It is a serious commitment when the men of Alpha meet. Our history is replete with examples of contributions to the world order. This is the Fraternity of W.E.B. DuBois, a founder of the NAACP. Alpha is the Fraternity of Eugene Kinckle Jones, a Jewel Founder, who also helped found the National Urban League. This is the Fraternity of Frederick D. Patterson, founder of the United Negro College Fund, of the widely acclaimed jurist Thurgood Marshall, of former U.S. Senator Edward Brooke, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Martin Luther King, Jr., Andrew Young, Maynard Jackson, Richard Arrington, Paul Robeson, John H. Johnson, Louis Sullivan, William Gray, Earl Hilliard, Ron Dellums, Charles Rangel, Whitney Young, Jesse Owens, Arthur D. Shores, and a seemingly endless list of leaders who have moved our nation and communities forward. It is no idle boast, but simple historical fact that every major event in the progress of the AfricanAmerican community in this nation since 1906 has significantly involved the men of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. We can take great pride in, and gain inspiration from, the role Alpha has played in changing the course of this nation. But Brothers, the past should only serve us today as a preface and prologue to the present and the future. Our time and energies are not well spent looking backwards and reminiscing about bygone days, people and events. Although we must honor and profit from our history, our focus must be fixed on looking and moving forward. Our world is increasingly interdependent. There is no Berlin Wall, and the Soviet Union is no longer a military threat to the world. Events in Birmingham, AL and Atlanta, GA, impact circumstances in South Africa where the vicious apartheid clings to fading strings of life. Racism is still a chronic malady of our society, as it has always been. But like our forebearers, the men of Alpha know that racism is merely a nuisance and can only impede, but will never stop progress. From its beginnings in 1906, Alpha's standard has been the world's standard—that is a bench mark of excellence . . . no crutches, no excuses, but scholarship and achievement. Leadership in social purpose and social action remain at the center of our reasons for being. The objectives of our Fraternity are as viable today as when we were founded almost 90 years ago. Those objectives are: "To stimulate the ambition of its (our) members; to prepare them for the greatest usefulness in the causes of humanity, freedom, and dignity of the individual; to encourage the highest and noblest form of manhood; and to aid downtrodden humanity in its efforts to achieve higher social, economic and intellectual status.'''' Our Brother Martin Luther King, Jr. stated it well when he said: "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.'''' Brother King also tells us that: "Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'what are you doing for others?'" The men of Alpha must respond to this question daily, and they must do so in creative ways, not only in the communities in which they live, but across the nation and around the world. We respond by — being involved in strengthening the family which extends throughout the communities in which we live and work.
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The Sphinx/Spring 1993