The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University 
Library, is pleased to announce the online version of 
<http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/alpha>Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity: A 
Centennial Celebration.

A little over four decades after slavery and sixteen years after the first 
African-American students graduated from Cornell, the nation's first 
intercollegiate black Greek-letter fraternity was founded at Cornell 
University in 1906. The seven Cornell students who formed the fraternity, 
known as the "Seven Jewels," launched a brotherhood that would achieve 
great success in leadership and influence in the African American community 
and beyond.

In honor of the fraternity's founders and their role in forever expanding 
the definition of brotherhood for black college-educated men, on November 
19, 2005, over 700 members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. embarked on 
a pilgrimage to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, home of the Alpha 
Chapter, the mother seat of the fraternity, to kick off the fraternity's 
Centennial Celebration. This Pilgrimage was only the second time that the 
fraternity has sojourned to Ithaca as a whole body. In 1956, during the 
Fiftieth Anniversary celebration in Buffalo, 700 Alpha Phi Alpha men came 
to Ithaca by train. The 2005 Pilgrimage comprised many activities, 
including tours, a silent march, an academic convocation, and a reception. 
To commemorate the event, Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and 
Manuscript Collections, home to Alpha's founding records, hosted an 
exhibition of Alpha Phi Alpha materials. Now available online, this Web 
site presents information, images and full-text documents to form an 
electronic version of the exhibition displayed for the Pilgrimage, and 
again during the fraternity's Eastern Regional Convention, trip to Ithaca 
on April 1, 2006.

The featured materials are part of the records of Alpha Phi Alpha 
Fraternity's first chapter, the Alpha Chapter, and tell the story of the 
interactions of its members with Cornell University, the growing fraternal 
organization, the community at large, and with one another. All of the 
records are from the Division's collections, including the Alpha Phi Alpha, 
Alpha Chapter records, the Galvin Family papers, the Burt Green Wilder 
papers, the Victor R. Daly papers, and the Cornell University Archives.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity: A Centennial Celebration was curated by Petrina 
Jackson, Assistant Archivist, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, 
Cornell University Library.

A special introduction to the exhibit is written by Robert L. Harris, Jr., 
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. National Historian.

http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/alpha/



Petrina Jackson
Assistant Archivist
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections
2B Kroch Library
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
[log in to unmask]
607-255-3530 

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>