National Programs
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C., January 9th, 1914, by three young African-American male students. The founders, Honorable A. Langston Taylor, Honorable Leonard F. Morse, and Honorable Charles I. Brown, wanted to organize a Greek letter fraternity that would truly exemplify the ideals of Brotherhood, Scholarship, and Service.
The founders deeply wished to create an organization that viewed itself as “a part of” the general community rather than “apart from” the general community. They believed that each potential member should be judged by his own merits rather than his family background or affluence…without regard of race, nationality, skin tone, or texture of hair. They wished and wanted their fraternity to exist as part of even a greater brotherhood which would be devoted to the “inclusive we” rather than the “exclusive we.”
From its inception, the Founders also conceived Phi Beta Sigma as mechanism to deliver services to the general community. Rather than gaining skills to be utilized exclusively for themselves and their immediate families, the founders of Phi Beta Sigma held a deep conviction that they should return their newly acquired skills to the communities from which they had come. This deep conviction was mirrored in the Fraternity’s motto, “Culture For Service, and Service For Humanity.”
Today, 95 years later, Phi Beta Sigma has blossomed into an international organization of leaders. No longer a single entity, the Fraternity has now established the Phi Beta Sigma Educational Foundation, the Phi Beta Sigma Housing Foundation, the Phi Beta Sigma Federal Credit Union, and the Phi Beta Sigma Charitable Outreach Foundation. Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, founded in 1920 with the assistance of Phi Beta Sigma, is the sister organization. No other fraternity and sorority is constitutionally bounded as Sigma and Zeta. We both enjoy and foster mutually supportive relationship.
The founders deeply wished to create an organization that viewed itself as “a part of” the general community rather than “apart from” the general community. They believed that each potential member should be judged by his own merits rather than his family background or affluence…without regard of race, nationality, skin tone, or texture of hair. They wished and wanted their fraternity to exist as part of even a greater brotherhood which would be devoted to the “inclusive we” rather than the “exclusive we.”
From its inception, the Founders also conceived Phi Beta Sigma as mechanism to deliver services to the general community. Rather than gaining skills to be utilized exclusively for themselves and their immediate families, the founders of Phi Beta Sigma held a deep conviction that they should return their newly acquired skills to the communities from which they had come. This deep conviction was mirrored in the Fraternity’s motto, “Culture For Service, and Service For Humanity.”
Today, 95 years later, Phi Beta Sigma has blossomed into an international organization of leaders. No longer a single entity, the Fraternity has now established the Phi Beta Sigma Educational Foundation, the Phi Beta Sigma Housing Foundation, the Phi Beta Sigma Federal Credit Union, and the Phi Beta Sigma Charitable Outreach Foundation. Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, founded in 1920 with the assistance of Phi Beta Sigma, is the sister organization. No other fraternity and sorority is constitutionally bounded as Sigma and Zeta. We both enjoy and foster mutually supportive relationship.
Bigger and Better Business
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated, believes that the improvement and economic conditions of minorities is a major fact in the improvement of the general welfare of society. It is upon this conviction that the Bigger and Better Business Program rests. Since 1926, the Bigger and Better Business Program has been sponsored on a national scale by Phi Beta Sigma as a way of supporting, fostering, and promoting minority owned businesses and services. Please visit www.pbsbbb.org for more information.
Education
The program consists of a four point plan designed to increase the fraternity’s emphasis on implementing programs with national/international focus and applying an infrastructure for development of office’s initiatives, to operate directly and indirectly with various Sigmas initiatives (i.e. Sigma Beta Club Foundation and Project S.E.T.), and to develop topics for oratorical and debate competitions.
Also, the implementations of the goals and objectives can be further supported by the future reinstitution of the practice and application of the By-Laws established in the constitution concerning this office, particularly reinstituting both the Education and Scholarship Funds. Please visit http://pbseducation1914.org for more information.
Also, the implementations of the goals and objectives can be further supported by the future reinstitution of the practice and application of the By-Laws established in the constitution concerning this office, particularly reinstituting both the Education and Scholarship Funds. Please visit http://pbseducation1914.org for more information.
Social Action
During the 20th anniversary of Sigma, the Committee of Public Policy urged that the fraternity comes forth with a broadly-based program that would be addressed to the problems of great masses of the Negro people. This new departure, in large measure, grew out of the experiences of the New York Group. These men from Manhattan brought with them a new idea, SOCIAL ACTION. Phi Beta Sigma has from its very beginning concerned itself with improving the general well-being of minority groups. In 1934, a well-defined program was formulated and put into action. Brother Elmo M. Anderson, then president of the Epsilon Sigma Chapter in New York formulated this program calling for the reconstruction of social order. It was a tremendous success. It fit in with the social thinking of the American public in those New Deal years. In the winter of 1934, Brother Elmo Anderson, James W. Johnson, Emmett May, and Bob Jiggets came down to the Conclave in Washington, D.C. and presented their Social Action proposition, and just the birth of Social Action as a National Program.
