The Guardsmen started in Brooklyn in 1933 by several young men, most of them graduates of Howard University, Lincoln University and Morgan State College. Their objective was to form a club of men with like desires, to foster social programs that would include their wives and girl friends. Never in their wildest dream did they visualize an association of men from Boston to Florida and west to Los Angeles. The Brooklyn Chapter set a desirable pace and the word went out to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington and Richmond and quickly new clubs were formed and were chartered as Guardsmen by the Mother Chapter.

The expansion pace slowed and it was 60 years later before the 17th (Los Angeles) and 18th (St. Louis) chapters were admitted.

Present and participating in the forming of the Guardmen in 1933 at "Madame Bagley's" in the Sheepshead Bay Section of Brooklyn were: