The New Jersey Graduate Chapter of Groove Phi Groove Social Fellowship was chartered in the City of Newark, New Jersey on August 3,1974 by a small group of Fellowmen from Kean University (formally Newark State College), Rutgers University, Bloomfield College, and various other College and Universities throughout the country. These Fellowmen decided that it was important for them to continue to "Groove" after leaving the halls of higher education. For many years, the New Jersey Graduate Chapter has hailed some thirty plus Fellowmen and has remained the most active graduate chapter in Groove Phi Groove's history.

The New Jersey Graduate Chapter has provided the nation of Groove Phi Groove Social Fellowship, Inc. with a National President, John East, 2nd National Vice President, Kenneth D. Cooper, National Treasurer, Frank V. Daniels, National Communications Director, and an Editor of the Sword & Spear (national newspaper), Randy James. Over the years, the members of the New Jersey Graduate chapter have participated and partnered with a number of community based organizations; such as the Newark Emergency Services, 10,000 Mentors, Red Cross, Saint Ann's Soup Kitchen, Adopt a Highway, Toys for Tots, feed the Children Fund, and the Fellowman Willie J. Brown Scholarship Fund. The New Jersey Groovers have also carried the "Torch" for the original "Groovin In the Summertime" BBQ since its inception in the summer of 1973.

Together with the sisters of Swing Phi Swing Social Fellowship, Inc. we have successfully created a unique partnership that not only helped us to dedicate ourselves to our community, but has also served as an example for all Brothers and Sisters

"The Struggle continues, but together we can accomplish anything"

Groove Phi Groove, Social Fellowship Incorporated was founded on October 12, 1962 by fourteen, young African American men who attended Morgan State College which is now known as Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. Keeping in step with the reawakening of what has been termed, Black Consciousness, these men incorporated the prominent cultural and nationalistic ideologies and creeds of the Black Power Movement into an organization that endeavors to continue the process of uplifting the "Black Man" and perpetuating the "Black Race". Contrary to popular suppositions of the Fellowship's emergence as an antagonistic organization to the established Black fraternal system or as another Black fraternity without Greek nomenclature, the Fellowship was envisioned and is manifested as a valid alternative to what was viewed as and may still be perceived as an increasingly anticommunal, haughty, and self serving facade of a collegiate, Black, fraternal system.

In name, Groove Phi Groove, Social Fellowship Incorporated was and is meant to evoke an identification and sentiment towards the eternal rhythm and cadence which is apprehended within and among all of those members of the community who readily identify with those ancestors who survived the Middle Passage and their subsequent enslavement. Given the state of affairs within the United States during the Black Power Movement as well as the resulting events of the present, the name, Groove, symbolizes the harmony created and nurtured in fellowship with one's brother and fellow man. Subsequently, the nomenclature of the Fellowship represents a conscious change and aversion to the historicity and perpetuation of Black, collegiate, fraternal organizations that came into being as a result of the rejection of integration from whites, the rightfully, so called Greek fraternal members as well as the perceived, selective, cliquish requirements of those established Black Greek organizations. In addition, the terminology which comprises the name of the Fellowship embodies a denial of the term, Black Greek. In some respects, this term was seen and continues to be interpreted, even at the most minute level, as being synonymous with the pejorative implications of the term, Negro, and it creates the disrespectful, ideological paradox of an African American referring to him or her herself as being Greek within the context of the African American experience in the United States.

The founders attributed the significance of the letters and colors of Groove Phi Groove, Social Fellowship Incorporated to themes that delineate the African AmericanÕs economic, political, and social paradigm. That is, the colors, black and white, which may connote many notions, have the principal importance to the Fellowship by symbolizing the idea of balance between interacting and opposing life-forces. The letter, G, is meant to elucidate a metaphysical acknowledgment and belief in a higher power that is infinite, omniscient, and omnipresent. Therefore, the symbolic G that is innate to the resulting term, Groove, is balanced across the "golden" number, Phi, of the Kemetic tradition which denotes the reproductive and nation building powers that are invested in the male life-force.

The Fellowship is social and incorporated for two main reasons. The social aspect is in reference to GrooveÕs ability and responsibility to address and attempt to resolve the needs of not only its immediate members, but also the needs and concerns of the surrounding community with which Groove Phi Groove, Social Fellowship Incorporated interacts. The Fellowship is incorporated as a result the socioeconomic factors of the society within which Groove finds itself.

Lastly, the organization encounters part of itself as a reference point to Black, fraternal organizations. However, the concept of fraternal, as applied to Groove, is in the sense of a group of men endorsing a common bond and relationship of brotherhood. Thus, Groove is not to be construed as a fraternity according to the colloquial and quaint interpretation that is most often associated with conceptions of Black Greek, fraternal organizations. Groove is not merely an alternative or social organization out of name sake. The Fellowship is a viable institution with a recent, thirty-four year history, 45,000 plus membership, and expanding tradition that is full of trials and triumphs that have only fortified the Fellowship and facilitated a bold and truthful course towards the future. The pulsation of Groove Phi Groove, Social Fellowship Incorporated will only give way to a better and more pertinent manifestation of the vibration that seeks to know itself through the realization of the genuine, ideological and pragmatic aspirations and concerns of the African American.