OUR FOUNDERS

The Founders were God-fearing, and serious minded young men who possessed the imagination, ambition, courage and determination to defy custom in pursuit of a college education and careers.  The ideals of the church were an important foundation of the Fraternity.  One of the 5 Objectives of the Fraternity is: “To promote the spiritual, social, intellectual and moral welfare of members.”  Many aspects of the Fraternity’s rites are engrained in Christianity ideals and contain excerpts from the Bible.

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Elder Watson Diggs and Byron Kenneth Armstrong, had previously attended Howard University and had come into contact with men belonging to the only national Black Greek-Letter Fraternity currently in existence.  Their experiences at Howard gave rise to the chief motivating spirits which sowed of the seed for a fraternity at Indiana University and crystallized the idea of establishing an independent Greek-letter organization.

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Consequently, eight other men met with Diggs and Armstrong for the purpose of organizing such a fraternity.  The charter members were Elder Watson Diggs, Byron K. Armstrong, John M. Lee, Henry T. Asher, Marcus P. Blakemore, Guy L. Grant, Paul W. Caine, George W. Edmonds, Ezra D. Alexander and Edward G. Irvin.  The Founders sought one another’s company between classes and dropped by one another’s places of lodging to further discuss the means of formulating the fledgling fraternity in an effort to relieve the depressing isolation. 

 

They found that through these close interactions, they had common interests and a close bond began to emerge.  The organization was given the temporary name of Alpha Omega, while they further developed the formation of the organization.  Diggs presided as president, while Irvin was assigned as temporary secretary of Alpha Omega.  Alpha and Omega, the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet correlate to Christ and the Founder’s relationship and connection to the church.