You’ve heard some of the alarming statistics.  Less than half of all minority boys finish high school.  There are more minority males in jail than there are in college.  Nearly 600,000 minority males currently serve sentences in state or federal prison, while less than 40,000 minority males earn bachelor degrees each year.  Minority boys are far more likely to die from gun violence than they are to become lawyers, doctors, or engineers.  Homicide is the leading cause of death among minority males ages 15-34.

You have attended the funerals of brilliant children taken from this earth far too soon.  You have sauntered past the make-shift memorials that flank our neighborhoods.  You have comforted weeping grandmothers who gave everything they had for naught.  You have stared into the emptiness of the eyes of mothers who have given up hope despite best intentions.

You’ve experienced the deep pain and insecurity lurking behind the façade of invincibility that some boys have developed as coping mechanisms.  In quiet and distilled moments you have noticed the blood-stained agony of boys who mourn the loss of their fathers.  Feeling powerless, you have tried to ignore the plea of boys who never had the chance to dream. You have heard people talk about the problems that plague our communities for decades, but one Fraternity isn’t just talking about the challenges we face.  One Fraternity is doing something about them.

On August 22, 1994, the Charismatic Brotherhood of Phi Rho Eta Fraternity, Inc. began with one core mission: to help young boys get the right start in life.  The Charismatic founders, Marvin Randolph and Lamont Taylor, themselves raised in neighborhoods that overflowed with the social diseases of drugs, violence, poverty, and hopelessness, established the organization on the premise that it would promote transformative change.

The founders sought to form a Brotherhood that would work relentlessly to set the standard of manhood, an organization comprised of Charismatic men striving to model and teach exemplary positive behavior.

Phi Rho Eta has quickly earned a reputation for its groundbreaking community development initiatives – for turning around the lives of boys who have been written off by society and placing those same boys on the path to success.

Men do not join Phi Rho Eta simply to make history. Men join Phi Rho Eta to CHANGE the course of history.