About Eta Chi Lambda

Chartered with a faithful adherence to the mission that Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. develops leaders, promotes brotherhood and academic excellence, while providing service and advocacy for our communities, Eta Chi Lambda Chapter began immediately to implement programs in Rockland that were sponsored by the national fraternity, notably the “Go to High School, Go to College” program.

In 1963 we initiated our education program to celebrate the anniversary of the May 17, 1954 United States Supreme Court ban on racial segregation in public schools. With few exceptions since 1963, Eta Chi Lambda has annually awarded scholarships to students graduating from Rockland County high schools.

Between 2002 and 2006, the Chapter through its not-for-profit foundation, the Eta Chi Lambda Community Service Fund, Inc., designed, secured NYS funding and constructed a monument, walkway and landscaping –at the Ramapo Central School administration building lawn at 45 Mountain Avenue– commemorating the work and memory of Bro. Thurgood Marshall.  The Thurgood Marshall commemorative monument and walkway was designed to carry on the memory of a great American and the early work he performed in New York State to help end racial segregation in the classroom.

Since the monument’s erection in 2002 there have been three events open to the public that have drawn hundreds of people from around the State and metropolitan area.  The first event which occurred in May 2002 celebrated the Village of Hillburn and memorialized one of the earliest desegregation cases successfully negotiated by Thurgood Marshall as the chief NAACP attorney in October 1943 in the backdrop of the larger landmark 1954 desegregation case.  The event was attended by more than 300 guests and was recognized by various proclamations and letters of support from Senator Hillary Clinton, former President William Clinton, and four sitting members of the Supreme Court.

In May of 2004 the committee again invited the public, students, community organizations, and many elected officials to the monument site for a 50th Anniversary celebration of the landmark Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision.  The anniversary celebration of the school desegregation decision featured a student essay and design contest, a short play performed by high school students about Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court case, and several speeches by State and local dignitaries.

In June of 2006, the Chapter held a small gathering to acknowledge the addition of the walkway that provided an appropriate complement to the standing monument and ensures that events similar to 2002 and 2004 continue periodically.  The completed site is intended to educate young people, provide local history to the general public, and to one day serve as an historic site for visitors throughout the surrounding metropolitan area. Eta Chi Lambda Chapter continued a long legacy of scholarship presentations by hosting the 2008 Spelman College Jazz Ensemble and Celebration of Women’s History Month, our annual Go To High School, Go To College Scholarship Luncheon, Project Alpha, and a Voteless People is a Hopeless People. 

Eta Chi Lambda Leadership

President
Les St Louis
president@etachilambda.org

Vice President/Chaplain
Wiky Toussaint
vicepresident@etachilambda.org

Treasurer
Jonathan Sanon
treasurer@etachilambda.org

Financial Secretary
Russell Washington
financialsec@etachilambda.org

Secretary/Assoc. Editor to the Sphinx
Kenneth A. Jackson, Jr
secretary@etachilambda.org

Dir. of Educational Activities
Jacques Brunache
DirectorEA@etachilambda.org

Dir. of Membership Intake
Mike Pettiford
Membership@etachilambda.org

Historian
Steve Dorelien
historian@etachilambda.org

Parliamentarian
Michenson Joseph
parliamentarian@etachilambda.org