January 9th is a significant day in African-American history:
-In 1866, Fisk University (TN), Rust College (MI), and Lincoln College (MO) were established.
-In 1906, poet/novelist Paul Laurance Dunbar died.
-in 1967, Georgia legislature, bowing to legal decision and national pressure, seated Representative Julian Bond, a critic of the Vietnam War.

...But in the year 1914, a momentous event occurred that change the whole mundane and repetitive function of black greek organizations as we know it.  That event, the birth of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated.

The History of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity
Incorporated

Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C., January 9, 1914, by three young African-American male students.  The founders, Honorable A. Langston Taylor, Honorable Leonard F. Morse, and Honorable Charles I. Brown, wanted to organize a Greek letter fraternity that would truly exemplify the ideals of brotherhood, scholarship, and service. 

"...The Founders of Our Wonderous Band, in Numbers Though Were Three..."

The founders deeply wished to create an organization that viewed itself as "a part of" the general community rather than "apart from"the general community.  They believed that each potential member should be judged by his own merits rather than his family background or affluence...without regard of race, nationality, skin tone or texture of hair.  They wished and wanted their fraternity to exist as part of even a greater brotherhood which would be devoted to the "inclusive we" rather than the "exclusive we".

From its inception, the founders also conceived Phi Beta Sigma as a mechanism to deliver services to the general community.  Rather than gaining skills to be utilized exclusively for themselves and their immediate families, the founders of Phi Beta Sigma held a deep conviction that they should return their newly acquired skills to the communities from which they had come.  this deep conviction was mirrored in the Fraternity's motto, "Culture for Service, Service for Humanity".

Today, eighty-six years later, Phi Beta Sigma has blossomed into an international organization of leaders.  No longer a single entity, the fraternity has now established the Phi Beta Sigma Educational foundation, the Phi Beta Sigma Houshing Foundation, the Phi Beta Sigma Federal Credit Union, and the Phi Beta Sigma Charitable Outreach Foundation.

Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., founded in 1920 with the assistance of Phi Beta Sigma, is the sister organization.  No other fraternity and sorority is constitutionally bound like Sigma and Zeta.  We both enjoy and foster a mutually supportive relationship.

Most Honorable A. Langston Taylor

Most Honorable Charles I. Brown

Most Honorable Leonard F. Morse

The Five Pearls of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated

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