In recent years, African American Greek-letter organizations have been accused of wanting to imitate mainstream fraternities and sororities. Likewise, members of the eight African American Greek-letter organizations (Panhellenic council) are often misunderstood as separate or black versions of mainstream groups which make up the Interfraternity Council, Pan-Hell, and other Co-ed Fraternity and Sorority Council houses.
For too long these organizations have been penalized and face the threat of being destroyed because they can not be seen as a community or sub-council separate in ideas, goals, actions and purpose from predominantly white fraternities and sororities.
Many students on Dartmouth's campus have heard of us and many have not, but we are not simply organizations that have parties and perform step shows. We are organizations that are a large part of African American history and the advancement of Africans and African Americans all over the world.
It is important to first point out that this letter is authored by members of the nation's oldest Greek-letter organization for African American men, Alpha Phi Alpha; hence our interest in the recent debates over the fraternity/sorority system and its abolishment.
Alpha Phi Alpha was founded in 1906 in Ithaca, New York, at Cornell University, an academic environment much like that which existed and exists at Dartmouth College (almost an exclusively white institution). Though Alpha Phi Alpha is known as a fraternity, the organization had its beginnings as a literary/social studies club exclusive to the African American men enrolled at Cornell. Its purpose was to maintain ties among African American men and allow a forum in which they could discuss and act upon politics, social problems and academics.
It is not a coincidence that African American Greek-letter organizations have their beginnings here. During this same time the growth of many other important black organizations; the American Negro Business League (1900), the National Afro-American Council (1903), the National Association for Negro Teachers (1903), the National Urban League (1905), and the Niagara Movement (1905, forerunner of the NAACP) was witnessed in America.
So what happened at Cornell was not just a creation of a fraternity "because we weren't allowed to join other fraternities" but the continuation of the rise of black consciousness in this country.
Because these students wanted to do more than simply allow for the discourse of current and past issues, they decided to form an organization through which they could make social, political and economic changes. In light of social conditions in the early 1900s the name Alpha Phi Alpha was chosen with the intention that the Cornell Administration would suppose that the organization was a black copy of the mainstream fraternities and the members would probably do nothing but spend its time having parties and getting drunk.
In this respect opposition to a black organization was avoided. However, this was not the only purpose in the naming of the fraternity. Alpha Phi Alpha, the name, has important meaning to it. Although the exact meaning is known only to its members, Alpha Phi Alpha's true meaning is deeply rooted in ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian societies.
The name Alpha Phi Alpha was a curtain against the antagonist or adversarial inferences that would be drawn from a black organization at this time. The Greek letters are used with the understanding that almost all things believed to be created by the Greeks were borrowed and often stolen from Africa (Egypt in particular).
At the time (1906), this was an ingenious way for African Americans to practice and learn history and customs native to both eastern and western Africa, something that was still forbidden and unheard of in most parts of the country.
Alpha Phi Alpha is not a Greek organization nor are we a social outlet. We are a group of brothers dedicated to the ideology that began with our founding and continues today through serving our brothers and our community. There is but one Greek aspect to the organization which is manifested solely in the duality of the name, which is maintained with pride.
Rich Breaux '94 is President of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Donald Gradner '94 co-authored this piece.
