June 1924

Alpha Phi Alpha Seen From Without.

 

"Why I wish to Become An Alpha"

 

Some fellows pick a fraternity because of the so called "hot fellows" in it, some pick a fraternity because it has a large number of athletes, but the reason I have picked Alpha Phi Alpha is because embodied in this organization are fellows who are scholastically high, fellows who are athletically thought of, and fellows who are just warm good, old fellows, friends and comrades.

 

When deciding to pledge to a fraternity I found Alpha Phi Alpha to be the fraternity best thought of by the university, and people of worth. To me most Negro fraternities seem to be like toad stools, big one minute and small the next: but Alpha Phi Alpha seems to me if compared to music would be called classical and if compared to literature would be called standard.

 

In Alpha Phi Alpha I see a future, one which will set me off from the common every day drift, one which will carve for me a social standing in a foreign community and one which some day may mean my sole success. So Alpha Phi Alpha, I am at your doorstep wishing to be humbly accepted.

 

By William Henry Harding

Written as a pledge to Alpha Theta Chapter