Alpha Kappa Alpha
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. is a historically African-American sorority. The sorority was founded in 1908 at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Alpha Kappa Alpha was incorporated in 1913. It is a member of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, a group of historically Black fraternities and sororities often called the Divine Nine.
In 2025, Alpha Kappa Alpha had more than 365,000 members in 1,085 chapters in the United States and eleven other countries. Women may join through undergraduate chapters at a college or university, or graduate chapters after acquiring an undergraduate or advanced college degree.
History
Beginnings: 1907–1912
In the spring of 1907, student Ethel Hedgemon Lyle led efforts to create a sorority at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Forming a sorority broke barriers for African-American women in areas where they had little power or authority due to a lack of opportunities for Black Americans in the early 20th century. Faculty member Ethel T. Robinson encouraged Hedgemon by relating her observations of sorority life at the Women's College at Brown University. Hedgemon began recruiting interested classmates; the group used the summer of 1907 to research and explore options for their new organization.In November 1907, Hedgemon and Marie Woolfolk Taylor gave a presentation to the university's administration to secure approval for a sorority, which was granted immediately. Thus, Alpha Kappa Alpha became the first sorority member of the Divine Nine to be created at a historically black college or university. Nellie Quander was selected as the sorority's first president.
On January 15, 1908, the nine founders held the first official meeting of Alpha Kappa Alpha in Miner Hall. On February 21, 1908, the seven sophomores were admitted to the sorority without initiation and were also given a status as founders. In its first few months, Alpha Kappa Alpha created its rituals, held social events, and made presentations for the general public. On May 1, 1908, members planted ivy and a tree on the Howard campus; this practice was later adopted by the university and continued for decades.
The sorority's first initiation was held in a wing of Miner Hall at Howard University on February 11, 1909. On May 25, 1909, Alpha Kappa Alpha held its first Ivy Day, a celebration that included planting ivy at Miner Hall. The sorority established many service efforts, including helping to create the NAACP and the YWCA D.C. chapter, feeding the hungry, tutoring, and clothing people experiencing poverty.
Incorporation: 1912–1913
By the end of the 1911–12 school year, Alpha Kappa Alpha had more than forty members at Howard. In October, former president Nellie Quander was invited to attend a sorority meeting. In this meeting, the active members proposed changing the sorority's name, colors, and symbols. Quander opposed the changes, advising the students that they had no right, legally or ethically, to make such changes. Quander advised them to hold a poll of the entirety of the sorority. That poll found that the vast majority did not favor the change.Some of the undergraduate members who favored the changes held a meeting the next month with other collegiate women and voted to established a new group that incorporated the changes, forming what became Delta Sigma Theta. Quander set up a committee that worked to incorporate Alpha Kappa Alpha to ensure its continuation. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority became the first African-American sorority to incorporate nationally on January 29, 1913.
File:BadgeAKA2.jpg|150px|right|thumb|A closeup of an Alpha Phi Alpha delegate badge from the 23rd [|Boulé]. The tri-convention—consisting of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Alpha Phi Alpha, and Kappa Alpha Psi—was held December 27–31, 1940, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Expansion and implementation of programs: 1913–1940
Alpha Kappa Alpha helped to support members by providing scholarship funds for school and foreign studies and by raising money for Howard University's Miner Hall. It was the first of the historically Black fraternities and sororities at Howard University to offer a scholarship program.A second chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha was chartered at the University of Chicago in the fall of 1913. This sorority held its first annual Boulé, a meeting of the sorority's governing body, at Howard University in December 1918. The sorority's pledge was written by Grace Edwards and was adopted by the 1920 Boulé. In addition, the sorority's crest was designed by Phyllis Wheatley Waters and accepted in the same Boulé.
At the 1921 Boulé, the Ivy Leaf was designated as the sorority's publication, and Founders' Week, paying honor to ΆKΆ's founders, was established. Pearls were first introduced to the sorority in the same year. The sorority membership pin was approved in the following Boulé in Kansas City, Missouri. At the 1947, Boulé, pins for honorary members were designed and approved.
By 1920, the sorority created a national service plan catered to the surrounding communities of each chapter. By May 1924, Alpha Kappa Alpha opened its vocational guidance program. Throughout the Great Migration, members assisted the Travelers Aid Society to help thousands of Southern Blacks adjust to Northern society, find housing, and navigate around the city. Members also volunteered at the Freedman's Hospital.
In 1921, the sorority sent telegrams to seven other historically Black fraternities and sororities, suggesting that they form a panhellenic. On May 10, 1930, Alpha Kappa Alpha, along with the fraternities Kappa Alpha Psi and Omega Psi Phi and sororities Delta Sigma Theta and Zeta Phi Beta, formed the National Pan-Hellenic Council at Howard University.
In April 1933, the sorority's international president Ida Louise Jackson visited All Saints Industrial School in Lexington, Mississippi, learning of the difficult conditions in the Mississippi Delta during the Great Depression. Some of the school's teachers did not have an education past the seventh grade. African Americans were trying to make a living sharecropping on plantation land as agricultural prices continued to fall.
In the summer of 1934, Jackson initiated the Summer School for Rural Teachers to train future teachers. She worked with a total of 22 student teachers and 243 school children. In addition, she held night classes for 48 adults. By obtaining 2,600 books for the school's library, Jackson made it "the largest library owned by white or colored in all Holmes County."
The December 1935 Boulé approved $1,000 for Jackson to forma a regional health clinic in Mississippi. The clinic opened in the summer of 1938 and evolved into the Mississippi Health Project, with Alpha Kappa Alpha Dorothy Boulding Ferebee serving as its director. The Mississippi Health Project brought primary medical care to the rural Black population across the state for six summers. It was the first mobile health clinic in the United States, assisting approximately 15,000 people in the Mississippi Delta. The project was noted for helping to decrease cases diphtheria and smallpox in the region and to improve nutritional and dental practices throughout rural Mississippi.
Norma Elizabeth Boyd led the sorority to create the National Non-Partisan Lobby on Civil and Democratic Rights in 1938, later renamed the National Non-Partisan Council on Public Affairs. It was the first full-time congressional lobby for minority group civil rights. Throughout the organization's life, the Non-Partisan Council worked with the NAACP, National Urban League, the United Office and Professional Workers of America, the National Association of Graduate Nurses, the American Federation of Churches, the Colored Women's Club, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Auxiliary, and the New York Voter's League. The NPC was dissolved on July 15, 1948, by twelfth Supreme Basileus Edna Over Gray-Campbell.
In August 1945, Alpha Kappa Alpha established the American Council on Human Rights to replace the NPC. The council made recommendations to the government concerning civil rights legislation. The ACHR was proposed at the 1946 Boulé. In October 1946, Alpha Kappa Alpha was the first sorority to obtain observer status at the United Nations. On January 25, 1948, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta, Sigma Gamma Rho sororities, and Alpha Phi Alpha and Phi Beta Sigma fraternities were charter members of the ACHR. Kappa Alpha Psi was later included in March 1949.
On September 1, 1945, Alpha Kappa Alpha established The National Health Office in New York City. The National Health Office coordinated activities with local chapters and worked with the ACHC to promote health initiatives before the United States Congress, increase the number of student nurses, and improve the state of health programs at historically black colleges and universities. The National Health Office was dissolved in 1951, as its goals were incorporated into the sorority's international program.
Civil rights and educational training: 1950–1970
Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Alpha Kappa Alpha members helped to sponsor job training, reading enrichment, heritage, and youth programs. By encouraging youth to improve math, science, and reading skills, the sorority continued its commitment to community service and enriching the lives of others. Financially, Alpha Kappa Alpha expanded funding for projects in 1953 through the creation and trademark of a fashion show called Fashionetta. Politically, ACHR continued lobbying for equality concerning civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s. According to Collier-Thomas, the ACHR drew attention to legislation concerning education, transportation, employment, and improving equality in the armed forces and public places. The ACHR participated in filing civil rights cases in amicus curiae with Bolling v. Sharpe and 1954's Brown v. Board of Education. However, ACHR voted to dissolve operations in 1963.Alpha Kappa Alpha contributed programs for inner-city youth by capitalizing on political gains in the White House. On August 20, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act, which allowed the creation of the Job Corps. The sorority wanted to operate a student job training center. Led by president Julia Purnell, the sorority negotiated with the Office of Economic Opportunity to operate a women's center from October 1964 to January 1965. Alpha Kappa Alpha was awarded a $4 million grant to operate the Cleveland Job Corps in Cleveland, Ohio on February 12, 1965, becoming the first sorority to operate a federal job training center. Beginning in 1965, the Cleveland Job Corps trained female high school dropouts aged 16 to 21 with job and educational skills. In 1976, the Cleveland Job Corps began accepting males. The sorority operated the Cleveland Job Corps until 1995.
The sorority published The Heritage Series between 1968 and 1972. These pamphlets were a series of biographies of top African-American women, including "Women in the Judiciary", "Women in Politics", "Women in Medicine", "Women in Business", and "Women in Dentistry". Alpha Kappa Alpha also donated $20,000 for preserving Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthplace in Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1970s. In 1978, during the sorority's seventieth anniversary, the Memorial Window at Howard University was dedicated to the founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha. Surviving founders Lavinia Norman and Norma Elizabeth Boyd attended the celebration of unveiling the Memorial Window, designed by Lois Mailou Jones.