On April 12th, America watched with horror and outrage as Birmingham Police Chief Eugene "Bull" Connor and his officers used water hoses and police dogs against peaceful civil rights demonstrators.
On June 12th, Medger Evers, NAACP field secretary and civil rights leader, was assassinated at his home in Jackson, Mississippi by a segregationist.
On August 28th, 250,000 people participated in the historic "March on Washington" and heard the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. deliver his historic "I Have a Dream" speech...
Three weeks later and less than 50 miles away, in Baltimore, Maryland, another group of men would make a different kind of history.
Founded for the "development and perpetuation of Scholarship, Leadership, Citizenship, Fidelity, and Brotherhood among Men." Realizing that change rarely comes when content with the established way of things, the Founders of Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc. conceived the Fraternity's motto, "Building a Tradition, Not Resting Upon One!"
The twelve friends and Honorable Founders of Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc. were: Albert Hicks, Lonnie Spruill, Jr., Charles Briscoe, Frank Coakley, John Slade, Barron Willis, Webster Lewis, Charles Brown, Louis Hudnell, Charles Gregory, Elias Dorsey, Jr., and Michael Williams.
