They might be few, but they are mighty. At Yale, two students are keeping their Divine Nine organizations alive as the only members of their fraternities on campus, per a wide-ranging feature by Yale Daily News's Olivia Cyrus. Alejandro Rojas is the only member of the Zeta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., while Keith Pemberton is the only member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc.
Both young men continue the legacy of the men who came before them, not just from a fraternity standpoint but a familial one as well. Rojas’ grandfather was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, while Pemberton’s father joined Omega Psi Phi in the spring of 1996. Although he is a legacy, Rojas did not have a lot of knowledge of the Divine Nine as someone who comes from both African American and Mexican American heritage.
“I just gravitated towards the idea of history and the legacy,” Rojas said. “It was a lot of learning about the things around me and being conscious of a deep history at Yale.”
As the only member on campus, Rojas currently serves as the president of the chapter. The Zeta chapter of the fraternity was chartered at Yale in 1909 but consists of members from other schools, including the University of New Haven, Southern Connecticut State University, and Quinnipiac University. Embodying the rich history of both fraternity and Yale, Rojas says that Alpha Phi Alpha is the oldest continuous Black undergraduate organization on campus, as reported by the Yale Daily News.
Despite the fraternity’s rich history, Rojas says that Yale has not been efficient when it comes to documenting the fraternity’s presence on campus. Prior to 1970, many Black students did not live on campus, thus making it difficult for them to be accounted for in the university’s yearbooks or class archives. Among these students were several of Rojas’ prophytes.
“A lot of our history has been lost because of the lack of documentation from Yale University,” Rojas said. “Fundamentally, it was an issue with whether or not Yale recognized the status of these students. I feel this responsibility to make sure that this history is honored despite how Yale might not have honored it in the past.”
According to the Yale Daily News piece, Michael Morand, director of community engagement at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, says the university is taking corrective measures to fill the gap in the history of Black Yale students. Morand says that the project is moving forward with the help of both students and alumni.
Having one member of an organization on campus is not uncommon. According to Rojas, two other Ivy League schools, Harvard and Brown, also have an Alpha on campus. While this is not uncommon, it is rare to have only one member in more than one organization.
Like Rojas, Pemberton is the only member of his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, on campus. The original chapter of the fraternity was founded at Yale in 1921, but later went inactive during the Great Depression. The chapter later revived in 1992 through the Epsilon Iota Iota chapter. Pemberton was the first initiate from Yale of the chapter in almost 14 years. In addition to being a legacy, Pemberton says that men who were trailblazers inspired him to join the fraternity.
“What inspired me to do it is looking at the trailblazers: the first Black astronaut, the first Black governor, all of which are Omega men,” Pemberton said. “Being a history major, despite it not having a presence on campus, it was inevitable for me to be interested.”
Visiting with members at other schools helps both Rojas and Pemberton gain a sense of community. Both have expressed looking for new members, not to simply increase numbers but to continue the work that their founders started many years ago.
“We’re definitely not looking for people just to increase numbers,” Rojas said about both himself and Pemberton. “For us, it’s really important to have a certain quality of student who’s dedicated to honoring the history in the same ways that we seek to bring our own perspective to it.”
