Introduction
This poem about Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. presents the fraternity as more than just an organization by describing it as a place where friendship, support, and shared purpose can genuinely change people’s lives. It speaks to the idea that brotherhood is built through kindness, encouragement, ambition, and service to others, while also showing how strong relationships can inspire people to become better versions of themselves.
GOODWILL is the monarch of this house
Men, unacquainted, enter, shake hand, exchange greetings, and depart friends.
Cordiality exists among all who abide within.
I am the eminent expression of friendship.
Character and temperament change under my dominant power.
Lives, once touched by me become tuned, and are thereafter, amiable, kindly, fraternal.
I inspire the musician to play noble sentiments,
and assist the chemist to conver ungenerous personalities into individuals of great worth.
I destroy all ignoble impulses.
I constantly invoke principles which make for common brotherhood,
and the echo resounds in all communities,
and princely men are thereby recognized.
Education, health, music, encouragement, sympathy, laughter:
All these are species of interest given of self-invested capital.
Tired moments find me a delightful treat,
Hours of sorrow a shrine of understanding,
At all times I am faithful to the creed of companionship.
To a few I am the Castle of Dreams,
Ambitious, successful, hopeful dreams.
To many, I am the Poetic Palace
where human feeling is rhymed to celestial motives.
To the great majority,
I am the Treasury of Good Fellowship.
“In fact, I am the College of Friendship; The University of Brotherly Love; The School for the Better Making of Men.”
I AM ALPHA PHI ALPHA!