ALPHA CHAPTER
"THE PEARL OF OMEGA!"
November 17, 1911
On Friday, November 17, 1911, three Howard University undergraduate students, Frank Coleman, Oscar James Cooper and Edgar Amos Love, met with Professor Ernest Everett Just in his office in Science Hall (Thirkield Hall) to establish a fraternity. At this meeting, they decided upon the motto “friendship is essential to the soul” as symbolized by the letters OMEGA PSI PHI, which are the initials of the three Greek words that represent the motto.
December 15, 1911
On December 15, 1911, prior to faculty approval, Alpha Chapter, The Mother Pearl, was established at Howard University with fourteen Charter members.
1913
The first Alpha Chapter House, in the year 1913, was located at 326 T Street, NW in Washington, DC.
1920
Alpha Chapter Brothers managed the Howard Players, edited the "Echo" Yearbook and "The Hilltop" campus newspaper, and served as Student Council President. In “The Oracle” (Summer 1974), Alfred Edgar Smith (Alpha 1922) noted “that the West Indian student on the campus of those days was the victim of some prejudice and discrimination. Omega was the first College Fraternity to extend membership to them - Z. Alexander Looby, H. Horne Huggins, et al.” The Lampados Club of 1929 donated the Benjamin Banneker Memorial to the campus.
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