A look at Alpha Kappa Alpha, the legendary sorority repped by Kamala Harris

By CNN Newsource

Published July 25, 2024 10:55 AM

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN

(CNN) — As long as she’s been on the political scene, Vice President and likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has proudly repped the salmon pink and apple green of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Alpha Kappa Alpha is a historic African American sorority, founded on the campus of Howard University, Harris’ alma mater. It was the first Black sorority of its kind, and is a part of the “Divine Nine,” a group of Black Pan-Hellenic organizations.

Members of Alpha Kappa Alpha and other groups in the Divine Nine have already rallied to support Harris’ bid for the presidency, networking and organizing to raise millions upon millions of dollars for her campaign. Harris is also a frequent presence at high-profile events, including Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.’s biennial convention earlier this month.

The sorority has been a critical source of support and sisterhood not just for Harris, but for the 360,000 some women across the US and the world that make up its ranks. AKA members are political leaders, civil rights activists, literary icons and scientists, and the sorority’s cultural impact has deep, wide-reaching roots.

“When you become a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, you become a member for life,” Danette Anthony Reed, international president and CEO of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Incorporated, told CNN.

Here’s a look at the history of Alpha Kappa Alpha and how it become a force in American society.

AKA was founded by Black women at Howard University

Alpha Kappa Alpha, or AKA as it’s familiarly known, was founded more than a century ago with the aim of connecting and empowering Black college-educated women. In the years since, AKA has been a springboard for its members to achieve academic and professional success, as well as leadership development and personal growth. The organization has also facilitates numerous community service initiatives across the country.

Groups like Alpha Kappa Alpha were a natural evolution of Greek life on college campuses. The first fraternities and sororities in the US formed in the late 1700s and 1800s as forums where college students could discuss current events and literature outside their strict curriculums, according to Lawrence Ross, author of “The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities.”

Greek life at predominantly White institutions eventually expanded and evolved into social clubs, but it excluded students of color. In the early 1900s, at a time of intense racial segregation and disenfranchisement, African American students at White institutions and historically Black colleges and universities founded the Greek letter organizations that make up the Divine Nine with an additional mission: To uplift each other and all Black people.

“It’s very much centered upon not just the college experience, but the notion that those of us who get college educations have a responsibility — not just to our own selves or our own transformation, but the transformation of our communities,” Ross, a member of the historically Black Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, said.

On January 15, 1908, Ethel Hedgemon — along with Anna Easter Brown, Beulah Burke, Lillie Burke, Marjorie Hill, Margaret Flagg Holmes, Lavinia Norman, Lucy Diggs Slowe and Marie Woolfolk — founded Alpha Kappa Alpha at Howard University as a community of women with shared values and goals. They chose an ivy leaf as their symbol, drafted a constitution and extended invitations to a group of sophomores on campus.

It was the first Black sorority in the country.

“We weren’t allowed to vote. We weren’t allowed to hold certain positions,” Evelyn Sample-Oates, a former international regional director of Alpha Kappa Alpha and a longtime member, told CNN. “These are women that came together because they had the like-minded agenda to gather strong Black women so that we could make a difference.”

To ensure the longevity of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Nellie Quander, along with Norma Boyd and Minnie Smith, led the effort to incorporate the organization in 1913. Over the next decade, AKA grew in strength and numbers — it established new chapters at campuses across the country, held its first Boule and began publishing an official journal called The Ivy Leaf.

How AKA became a cultural force

As Alpha Kappa Alpha transformed into a national organization over the first half of the 20th century, its members looked to more ambitious goals.

In 1913, Quander wrote to women’s rights activist Alice Paul, imploring her to include Black students from Howard in a women’s suffrage march without discrimination.

Then in 1921, Alpha Kappa Alpha sent a telegram to President Warren G. Harding, urging the administration to back a bill that would have made lynching a federal crime, according to AKA’s website.

One of Alpha Kappa Alpha’s most significant and well-known initiatives was the Mississippi Health Project, which was launched during the Great Depression.

From 1935 to 1942, AKA volunteers — led by President Ida Jackson and member Dr. Dorothy Ferebee — traveled to the Mississippi Delta and set up mobile health clinics for rural Black families who lacked access to health care. AKA compiled its observations into a report and elevated it to first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who became a champion of many AKA initiatives and eventually an honorary member, according to the documentary “Twenty Pearls: The Story of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.”

Over the years, Alpha Kappa Alpha and its members took on a more prominent role in the fight for social justice.

In 1938, Boyd, an educator and one of AKA’s earliest members, founded a congressional lobbying group to push legislation on issues concerning Black Americans. And in 1939, Alpha Kappa Alpha joined the NAACP as a lifetime member, paving the way for other historically Black fraternities and sororities to formally join in the fight for civil rights.

Another hallmark initiative came in 1965 with the Cleveland Job Corps. For 30 years, Alpha Kappa Alpha operated a federal job training center, equipping numerous Black women with the skills and education needed to place them in jobs.

Today, Alpha Kappa Alpha carries on this legacy of service, awarding millions of dollars in scholarships and grants, fighting food insecurity and building up the next generation of Black leaders, Reed said.

“Whether it’s social activism, advocacy for civil rights, building economic wealth, impacting our communities, we make a positive change,” she added. “And we empower individuals to strive for excellence.”

Its ranks are filled with luminaries

For all of its accomplishments as an organization, perhaps the most enduring legacy of Alpha Kappa Alpha is the individual contributions and achievements of its members.

Women of Alpha Kappa Alpha have populated the highest ranks of their fields, whether in politics, law, literature or science.

Constance Baker Motley was the first female attorney for the Legal Defense Fund and wrote the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education. The late Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a leading champion of Black American issues in Congress, was an AKA, as was Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison.

Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson — three Black mathematicians who worked for NASA in the 1950s and were at the center of the film “Hidden Figures” — also started out as Alpha Kappa Alphas. NASA astronaut Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space, repped the pink and green, too.

Many more women were initiated into Alpha Kappa Alpha as honorary members, including civil rights icon Rosa Parks, jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and director Ava DuVernay.

AKA continues to build power among Black women

With the ascension of Vice President Harris, Alpha Kappa Alpha is once again in the spotlight, and its political and cultural power is on full display from flashes of pink and green among Harris supporters to endorsements from fellow AKAs in politics.

“I am 1908% in with you Madam Soror Vice-President!!!!,” Florida Representative Ashley Gantt posted on X after President Joe Biden announced his endorsement of Harris.

AKA is a nonpartisan organization, but like every Greek organization, its members are often politically active. CNN’s Fredreka Schouten reported that Harris’ campaign saw more than 1,500 contributions of exactly $19.08 between Sunday afternoon — when Biden exited the presidential race — and Monday evening, nodding to AKA’s founding in 1908.

Sample-Oates said Harris’ campaign — and the support her sorors have shown her — are a testament to the sisterhood of AKA and what Black women can achieve when they link arms. It’s part of what inspired her to join the sorority about 40 years ago at American University.

“We’ve got a tough role out here in society,” she said. “We’re often underestimated, undervalued, underpaid, and it’s important that we come together and bond on these issues so together we can rise up.”

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