Alpha Tau Omega began as an idea in the mind of a young Civil War veteran who wanted peace and reconciliation among Americans after the war. His name was Otis Allan Glazebrook. Glazebrook helped bury the dead of both armies, and he believed in a better future. He saw the bitterness and hatred that followed the end of the war and knew that a true peace would come not from force of law, but rather from within the hearts of men who were willing to work to rekindle a spirit of brotherly love. Glazebrook, who was only 19 years old, believed that younger men like himself might be more willing to accept, forgive, and reunite with the Northern counterparts if motivated by Christian, brotherly love. But he needed an organization to gather and coordinate like-minded people. In Richmond, Virginia, Glazebrook consulted with University of Virginia alumni who gave him information concerning the formation of fraternities.
Reared in a devout Christian home, Glazebrook could contemplate fraternity only in terms of Christian love. Out of his prolonged meditation emerged the concept of a fraternity Greek in name only; the Greek name, the visible symbol of passionate conviction that peace and brotherhood could be achieved under the protection of Jesus Christ. The name came spontaneously. As a boy, Glazebrook had seen the ancient insignia of the Church, the Tau Cross subjoined by Alpha and Omega. “Alpha” and “Omega” signify to the Biblical quote, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” Joined with the Cross the whole signifies that Christ is all in all, the beginning and end of salvation.
Having created a Christian fraternity and appropriated a distinctively Christian symbol for its name, the Cross naturally was its logical emblem. In the center he inscribed a crescent, three stars, the Tau Cross and clasped hands. Upon the upper and lower vertical arms he placed the Greek letters for Alpha and Omega and upon the horizontal arms, the Omega and Alpha letters respectively. Reading from top to bottom the fraternity’s name appears. Alpha Tau Omega, reading left to right it becomes Omega Tau Alpha. This reverse arrangement still indicates that Christ the beginning and end are joined.
On September 11, 1865, Alpha Tau Omega was born. It was the first fraternity founded after the Civil War, and the first sign of Greek life in the old Confederacy. It was the first fraternity founded on Christian principles, and still strives to embody these principles in every aspect of its existence. Today, Alpha Tau Omega annually ranks among the top ten national fraternities for number of chapters and total number of members.
The goal of Alpha Tau Omega, as expressed in its creed, is “To bind men together in a brotherhood based upon eternal and immutable principles, with a bond as strong as right itself, and as lasting as humanity; to know no North, no South, no East, no West, but to know man as man, to teach that true men the world over should stand together and contend for supremacy of good over evil; to teach not politics, but morals; to foster not partisanship, but the recognition of true merit wherever found; to have no narrower limits within which to work together for the elevation of man than the outlines of the world.”
