FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York City Names Queens Street for Omega Psi Phi Founder Bishop Edgar A. Love
QUEENS, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2026 — A street in the Addisleigh Park Historic District now carries the name of a man who helped build both a fraternity and a faith. Bishop Edgar A. Love Way was unveiled today at 174th Street, honoring the Methodist bishop, World War I chaplain, and civil rights advocate who was one of the four Founders of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
Mark E. Jackson, 43rd Grand Basileus of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., joined Second District Representative Leon Smith II, Immediate Past Second District Representative Amir Shareef, Nu Omicron Chapter Basileus Edward Thomas, and Brothers from across the Second District, alongside Council Member Nantasha Williams of the 27th District, for the ceremony.
The skies that day carried their own kind of symbolism. Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. was founded amid thunder, lightning, wind, and driving rain on November 17, 1911, and Nu Omicron Chapter was chartered under the same kind of storm in October 1947. Today, as Bishop Edgar A. Love Way was unveiled on the street he helped shape, the thunder rolled, the wind picked up, and the rain fell once more, as if the weather itself had come full circle to bear witness.
But regardless of the weather, the love was unmistakable. It was there in the four generations of the Love family standing on the corner, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren among them, and in the Brothers of Nu Omicron standing where their chapter’s first Vice Basileus once stood.
The New York City Council presented a Proclamation to the Love family and Nu Omicron Chapter during the program, formally recognizing Bishop Love’s contributions to the borough and to the causes he spent a lifetime serving.
Edgar Amos Love (1891–1974) was one of three undergraduates who founded Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. at Howard University in 1911 and became its first Grand Basileus. He was elected Bishop of the Methodist Church in 1952 and spent the following decade supporting voter registration drives and desegregation efforts.
His imprint on Queens came later in life but proved no less lasting. Love was one of seven charter members of Nu Omicron Chapter, organized in Jamaica in March 1947 and chartered that October, and he served as its first Vice Basileus. Nearly eight decades on, the chapter still carries the name given to it in his honor.
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Since its humble beginnings at Howard University in 1911, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. has remained steadfast in its commitment to Manhood, Scholarship, Perseverance, and Uplift—building a global legacy of service, leadership, and friendship that is essential to the soul.
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