Zeta Phi Beta was founded on January 16, 1920 on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. by five young women. Arizona Cleaver Stemmons, Viola Tyler Goings, Myrtle Tyler Faithful, Fannie Pettie Watts, and Pearl Anna Neal dared to depart from the traditional coalitions for African American women and sought to establish a new organization predicated on the principles of Scholarship, Service, Sisterly Love, and Finer Womanhood. These women were inspired by two brothers of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc., Charles Taylor and Langston Taylor. For Seventy-Nine years, the trail blazed by the founders has been traversed by thousands of women dedicated to the emulation of the objectives and ideas of the Sorority.

Since its inception, the Sorority has expanded to encompass more than 500 graduate and collegiate chapters. These chapters are located throughout the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, the Bahaman Islands, Eastern Caribbean Islands, West Africa, and Germany and are organized into Nine Regions. The Sorority is the first organization to charter a chapter in Africa (1948); to form adult and youth auxiliary groups, the Amicae and Archonettes; and to be constitutionally bound to a brother fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.

From the Sorority's inception, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. has long demonstrated an interest in serving the needs of the community, spanning the Sorority's nearly thirty-year partnership with the March of Dimes to its relationship with the Human Genome Project, Zeta Phi Beta has been at the forefront of anticipating the ever-changing needs of society.