![]() To further its ability to provide funding for educational, social uplift and public policy initiatives, in 1980 the Fraternity established the Boulé Foundation as an independent nonprofit entity. Additionally, a variety of local pre-college scholarship and mentoring programs are sponsored by individual member boulés. Presently, the Fraternity internally supports such outstanding programs as the Boulé Scholars Program, which identifies and provides student scholarships and mentoring activities to enhance college attendance and success the Parity-Base 11 Foundation initiative, conceptualized to identify, encourage and support students who pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the Young Adult Career Symposium, that facilitates networking and professional development for early-career professionals who are members of the Grand Boulé family. The Fraternity contributed to the establishment of the Museum of African American History and Culture and continues to support organizations committed to enhancing community health as well as social, economic and educational opportunities. Moreover, it has supported communities stricken by natural catastrophes such as those precipitated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Texas in 2005, and the 2010 earthquake that devastated areas of Haiti. Importantly, the Fraternity has systematically embraced programs and activities that support historically Black colleges and universities, national civil rights organizations and causes, and local scholarship programs for youth, particularly for young Black males. Sigma Pi Phi remains true to its original purposes of enhancing the professional and interpersonal lives of its members and contributing to the enhancement of underserved communities. Since 1982, however, it has adopted a policy allowing for selected media exposure while continuing to operate privately with little fanfare. The Fraternity has functioned secretly and avoided publicity for most of its existence. Moreover, the titles of its officers and its members also derive from Greek history, and the names assigned to its local affiliates correspond to the letters of the Greek alphabet. ![]() Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity is also known as the Boulé, a title derived from Greek history and designating a council of chiefs. Whereas it seems wise and good that men of ambition, refinement and self-respect should seek the society of one another, both for the mutual benefit and to be an example of the higher type of manhood īe it resolved that a Society be organized for the purpose of binding men of like qualities into a close, sacred fraternal union, that they may know the best of one another, and that each in this life may to his full ability aid the other and by concerted action bring about those things that seem best for all that cannot be accomplished by individual effort. The purpose of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity since its inception is reflected in the words of the Preamble to its constitution: These eminent six men are the founders of the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. Abele, M.D.-the first Black American graduate in 1895 of the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hinson, M.D.-an 1898 Black American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. During that two-week interval, they also added two men to the group: Having consented to establish Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, these men agreed to meet again in two weeks to approve the Fraternity's constitution and ritual and elect its initial officers. Warrick, D.D.S.-a 1900 Black American graduate of the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Howard, M.D.-in 1865 one of the first two Black American graduates of the Harvard Medical School. Jackson, M.D.-in 1901 the first Black American graduate of Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical School, having previously attended the Indiana University Medical College. Minton, Ph.G.-Philadelphia College of Pharmacy graduate in 1895, and a second-year Jefferson Medical School student who in 1906 would become its second Black American graduate. ![]() Minton’s vision was readily embraced by the small group with whom he initially shared it. Minton envisioned a fraternity in which Black men of distinction would be invited to become members of a close fraternal union for their mutual benefit and to seek to enhance their underserved communities. Its founders were six extraordinary Black American men who supported the vision of establishing a fraternity for men of achievement as articulated by its primary founder, Henry McKee Minton. Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity: A Historical Overviewįounded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 15, 1904, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity is the oldest Black Greek-letter graduate-level fraternity in existence. ![]()
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