Kappa Alpha Psi®, a college fraternity, was born in an environment saturated with racism at the turn of 20th century. Today, over 100 years later, the organization is comprised of functioning undergraduate and alumni chapters on major campuses and in cities throughout the country and the world—the crystallization of a dream. It is the beautiful realization of a vision shared commonly by the late revered Founders.

Black-sponsored Greek letter organizations on the Indiana University campus might well have begun in 1903, but there were too few registrants to assure a continuing organization. In that year, a club was formed called Alpha Kappa Nu with the purpose of strengthening the voice of Blacks at the university. The club disappeared after a short time. There is no record of any similar organization at Indiana until ten astute African-American college students, on the night of January 5, 1911, sowed the seed of a fraternal tree whose fruit is available to, and now enjoyed by, college men everywhere, regardless of their color, religion or national origin.

The Alpha Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi® in 1913

The charter members of the Alpha Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi® were Elder Watson Diggs, John Milton Lee, Byron K. Armstrong, Guy Levis Grant, Ezra D. Alexander, Henry T. Asher, Marcus P. Blakemore, Paul Waymond Caine, Edward G. Irvin and George W. Edmonds. 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.

During this time there were very few African-American students at the predominately White campus due to the Jim Crow laws. African Americans students rarely saw each other on campus and were discriminated from attending student functions and extra-curricular activities by the college administration and student body. They were also denied participation on athletic teams, with the exception of track and field. The racial prejudice and discrimination encountered by the Founders strengthened their bond and interest in starting a social group. From the beginning, the Founders’ goal was to create a Fraternity founded on Christian ideals and the fundamental purpose of achievement.

The Fraternity was chartered and incorporated originally under the laws of the State of Indiana as Kappa Alpha Nu on April 15, 1911, possibly as a tribute to the Black students of 1903 (the Alpha Kappa Nu Fraternity) who preceded them at Indiana University. There is no evidence as to why the greek letters Kappa Alpha Nu were chosen, but the name became an ethnic slur among racist factions. Founder Elder Diggs, while observing a young initiate compete in a track meet, overheard fans referring to the member as a “Kappa Alpha Nigger,” and a campaign to rename the Fraternity ensued. The name was changed to Kappa Alpha Psi® on a resolution offered and adopted at the Grand Chapter in December 1914. This change became effective April 15, 1915, on a proclamation by the then Grand Polemarch, Elder Watson Diggs. Thus, the name acquired a distinctive Greek letter symbol and Kappa Alpha Psi® thereby became a Greek letter fraternity in every sense on the designation.

Kappa Alpha Psi® is the beautiful realization of a vision shared commonly by the late Revered Founders that enabled them to sow the seed of a fraternal tree whose fruit is available to, and now enjoyed by college men everywhere, regardless of their color, religion, or national origin. It is a fact that Kappa Alpha Psi® is proud that its Constitution has never contained any clause that either excluded or suggested the exclusion of a man from membership merely because of his color, creed, or national origin.

The fraternity has over 250,000 members with 700 undergraduate and alumni chapters in nearly every state of the United States, and thirteen international chapters in Nigeria, South Africa, Bermuda, Bahamas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Panama, United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, Dominican Republic, Abu Dhabi, Canada, and Japan.