFE xvi (16th ed., 1996).

4 WESLEY, supra note 3, at 4, 7.

5 Id. at 7.

6 Id.

7 Id. at 16.

8 Id.

9 Id. at 17.

10 Id.

11 Id.

12 Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership, supra note 2.

13 Id.

14 Id.

15 WESLEY, supra note 3, at 18.

16 Id. at 18.

17 Id. at 18

18 Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership, supra note 2.

19 Id.; see also WESLEY, supra note 3, at 1.

20 WESLEY, supra note 3, at 1.

21 Id.

22 Id.

23 Id.

24 Id. at 1-2.

25 Id. at 2.

26 Id.

27 Id.

28 Id. at xvii.

29 Ralph E. Johnson et al., The Quest for Excellence: Reviewing Alpha’s Legacy of Academic Achievement, in ALPHA PHI ALPHA: A LEGACY OF GREATNESS, THE DEMANDS OF TRANSCENDENCE 189 (Gregory S. Parks & Stefan M. Bradley eds., 2012).

30 Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership, supra note 2.

31 Id.

32 Id.

33 Id.

34 WESLEY, supra note 3, at 59.

35 Id. at 61.

36 Brother Haynes was an Honorary Member of the Fraternity. THE SPHINX, April 1918, at 10.

37 WESLEY, supra note 3, at 83.

38 Id. at 85.

39 Id.

40 Id.

41 THE SPHINX, Mar. 1914, at 21.

42 Id.

43 Id. at 6.

44 Id. at 7.

45 Id.

46 Id. at 8.

47 Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership, supra note 1.

48 Id.

49 Roscoe C. Giles, THE SPHINX, June 1914, at 5-6.

50 Id.

51 THE SPHINX, June 1914, at 11.

52 THE SPHINX, Feb. 1916, at 6.

53 Id.

54 F. H. Miller, To Alumni, THE SPHINX, Apr. 1916, at 9.

55 Id.

56 THE SPHINX, Oct. 1916, at 3-4.

57 Id.

58 Id. at 11.

59 Id. at 10.

60 THE SPHINX, Dec. 1916, at 21.

61 Numa P. G. Adams, The Aim of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, THE SPHINX, Dec. 1916, at 12.

62 Id.

63 WESLEY, supra note 3, at 99.

64 Id. at 100.

65 Id.

66 THE SPHINX, Feb. 1917, at 10.

67 Id.

68 THE SPHINX, Apr. 1917, at 19.

69 Id at 22-23.

70 Id.

71 Id. at 29.

72 Id.

73 THE SPHINX, supra note 65, at 15.

74 THE SPHINX, supra note 67.

75 J. M. Sampson, Ideals Through Which Alpha Phi Stands, THE SPHINX, Apr. 1917, at 11.

76 Numa P. G. Adams, The Place of Fraternity Life in Negro College Life, in THE SPHINX, Apr. 1917, at 5.

77 Id. at 6.

78 Geo B. Kelley, The History and Purpose of Alpha Phi,THE SPHINX, Apr. 1917, at 9.

79 WESLEY, supra note 3, at 104.

80 Id. at 105.

81 Id.

82 Id.

83 Id.

84 Id. at 105-06.

85 Id. at 107.

86 Id. at 108.

87 Kelly Miller, The Function of the College Bred Negro, THE SPHINX, Apr. 1918, at 9.

88 Daniel D. Fowler, Letter in the Case of Negro college men vs. White officer commanding S.A.T.C., THE SPHINX, Apr. 1918, at 5-6. See also WESLEY, supra note 3, at 112. 89 Fowler, supra note 87.

90 Id.

91 Id.

92 Id. at 7.

93 THE SPHINX, Apr. 1918, at 15.

94 Judson MacLaury, The Federal Government and Negro Workers Under President Woodrow           Wilson,          U.S.          DEP’T          LAB.                   (Mar.             16,                    2000), https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/shfgpr00.

95 Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership, supra note 2; See generally, FELIX L. ARMFIELD, EUGENE KINCKLE JONES: THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE AND BLACK SOCIAL WORK, 1910-1940 (2014).

96 Alpha Phi Alpha: A Century of Leadership, supra note 2; See generally, ARMFIELD,

supra note 94.

97 THE SPHINX, Mar. 1919, at 4.

98 THE SPHINX, Feb. 1920, at 5. Scott was secretary-treasurer of Howard University.

99 Id.

100 Id.