A national exhibition chronicling the first 100 years of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., will open Tuesday, September 19, at the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center. More than 10,000 people viewed during its debut run at the Alpha Centennial Convention in Washington, D.C.

The House of Alpha: The Centennial Exhibit of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., will be displayed through Friday, November 3, in the Exhibition Hall on the Upper Level of the Woodruff Library. A reception celebrating the exhibit’s opening will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 19. The exhibit and opening reception are open to the public.

The 4,000-square-foot exhibit celebrates the centennial anniversary of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans. Alpha Phi Alpha was founded in 1906 on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, by seven African American men who recognized the need for a strong bond of brotherhood among African descendants in America.

Exhibit highlights include a reproduction of the façade, walls, flooring and three fully furnished rooms of the founding house of Alpha at Cornell; 125 banners representing many of the fraternity’s chapters and 60 mannequins displaying the clothing; academic regalia and college memorabilia of Alpha national presidents, ministers and members. Prominent members of Alpha Phi Alpha include Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Andrew Young and singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson.

Rev. Skip Mason, Morehouse College archivist and Learning Resource Center director, is exhibit curator. An Alpha Phi Alpha brother, Mason is the national archivist for the fraternity and a former Black Studies librarian and archivist for the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library’s Special Collections Department.

For more information on The House of Alpha Phi Alpha, contact Exhibit Curator Rev. Skip Mason at skipmason1906@aol.com or 404-572-3662. Contact Adrian Carver, Communications Manager, at acarver@auctr.edu or 404-978-2114 for more information on the Robert W. Woodruff Library (RWWL) at the Atlanta University Center.

About the Library
Constructed in 1982, the Robert W. Woodruff Library is an
independent entity organized and operated for the exclusive benefit
of its member institutions—Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College and Spelman College. These colleges and universities represent the
world’s largest consortium of historically black institutions of higher learning. The Library serves a combined student body of more than 10,000.