Mission

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. develops leaders, promotes brotherhood and academic excellence, while providing service and advocacy for our communities.

Aims

Manly Deeds, Scholarship and Love for All Mankind.

Motto

First of all, Servants of all, We shall transcend All

Objective

The objective of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is to: 

Stimulate the ambition of its members; To prepare them for the greatest usefulness in the causes of humanity, dignity and freedom of the individual; To encourage the highest and noblest form of manhood and; To aid down-trodden humanity in its efforts to achieve higher social, economic, and intellectual status.

Chapter History

In January, 1966, under the leadership of the late Brother Francis Harold Harris and fourteen (14) other Alpha men (SEE NAMES BELOW), the Iota Alpha Lambda (IAL) chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated was born. It was chartered by the General Organization on November 11, 1966 at the Grace United Methodist Church in Aberdeen, Maryland to serve both Harford and Cecil counties.

The IAL was presented to the chapter by Brother Tom Hunt, the Eastern Region Vice-President with Brother Frank Ellis of the Delta Lambda Chapter (Baltimore, MD) delivering the keynote address.

From 1966-1968 Brother Harris served with distinction as the Chapter's first President. He led the chapter in continuing the traditions of the General Organization. Programs and activities were started that helped stimulate the ambitions of the less fortunate, to encourage the highest and noblest form of manhood, and to aid downtrodden humanity in its effort to achieve higher social, economic, and intellectual status.

Since its beginning, Iota Alpha Lambda has more than doubled in size and has initiated several men into the House of Alpha. The Chapter has visibly demonstrated its commitment to the aims of Manly Deed, Scholarship, and Love For All Mankind in Harford and Cecil Counties by a variety of educational, civic, and social action programs.

Of particular significance are its full-time, two-year scholarships to Harford and Cecil Community Colleges in the name of charter member, Donald J. Walden, its full support of the Sickle Cell Anemia Walk-A-Thon, its Life Membership in the NAACP, its benevolent programs for deserving youth, families, and others in Harford and Cecil Counties.

We are in area IV in the Eastern Region which is a part of the Mighty MAAC

Charter Members: Ronald Bishop*  Ernest J. Brown, Jr. William M. Clark, Jr.* William E. Davis Louis L. Duncan* Francis H. Harris* Kenneth V. Hilton* Johnny R. Law Roosevelt McKinley, Jr. *  Lehman H. Spry* George T. Stansbury LeRoy Stansbury* Wardell V. Stansbury Donald J. Walden * Everett D. White

*Deceased

Poems

“HOUSE OF ALPHA”

By Bro. Sidney P. Brown

GOODWILL is the monarch of this house
Men, unacquainted, enter, shake I,
exchange greetings, and depart friends.
Cordiality exists among all who abide within.

I am the eminent expression of friendship.
Character and temperament change under my dominant power.
Lives, once touched by me become tuned,
and are thereafter, amiable, kindly, fraternal.

I inspire the musician to play noble sentiments,
and assist the chemist to convert ungenerous personalities
into individuals of great worth.
I destroy all ignoble impulses.
I constantly invoke principles which make for common brotherhood,
and the echo resounds in all communities,
and princely men are thereby recognized.

Education, health, music, encouragement, sympathy, laughter:
All these are species of interest given of self-invested capital.
Tired moments find me a delightful treat,
Hours of sorrow a shrine of understanding,
At all times I am faithful to the creed of companionship.

To a few I am the Castle of Dreams,
Ambitious, successful, hopeful dreams.
To many, I am the Poetic Palace
where human feeling is rhymed to celestial motives.
To the great majority,
I am the Treasury of Good Fellowship.

In fact, I am the College of Friendship;
The University of Brotherly Love;
The School for the Better Making of Men.

I AM ALPHA PHI ALPHA!

“IF”

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

TEST OF A MAN

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

The test of a man is the fight that he makes,

The grit that he daily shows,

The way he stands upon his feet,

And takes life’s numerous bumps and blows.

A coward can smile when there’s naught to fear.

And nothing his progress bars,

But it takes a man to stand and cheer,

While the other fellow stars.

It isn’t the victory after all

But the fight that a Brother makes.

A man when driven against the wall,

Still stands erect and takes the blows of fate

With his head held high,

bleeding, bruised and pale,

Is the man who will win and fate defied,

For he isn’t afraid to fail!