AKA sorority marks centennial

• By CAROL ANNE BLITZER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 8, 2008 - Page: 1E - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

They are all accomplished, college-educated women.

Their number includes author Maya Angelou, vocalists Alicia Keys and Gladys Knight, actresses Phylicia Rashad and Lynn Whitfield, tennis great Zena Garrison, astronaut Mae Jemison, Baton Rouge first lady Lois Holden, Cox Communications Regional Vice President and General Manager Jacqueline Vines and state Rep. Patricia Haynes Smith.

They are also among nearly 200,000 members of a select and influential sisterhood, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., the oldest Greek-letter organization established by and predominantly for African-American, college-trained women.

This year, Alpha Kappa Alpha is celebrating its 100th anniversary with hundreds of special events and projects. The largest celebration is the Centennial  Boulé, or National Conference, July 11-18 in Washington, D.C. More than 35,000 members, including some 150 from the Baton Rouge area, are registered for the weeklong festivities.

Leading the local group will be 90-year-old Julia Brogdon Purnell, 16th international president of Alpha Kappa Alpha. She has more than 65 years of active service with the sorority on the local, regional and international level.

“The day I finished college, I joined the sorority,” Purnell said. “They didn’t have a chapter on my campus. We had been preparing to be Alpha Kappa Alpha members for four years.”

During her term as international president, she negotiated and contracted for the Cleveland Job Corps Center, a residential training center for women established under the U.S. Department of Labor. “It lasted over 30 years,” Purnell said.

Willie Honeywood Smith, a 66-year member of AKA, will represent the South Central Region as Centennial Soror of the Year. “She was selected in a competition across four states,” said Beverly Dixon Wade, immediate past president of Gamma Eta Omega, the oldest of six area AKA chapters. The South Central Region is made up of chapters in Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arkansas.

As a preview to the boulé,  more than 50,000 members nationwide participated June 28 in the ESP (Emotional, Spiritual and Physical Health) 1908 Global Centennial Walk. Members of Baton Rouge area AKA chapters, with friends and supporters, marched from Galvez Plaza in downtown Baton Rouge northeast in the direction of Washington, D.C., on a symbolic walk of 1,908 steps as a tribute to the year and city of founding of the sorority.

Origins
Alpha Kappa Alpha was founded Jan. 15, 1908, at Howard University by a group of nine students led by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, who graduated from Howard the following year. The founders understood that they were privileged as college-trained black women just one generation removed from slavery. Their goal was to balance the two themes of the importance of the individual and the strength of an organization of women of ability and courage. They selected their motto, “By Merit and By Culture.”

Members of Alpha Kappa Alpha are recognized as leaders in their communities. “It’s a highly selective membership,” said Wade, dean of Southern University’s Honors College.

Women can join the sorority either as collegiates or as alumnae. Alumnae members must be college graduates who maintained a minimum grade-point average. They must be of good moral character and have demonstrated community service. Collegiate members are accepted for academic excellence, good morals and volunteer service.

“The typical Alpha Kappa Alpha woman first has to have brains,” Purnell said. “She is academically alert, altruistic, has a deep work ethic, loves people and understands ‘sisterlyness.’ We have a heavy bond of ‘sisterlyness.’”