The Alpha Gamma Chapter was chartered on Wednesday, February 2, 1921 in Providence, RI and ever since has been serving the community through community service as well as social events while keeping with the fraternity's mission. Thank you for visiting our website.

Fifteen years after the founding of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity at Cornell University on an ice cold Tuesday on December 4th, 1906 by seven visionary students, a group of students at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island desired to also participate in a similar, established fraternal experience. It is important to underscore the ‘early beginnings’ of this organization. In 1921, the fraternal journal - The SPHINX - would be only 7 years old. There would be no official fraternal history book published until 1929. Brown was not new to fraternities; a majority of students were involved in greek organizations, but due to the times, not as many opportunities for socializing were available to Negro students. These students were aware of the presence of Alpha Phi Alpha in New England as chapters at Yale and Harvard were already established in the region and these students had connections to the organization and friends at these institutions. Ultimately, it was important for these students to not only be recognized by their institution and also be taken seriously as achieving college students and as leaders in the Providence community.

 

These young men focused on their priorities of crediting the past and setting the stage for the future. They were graduates of the leading secondary schools for Negro youth including Howard of Wilmington Delaware, Dunbar of Washington, DC, Douglass of Baltimore and Asbury Park of New Jersey. While the parents of these men were proud race men and women only recently removed from slavery, they had also achieved and excelled in many fields including professional lawyers, dentists, media barons, educators and government. Importantly, there was one common theme they all had in common - an expectation for their children to attain the full rights of academia and citizenship for the race in the face of direct institutional adversity.

 

In the school year 1920-1921, these eleven students embarked on a vision of support and service for not only their community, but also Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island and beyond. These eleven students were: Joseph Chester Allen, Clarence Abram Burrell, Joseph Frederick Starr Carter, Chester Wellington Chinn, Clinton LeRoy Henry, Russell Adrian Lane, Samuel Byron Milton, Howard Hughes Murphy, Louis Lorenzo Redding, Heber Edward Wharton III and Jay Mayo Williams.