First Black fraternity to build monument at its birthplace

In the early 1900s, Cornell was one of a few major universities that welcomed Black students, but social segregation of the time prohibited them from living in campus housing.

Instead, Black students found lodging and community with local Black families; in a literary society formed in one of these houses, a group of students recognized that their white classmates found academic and social success by becoming fraternity members, which created support networks.

This realization led seven Black Cornell students to found the nation’s first African American fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, in 1906. The fraternity . . .