Alpha Phi Alpha was founded on December 4, 1906 in a room at Cornell University by seven men who called themselves the "Jewels." Eight years later, as the fraternity spread to campuses across the country, those founders recognized that a scattered organization needed a unified voice. The Sphinx was that voice.

The first issue was modest — two printed pages, mimeographed and mailed to chapter presidents. It carried convention minutes, chapter news, and a single editorial urging brothers to "go to the aid of thy brother." That editorial framing — equal parts news organ, intellectual forum, and fraternal conscience — has defined The Sphinx for every one of its 112 years.

By the 1920s, the journal was a quarterly of significant literary ambition. During the Harlem Renaissance, it published poetry, essays, and political argument from the leading Black thinkers of the era. Editor Rayford Logan corresponded personally with W.E.B. Du Bois to solicit contributions. The 1929 convention issue, published from Hotel Theresa in Harlem, remains the most celebrated in the archive.

Through the Depression, the Second World War, the civil rights movement, the Black Power era, and the digital age, The Sphinx never ceased publication. It is the continuous record of Black fraternal life in America — and the primary source scholars, journalists, and brothers return to when they want to understand what Alpha stood for in any given moment.