Jones, Eugene Kinckle

Impact on the world

Joined the founding of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity at Cornell University in 1906, helping name the new organization and personally chartering its first three chapters beyond Cornell, at Howard University, Virginia Union University, and the University of Toronto, before going on to serve as the first Executive Secretary of the National Urban League for 20 years, a tenure longer than any successor's, during which the organization became a leading national force addressing Black urban employment and housing discrimination.

Life & background

Born in Richmond, Virginia to a Virginia Union University professor, Jones entered Cornell in the fall of 1906 and quickly became deeply involved in the small society of Black students organizing for mutual support against the university's pervasive racial exclusion, helping select the name Alpha Phi Alpha alongside fellow founder Henry Callis and serving on the new organization's first committees on constitution and ritual; his formal status as a founding member, rather than merely an early member, was not officially confirmed by the fraternity until 1952, two years before his death. He became Alpha Chapter's second president in 1907 and went on to personally organize the fraternity's expansion beyond Cornell, chartering its second chapter at Howard University, its third at Virginia Union, and an early chapter at the University of Toronto in Canada. Beyond his fraternity work, Jones built his primary career at the National Urban League, where he served as the organization's first Executive Secretary for two decades, a tenure that remained, by the time of his death, longer than that of any successor in the role, leading the League's efforts to combat employment and housing discrimination against Black Americans migrating to Northern cities during the Great Migration; he died in 1954, two years after Alpha Phi Alpha finally and formally recognized his place among its original founders.

Sources

1. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. official history; Detroit Alphas; Wall Street Alphas; Kappa Iota Lambda chapter history