Iota Chi History
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc was the first black fraternity to be founded on the campus of a historically black institution of higher learning. From its humble beginnings, the Fraternity has grown to encompass 476 chapters throughout the United States and overseas and a brotherhood of over 40,000 men.
Among the youngest of these chapters is Iota Chi, a graduate chapter founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts fifty-two years ago on February 1, 1955, by twelve enlightened brothers of Omega: Alonzo Hilliard Jr., Thomas Jenkins, L. Hugh Margbie, Robert March, Paul Moody, Clifton Moore, Bernard Pritchett, Paul Revaleon Sr., Milton Riddick, Charles Small, Francis Taylor and Alvah Wilson Jr. These brothers had community service uppermost in their minds when they established the goals of their new chapter. In the past 20 years, Iota Chi has awarded scholarships to over 40 local high school seniors entering college.
The Chapter’s community service effort has also included financial and physical support over the years to a number of community and charitable organizations dedicated to uplift our fellow black man. The included the Medgar Evans Fund, the Cambridge Community Center, Operation Exodus, Water- the African famine relief fund, the Cynthia Sickle Cell Anemia Fund, The Church of All Nations, and the Project Bread.
Iota Chi has also sponsored a trip for black high school students to the United Nations in New York and annually awards U.S. Savings bonds for scholarship to several deserving black junior high students to encourage perseverance in the pursuit of their scholastic goals. This chapter also sponsors an annual basketball tournament held at the Dorchester YMCA, and conducts panel discussions with seniors from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School that are interested in the engineering field. Young engineers from Raytheon would come to the high school and share their experiences in their field as young minorities in the engineering world.
Two other Chapter programs that reach out to the community and which are national programs of our Fraternity are the Talent Hunt and Achievement Week. The Talent Hunt seeks out for competition, high school students skilled in the performing art. The winner is further sponsored at the District Level, where winning have won First District competitions and three have been featured subsequently in a National talent Hunt Demonstration at a Grand Conclave of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc, the most recent being was a violinist who appeared at the 1998 Grand Conclave held in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Although community service is a major part of the Fraternity’s national, district and chapter overall programs, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc is indeed a social fraternity of college men, and social activities do also play a major part of life in Iota Chi. In fact, Iota Chi may have just pioneered the dinner-dance concept for predominantly black social organizations in the Boston area. Iota Chi Chapter has been blessed to have continued to serve the community for over 50 years and we will continue to do so for centuries to come.
