About The Guide Right Program

GUIDE RIGHT: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

In the infancy of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. when chapters were blossoming and flourishing throughout the length and breadth of the United States, both individual and collective efforts were being made to incorporate meaningful programs into the various local chapter activities.

The very foundation of Guide Right can be traced to the St. Louis Alumni Chapter and to Leon W. Steward, who is rightfully dubbed the “Father of the Guide Right Movement.”

According to THE STORY OF KAPPA ALPHA PSI, soon after the St. Louis Alumni Chapter’s beginning in 1921, Brothers Leon W. Steward and J. Jerome Peters were assigned to study the needs of active chapters for guidance and funds, and to devise a “meaningful and practical approach” to the problem. Ultimately Brother Steward, a Y.M.C.A. Secretary, proposed a program of guidance to be designated as Guide Right, with the purpose of assisting high school seniors to choose and pursue useful careers consistent with the fraternity’s purpose. In 1922 at the 12th Grand Chapter Meeting in Chicago, IL, Guide Right was immediately adopted as our National Service Program.

From its inception, the focus of Guide Right was to provide scholarships to needy and talented students and to inform young people about professions and career options.

Our continuing investment in the nation’s young people is a laudatory gesture, given the social climate of the contemporary scene.

OBJECTIVES OF GUIDE RIGHT

The basic objectives of Guide Right may be summarized as follows:

  1. To inspire service in the public interest through the cultural enrichment and character development of African American males.
  2. To develop leadership skills while monitoring, encouraging, and rewarding outstanding academic performance.
  3. To refine self-image, self-esteem, social skills, and environmental awareness.
  4. To assist parents in the handling of their children by giving them opportunities to talk over problems with those who know and are successful in their chosen vocations.
  5. To afford the less fortunate youths a respite from the drudgery of the streets, through sponsored entertainment and cultural enrichment.
  6. To inform youth of the value of higher education, assistance available for continued educational pursuits, scholarships, loans, professional counseling, and fellowships.

Kappa Alpha Psi’s commitment to young people is well established and our Guide Right efforts, both individual and collective, can continue to serve as a mechanism to “inspire service in the public interest.”