Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 25, 2006

Alpha Phi Alpha is an American intercollegiate fraternity that is generally recognized as the first established by African Americans. Founded on December 4, 1906 on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the fraternity has initiated over 175,000 men into the organization. Beginning in 1908, the Howard chapter became the prototype for six of the remaining eight National Pan-Hellenic Council members, a predominantly African-American fraternal council. It has been open to men of all races since 1945. Today, there are over 700 Alpha chapters in the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the West Indies. The national organization has established a number of community programs and combined its resources with other organizations on philanthropic projects. The fraternity jointly leads programming initiatives with March of Dimes, Head Start, Boy Scouts of America and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, which Congress authorized in 1996 with Public Law 104-333, is a project of Alpha Phi Alpha. Members of Alpha Phi Alpha include former Jamaican Prime Minister and Rhodes Scholar Norman Manley, Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr., former U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Olympian Jesse Owens, and Justice Thurgood Marshall. (More...)