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The Truth
History of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.
On Saturday, October 8, 1913, the most honorable founders A. Langston Taylor, Leonard F.Morse, and Charles I. Brown began laying plans for the establishment of a new fraternity at Howard University. After carefrul planning, the birth became official- Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. was founded January 9, 1914, under the umbrella of Brotherhood, Scholarship, and Service. As the honored A. Langston Taylor pointed out "when Howard University caught wind of the new fraternity, the word spread like wildfire, and we were rushed with applications to join." Assuredly, our cause speeds on even today. Sigma moves so fast that in the span of 2 year we had 3 chapters and over 70 members. Under the Sigma shield, we have paved the way for African American fraternities and sororities. Also, we can take pride in having the ONLY constitutional bond with Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. making the only official brother/sisterhood organizations in the National Pan Hellenic Council.
The founders deeply wished to create an organization that viewed itself as a part of the general community rather than apart from it. They believed that individuals should be judged on their own merits rather that their family background, without regard of race, nationality, color, skin tone, or hair texture. They wanted their fraternity to exist as a part of an even greater brotherhood which would be devoted to the "inclusive we" rather than the "exclusive we".
From the beginning, the founders conceived Phi Beta Sigma as a mechanism to deliver services to the greater community. Rather than gaining skills to be utilized exclusively for themselves and their immediate families, the founders of Phi Beta Sigma held the deep conviction that they should return to their newly acquired skills to the community from which they had come. This deep conviction was mirrored in our fraternity motto, "Culture for Service and Service for Humanity".
