Alpha Sorority Case Study

This paper will discuss Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, and how it started. The sorority was founded by nine educated black college women. By the names of Ethel Hedgeman-Lyle, Anna Easter Brown, Beulah Elizabeth Burke, Lillie, Burke, Marjorie Hill, Margaret Flagg (Holmes), Lavinia Norman, Lucy Diggs Slowe and Marie Woolfolk (Taylor). Shortly thereafter they invited seven sophomores to join them in becoming founders and they are Norma Boyd, Ethel J. Mawbray, Alice P. Murray, Sarah M. Nutter, Joanna Berry (Shields), Carrie E. Snowden, and Harriet J. Terry. Together they decided that with Ethel’s vision and their combined educational backgrounds, they would create an organization of like minded women to go out in the world and be of
“Service to All Mankind.” So on January 15th, 1908 at the illustrious Howard University they founded Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
Five years later on January 29th, 1913 the Sorority was Incorporated by Norma Boyd, Julia E. Brooks, Ethel J. Mowbray, Nellie Pratt Russell, Minnie B. Smith and Nellie M. Quander. They took it upon themselves to Incorporate the sorority so that they may be able to expand. The women also helped support many different organizations while expanding the brand that they had just created. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated has evolved, expanded and helped so many on their journey from 1908 to 2008.
Beginning in 1908 when Ethel and her fellow founders were starting Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority they were cautious that they were only one generation away from slavery. Even though the sixteen founders were very fortunate to be in school at the best African-American college, they were all still sensitive to what was going on around them. Such as the struggles back in their hometowns, segregation, and environs beyond their travel. The young college women committed to scholarship, civil engagement, and public service. They went out into the communities and helped out and through helping others they created an everlasting bond of sisterhood that would last
a lifetime. Once the sorority was formed they were consistently helping other people, organizations, schools etc… In the early 1914 they helped organize the first organizational scholarship at Howard University. They helped to push the Anti-Lynching act in 1921. Alpha Kappa Alpha created the nation's first congressional lobby and it affected issues ranging from decent living conditions to jobs (1938). The strong educated women challenged the government for not using pictures of African-Americans in pictures that reflected the United States of America in 1944. The Sorority invested in black businesses by making the first donation to the first and only Negro business on wall street in 1958. First women’s group to win a grant to operate a federal job corps center that helped women between the ages of 16-21 to function highly in a competitive economy in 1965. It was the only sorority to be named an inaugural member of operation big vote of 1979. In 1981, the sorority turned into a multi-million dollar entity that annually awards more than one hundred thousand dollars in scholarships, grants, and fellowships. First civilian organization to create a memorial to World War two unsung hero Dorie Miller in 1991. In 2008, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated donated one-million dollars to Howard University in Washington, DC for scholarships and to preserve black culture.
In December of 1906 the first African-American male fraternity was founded by Negro college men at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
The Fraternity is called Alpha Phi Alpha. In the summer of 1907 a woman by the name of Ethel Hedgeman decided to recruit some of her classmates who were interested in helping her form the organization/Sorority. By January 15, 1908 Ethel and fifteen of her peers (classmates) had founded Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated at Howard University in Washington, DC. This was the first sorority founded by Negro college women in the United States of America. In Ethel’s efforts to put the sorority together, she received a bit of help from her friend George Lyle whom she had been dating since high school and who soon became her husband. George was a charter member of the beta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated at Howard University in Washington, DC. Although, George Lyle had already went through the process of helping build a brand for educated Negro college men he helped Ethel Hedgeman-Lyle in her process. Ethel had a vision for the Sorority, she dreamed of a place that would allow like minded women to work together using their talents and strengths for the benefit of others. The Sorority’s symbol is the “Ivy Leaf” the ivy leaf represents strong and everlasting friendships; also has the ability to attach poorly to terrain and still thrive. The Sorority’s main purpose is to develop and promote high scholarly and principled
standards to advocate unity and friendship amongst women at the college level. In addition to, reducing problems regarding girls and women to enhance their social status and to be of “Service to All Mankind.”
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated is a sorority for college women at either the undergraduate or graduate level. Other than these two choices the only other way to join Alpha Kappa Alpha would be to go through the process of becoming an honorary member. For those who decide to join as an undergraduate student you must be a full time student and maintain a c plus average, complete twelve plus hours for either the fall or spring and be in attendance at the official rush. In order to join as a graduate student you would have to be invited by a member of the graduate chapter and have completed undergraduate and obtain a Bachelor's degree. Honorary members have to be invited and have to fill out an application but they do not have to be college graduates. The sorority’s colors are salmon pink and apple green, and the flower is a pink tea rose. The sorority itself stands on the backs of the nine original founders, seven sophomores who joined the original nine making it sixteen. Soon adding to that was the four incorporators and today they are all known as the twenty pearls. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, has grown over the years after incorporating themselves in January of 1913 they were able to expand. Today Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated has grown into a force of more than two-hundred and eighty thousand. They have more than nine-hundred chapters throughout the District of Columbia, the United States Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Germany, Africa, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and all throughout the continent of Africa. They have nine regional directors that help to cover all fifty states.