DELTA TAU LAMBDA CHAPTER
In the late 1940s seven men who had attended college in different states across the USA and had become members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc there, relocated to Arizona. Those men are Albrey C. Aldridge, Elmer Carrier, Harry F. Edwards, Curtis O. Greenfield, Jefferson Eugene Grigsby, Morgan Maxwell, and W. A. Robinson. On December 3, 1949 these seven men chartered Delta Tau Lambda Chapter seated in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, becoming the 207th Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. In 1961 Delta Tau Lambda had grown such that the brothers in Tucson decided to charter another alumni chapter, Eta Psi Lambda seated in Tucson Arizona. The brothers of Delta Tau Lambda was also instrumental in the chartering of Mu Eta Chapter on the campus of Arizona State University in 1976 In addition to executing our national community service programs Delta Tau Lambda Chapter has initiated highly successful local programs. In the 1980’s the chapter started a Youth Oratorical Contest as well as a scholarship.
The Seven Jewels
ALPHA PHI ALPHA’S FOUNDERS
The Founding Jewels of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. were no ordinary achievers. Given racial attitudes in 1906, their accomplishments were monumental. As founder Henry Arthur Callis euphemistically stated—because the half-dozen African American students at Cornell University during the school year 1904-05 did not return to campus the following year, the incoming students in 1905-06, in founding Alpha Phi Alpha, were determined to bind themselves together to ensure that each would survive in the racially hostile environment. In coming together with this simple act, they preceded by decades the emergence of such on-campus programs as Affirmative Action and Upward Bound. The students set outstanding examples of Scholarship, Leadership and Tenacity —preceding the efforts even of the NAACP and similar civil rights organizations.
ALPHA PHI ALPHA – A BRIEF HISTORY
First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend All
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., the first intercollegiate Greek-letter organization established for Black college students, was organized at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, in 1906. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was born out of the desire for maintaining close association and unified support for members of this small minority group, in as much as they were denied, for the most part, the mutual helpfulness which the majority of the students attending their university regularly enjoyed.
The seven visionary founders at Cornell, Henry A. Callis, Charles H. Chapman, Eugene K. Jones, George B. Kelly, Nathaniel A. Murray, Robert H. Ogle, and Vertner W. Tandy, labored in the years of severe economic struggle and racial conflict in the United States. Despite their difficulties of life, the early pioneers succeeded in laying a firm foundation and remained steadfast in their goals pointing towards the development of the Fraternity’s membership – which are the espousing of the principles of good character,sound scholarship, fellowship, and the uplifting of humanity, especially the struggling Black population around the world.
Because of the needs of the national black community and the organization’s commitment to positive social change, Alpha Phi Alpha began to involve deeply into social reform and education. The “Go to High School – Go to College” campaign of the 1920’s and 1930’s established Alpha Phi Alpha as a scholarship organization. The struggle for equality and for raising the level of consciousness and mobility were heightened by the involvement of such brothers as; W.E.B. Dubois, Paul Robeson, Dr. Martin Luther King jr., Jesse Owens, David Dinkins, Dick Gregory, Hope Franklin, to name a few.
The Fraternity has grown steadily in influence throughout the years. It integrated its racial membership in 1945 and it has expanded to the extent that there are now over 150,000 Alpha Men 800 chapters located throughout the U.S., Caribbean Islands, Africa, Asia, and Europe.