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Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Records
Notifications
Held at: University of Pennsylvania: University Archives and Records Center [Contact Us]3401 Market Street, Suite 210, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: University Archives and Records Center. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek letter organization for African American college students, was organized at Cornell University in 1906. The Psi Chapter was founded at the University of Pennsylvania in 1920. In addition to Penn, the Chapter has also represented other schools in the area, which include Villanova University, St. Joseph's College, LaSalle University, Drexel University, and Temple University. In recent decades, the Chapter established such programs as an Annual Career Conference, a Clothing Drive, a petitioning to establish Martin Luther King's birthday as a national holiday and a letter campaign jointly sponsored with the Penn Coalition of Voter Rights for extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1964.
This collection documents the development of the fraternity since its birth in 1906 and especially its growth in recent decades. The collection includes the fraternity's charter administration guide, the Psi Chapter's constitution and official roster, records of the fraternity's conventions, anniversary celebration files, programs of various kinds of activities hosted by the Chapter, correspondence, membership listings, and issues of the fraternity's main journal publication--Sphinx.
The Alpha Phi Alpha Records are organized into five series: Administrative Records, Events, Press and Publications, Awards and Memorabilia, and Photographs. Each series is arranged alphabetically
Gift from the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., in 1998, 2002 and 2020.
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: University Archives and Records Center
- Finding Aid Author
- Kaiyi Chen, updated Joseph-James Ahern
- Finding Aid Date
- 2002, 2020
- Access Restrictions
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Access to collections is granted in accordance with the Protocols for the University Archives and Records Center.