ALPHA RHO CHAPTER ALUMNI ASSOCIATION CELEBRATES THE ARRIVAL OF ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC.’S ARCHIVES AT AUC WOODRUFF LIBRARY
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APCAA Staff + Photos by Jordan Phillips
ATLANTA GA — The Alpha Rho Chapter Alumni Association (APCAA) had a front-row seat to history on July 22, as a 20-member delegation gathered at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library & Archives Research Center to welcome Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.'s national archives to a home APCAA already knows well.
The occasion marked the signing of a landmark partnership naming the Woodruff Library as the fraternity's official archival custodian, with the HBCU Digital Library Trust joining as an exclusive preservation partner to digitize the organization's public records. For APCAA, the news meant something more than an institutional milestone — it meant the fraternity's founding legacy was moving in next door. The national archives had been housed at Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University since at least the late 20th century.
"The widely referenced slogan 'Atlanta Influences Everything' took on a new level of personal pride for all Atlanta-based Alphas when news broke yesterday about the new home for the archives," said APCAA President and Founder Bro. BMaynard Scarborough. "It's an undeniable honor to share an archival home address with the collection that started it all."
An Alpha Phi Alpha Partnership APCAA Helped Pave The Way For
APCAA's connection to the Woodruff Library predates this week's announcement by three years. The association established its own partnership with the library in 2023, the product of a strategic planning initiative the group launched back in 2014. That early investment made APCAA's collection the first — and to this day the largest — chapter-specific repository anywhere in the fraternity.
APCAA further distinguished itself in 2014 with the creation of the Alpha Rho International Census (APIC), a project that made it the first chapter association chartered before 1950 to fully catalog every one of its initiates by individual image. That track record of archival rigor positioned APCAA as a natural neighbor for the fraternity's national collection once the search for a new home began.
The National Archives Officially Arrive
The fraternity's $125,000 investment underwrites both the digitization of its records and a broader commitment to the AUC Woodruff Library Digitization Hub, reinforcing Alpha Phi Alpha's long relationship with historically Black colleges and universities. The formal memorandum of understanding was signed jointly by Alpha Phi Alpha Executive Director Bro. Sean L. McCaskill and AUC Woodruff Library CEO Dr. Kimberley Bugg, following opening remarks from Historical Commission Co-Chairman Bro. Jordan D. Ross (Rho Chapter / Spring 2024) — himself a Morehouse College alumnus who served as a primary author of APCAA's 2023 Centennial History Book.
Once digitized, the fraternity's public records will be accessible through the HBCU Library Alliance Digital Collection, giving the public a window into Alpha Phi Alpha's role in social change and activism across the communities it has served for more than a century.
A Preview of APCAA's Own Collection
The event also gave attendees an early look at APCAA's own celebrated artifacts collection, ahead of its full public unveiling during homecoming week on October 8, 2026. Highlighted holdings on display included items connected to Fraternity Jewel Bro. Dr. Henry Arthur Callis, former Morehouse College presidents Dr. John Hope and Dr. Hugh M. Gloster, and legendary Atlanta Mayor Bro. Maynard H. Jackson.
Representing the Jackson family at the event was Bro. Luke B.H. Jackson, the late mayor's grandson and a member of the fraternity's Alpha Chapter at Cornell University (Spring 2022), who joined the APCAA delegation for the occasion.
Now Four Collections Strong
With this week's acquisition, the Woodruff Library holds four collections directly tied to the fraternity and its legacy:
The Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Collection
The Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection
The Alpha Rho Chapter Collection
The Morehouse College Collection
The addition also raises the library's profile among the nation's premier institutions for preserving African American history, alongside the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., the Charles H. Wright Museum in Detroit, the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, The King Center in Atlanta, and the DuSable Black History Museum in Chicago.
"History That Belongs To All Of Us"
Alpha Phi Alpha General President Brother Lucien J. Metellus, Jr. framed the partnership as a matter of preserving a legacy far larger than the fraternity itself. "As the first intercollegiate Fraternity founded by African American men, our history and legacy does not only belong to Alpha, but provides context to the history of all other Divine Nine organizations that followed as well as to the fight for African American progress in America," Metellus said. "This urgent initiative ensures that the Fraternity's priceless archives are protected, elevated, and accessible for generations."
About Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.: Founded on December 4, 1906, at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Alpha Phi Alpha was the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African American men. Now headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, the fraternity counts more than 720 college and alumni chapters across the United States and abroad, including in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
About the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library: Established in 1982, the AUC Woodruff Library serves three HBCUs — Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. Its Archives Research Center is widely recognized for its holdings on the African American experience, including the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection, the Alpha Rho Alumni Association of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Collection — one of the fraternity's largest chapter repositories — and the Joseph Echols Lowery and Evelyn Gibson Lowery Collection.
About the Alpha Rho Chapter Alumni Association (APCAA):
