naraht, I'm sooooo glad you started this thread! Thanks to everyone who put up some book suggestions, I just ordered two books from Amazon! I can't wait to get my summer reads in the mail!

No problem.

Though even with Pledged and Sanday's book out there, I think the books about fraternities and sororities are better on average than the movies. *shudder*

Wasn't there talk that "Pledged" was going to be made into a movie? Maybe I am going crazy but, I thought there had been a discussion about it somewhere on here. I could be wrong but, I'm willing to bet the movie will be just as dumb as the book, provided they actually put it on film....

Yeah, it works at the HBCUs (the Alpha Phi Alpha brothers calling themselves Alpha) since the only other one of the NPHC that starts with Alpha is Alpha Kappa Alpha, and they *always* go by AKA.

I don't know if Alpha Phi Alpha would be less likely to go by "Alphas" at places with huge systems like U of Illinois. Given that I don't think there are any of the NIC fraternities that go by Alphas, it wouldn't surprise me.

And anyone who gets ASA confused with APhiA needs more than their eyes checked. :)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0811020/
*shudder*

Oh...hahahahaha....I knew it! Oh wow...just waiting to see what happens!

If I see that movie with a bunch of friends, I can see everyone leaving pissed off and breaking something.

Since there's a book about the Deltas posted, I'll post a pretty good one for SPE. It's called OUR JOURNEY OF BROTHERHOOD Sigma Phi Epsilon's First Hundred Years. I learned a lot of info from this book about SPE's history that isn't even in touched in member education.

I'd wager that most GLOs more than a few decades old have at least one history book if not more. They are interesting reads. I always keep an eye out for them at used book stores and on used book websites.

Me too.

Fraternity Histories in wide release?
 

For Alpha Phi Omega, our history book was only sold by our national office. For Delta Sigma Theta, as best as I can tell, it was sold both by the national office and in bookstores, which way are various other fraternity histories...

Apparently you can buy various Alpha books through the non-member side of the website.

ETA: I recommend them all for the serious student of BGLO history, but beware that the Centennial Book of Essays and Letters does not have an index.

I've seen some Divine 9 related books in bookstores. But I've seen lots of other histories (and in used book stores. Occasionally, I can afford them -- they can be expensive.

I really enjoyed both of these, it really helped me to understand (at least a little bit better) where my NPHC friends were coming from.

Interesting.

At Murray State, four of the five NPC sororities start with Alpha. At the NPC peak (i.e. seven NPC chapters on campus), five of seven started with Alpha. Of the five, all had Alpha or an "A" in their nickmame, but none were referred solely as Alpha.

Side note: When Alpha Phi Alpha chartered at Murray State, they were - from day one - called Alpha. And Alpha Kappa Alpha was (is) AKA.

My guess is that is that what ever the local chapter decides to call itself, becomes the norm on campus.