Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated was founded on Friday, January 16, 1920, on the campus of Howard University in Washington,
D.C. by five undergraduate students: Arizona Cleaver Stemmons, Pearl Anna Neal, Fannie Pettie Watts, Viola Tyler Goings, and
Myrtle Tyler Faithful. These five women, also known as the Five Illustrious Pearls, dared to depart from traditional
coalitions for black women and sought to establish a new organization predicated on the precepts of Scholarship, Service,
Sisterly Love, and Finer Womanhood. These women were inspired by the brothers of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated.
Zeta was founded on the simple belief that sorority elitism and socializing should not overshadow the real mission for progressive
organizations- to address societal mores, ills, prejudices, poverty, and health concerns of the day. It was the ideal
of the founders that the sorority reach college women in all parts of the country who were sorority minded and desired to
follow the founding principles of the organization.
To this day, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated has been the trailblazer of all sororities. They were the first Greek
letter organization to establish a chapter in Africa (December 1948); to form both adult and youth auxiliary groups (Zeta
Amicae, Amicettes, Archonettes, and Pearlettes); to centralize its operations in a national headquarters; and to be constitutionally
bound to a fraternity (Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated).
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