About Zeta

Zetas of Charlotte

About Zeta

Overview | Policy

Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated was founded on the campus of Howard University on January 16, 1920 as the result of encouragement given to the five founders by Charles R. Taylor and A. Langston Taylor, members of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity. These Sigma brothers felt the campus would benefit by the development of such an organization as sisters to the fraternity.

The Five Founders and chartered members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority are Arizona Cleaver Stemmons, Fannie Pettie Watts, Myrtle Tyler Faithful, Pearl Anna Neal, and Viola Tyler Goings. These dynamic ladies based the founding principles of the sorority on the ideals that would exemplify the finest of women. The principles that grace this organization are Scholarship, Service, Sisterly Love, and Finer Womanhood.

The five founders chose not to embrace the tenets of established sororities and chartered Zeta Phi Beta Sorority to encourage the highest standards of scholarship through scientific, literary, cultural and educational programs; promote service on college campuses and in the community; foster sisterhood; and exemplify the ideal of Finer Womanhood. It was the ideal of the founders that the sorority would reach college women in all parts of the country who were sorority minded and desired to follow the founding principles of the organization.

Since its inception, the Sorority has chronicled a number of firsts. Zeta Phi Beta was the first Greek-letter organization to charter a chapter in Africa (1948); to form adult and youth auxiliary groups; to centralize its operations in a national headquarters; and to be constitutionally bound to a fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated.

Zeta's national and local programs include endowment of its National Educational Foundation; community outreach services; and support of multiple affiliate organizations. Zeta chapters and auxiliary groups have given untotaled hours of voluntary service to educate the public, assist youth, provide scholarships, support organized charities and promote legislation for social and civic change.