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421 N. Albany Street, Ithaca, NY
Skee Phi @Cornell
Skee Phi @Cornell
Commenting on the environment at Cornell, Dr. Henry Callis, one of the principal founders of APA recalled -
“Because the half-dozen Negro students at Cornell University in the school year of 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 December of 1905, CC Poindexter called the first session of a Social Study Club. This club's 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.
Social Study & Literary Club
Social Study & Literary Club
Alpha Founder, Nathaniel Allison Murray recalled the following:
“I registered as a special student in the College of Agriculture located at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Fourteen other students registered at the same time as follows: Four from Washington, D.C. including myself, two other males Robert Harold Ogle, Fred Morgan Phillips (Morgan T.Phillips), also two females, namely Fannie Holland and Flaxie Holcosbe (Holcombe); four males and one female came from N.Y. State; namely George B. Kelley, Arthur Callis, James Thomas, Gordon Jones, Paul Ray (Pauline Ray), and one male Eugene K. Jones, and another female, namely Mary Vassar (Virgie/ Mary/ Rosa) came from Virginia; one male Vertner Woodson Tandy, and one male, C. H. Chapman from Florida.” It was these fifteen students who formed the “Social Study Club”. They met every two weeks, the first meeting was at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Newton, 421 Albany Street, Ithaca, NY, where Mr. C.C. Poindexter laid privy as residence for room and board. - (Text copied directly from print, with corrections in parentheses.)
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The Social Study Club flourished during the 1905–1906 academic year.
The year 1906 brought about a great deal of change for the small group. Callis devised 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, 1906. By October, the majority of the members had decided that they would have a fraternity.
*The links below tell of what happened to its members as a result of these meetings.*
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