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. Here are some of their famous members.

Raphael Lanier – United States Ambassador to Liberia; First President of  Texas Southern University.

Randal Pinkett – 1994 Rhodes Scholar; 4th Winner of NBC’s reality show, The Apprentice.

Samuel Pierce – Secretary of Housing and Urban Development ; Argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Martin Luther King Jr. and the New York Times in the important First Amendment case styled New York Time v. Sullivan; first African-American to serve on the Board of Directors of a Fortune 500 company.

Jonathan Rodgers – CEO of TV One; president of CBS Television Stations, and executive producer for the CBS Morning News and Weekend Evening Newscasts.

Duke Ellington – Composer, bandleader, actor; Grammy Award winner; 1959 Spingarn Medal and 1969 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient; Pulitzer Prize  in recognition of his musical genius.

Benny Boom – Director of music videos.

Paul Robeson -NFL, Actor and singer; social activist, 1945 Spingarn Medal recipient; Stalin Peace Prize laureate.

Jamar White – Producer of “The Black Sorority Project: The Exodus”, the story of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Thurgood Marshall – First Black Justice of U.S. Supreme Court; Attorney in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka of Topeka; First Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; 1946 Spingarn Medal and 1993 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.

Lee P. Brown -Director of National Drug Control Policy; First African-American Mayor of Houston, Texas.