Five thousand women marching in the women’s suffrage pageant today practically fought their way foot by foot on Pennsylvania Avenue from a surging throng and completely divided Washington police who swapped the marchers and wrote them procession into little companies the women had to fight their way from the start and took more
Than one hour in making the first ten blocks many of the women were in tears under the chives and insults of those who lined the route it was where sixth Street crosses the Avenue that police protection gave way entirely and the two solid masses of spectators on either
Side came so close together that three women could not march abreast the Commissioner called upon some members of a Massachusetts National Guard regiment to help clear the way some members of the guard laughed and one assured the commissioner they had no orders to act as escort asking for two bowls of
Antagonistic humanity the marchers for the most part kept their tempers they’ve suffered insult and closed their ears to jobs and tears yes we were there we were there marching strong oh they didn’t want us there but we couldn’t be stopped on that day we were there colored women
Marching for those who weren’t able to march for themselves for sleigh women of old washer women laborers and our unborn daughters we lodged with Dignity to represent them all with dignity my child we so long now let me tell you what all that fuss was about it all started at Howard
University my alma mater alma mater I always thought that was funny you know how it translates from Latin dear mother I mean Howard wasn’t very motherly to us in my time it was actually quite manly one thing is true if oh how it ever became more motherly or matriarchal it
Was because of young women like us we came on campus and fell in love how it was the fan gone the finest Negro University in America probably one of the finest Negro or otherwise we were young ambitious women ready to take full participation in the college
Life one of the first things to catch our eyes after the football team was Alpha Kappa Alpha the first Negro sorority on campus or anywhere for that matter they were proud and beautiful and so were we in so we joined and up until that time it was the only show in town
Now let me tell you about Howard way back when much different than it is now here you had a university full of neat ones Howard students came from everywhere in the country the best and brightest of our race we came to get an education in hopes of making a better world
Significance of education for african-americans at this particular period of time is highly highly important historian James Anderson talks about the fact that African Americans a generation before were beaten and basically prohibited from learning to read and write and this is the first generation has the opportunity to actually impart the knowledge to others
So for African Americans the highest calling at the particular point in time is the ministry or education and both the ministry and education fields are imparting knowledge on the younger and the community it’s also another part and part of the idea of community uplift so students are not simply coming to
College for their own selfish means or to better their own lot in life or even for their families it’s more of a generational societal racial uplift idea and we were sorority women at a time when most of the Negro women in this country made a living wash and white
Folks clothes how it was special and essential for our people the problem was Howard was a Negro University under white control oh we fought like hell for a black president during my time there did get one till I was good and gone somewhere in the 20s
And Heil he looked white don’t let me stop there were plenty fine white professors that really believed in and taught us when it just didn’t sit right that after so many years after being freed from the plantation we still had overseers the Board of Trustees let me
Explain the whole thing in just how it was all set up we had a Board of Trustees that honor the vision of our namesake General Oliver Howard they also governed the school through the president now this president business is interesting Howard had a long line of white
Presidents that’s why we thought it was time for change after third field left he was sure that in coming 1912 president would be colored well we were all wrong the new president was Stephen Newman now I’ll give Newman one thing he knew that what the people don’t want he
Shouldn’t give him so he gave us a compromise in the form of three Dean’s in order to keep the peace Dean Cooke Dean Moore and Dean Miller they walked on the fault line between president and us you have basically idea of paternalism sticking-place a destitutes like Hampton where basically students
Are on a schedule and they have to do things at a very regimented way and they’re very guard against doing things that are sort of intellectual and then you have the versions taking place at Howard where it is more of an encouragement of development of leadership for the uplift of the race
However it’s still minor paternalism it’s still done without the input of african-americans the students or their parents so in that particular respect you have tension constantly throughout the history of black colleges between my my administrators and black students and essentially you have students to a certain point accepting mentorship and
Development and support from the white leadership but at certain points when it becomes an issue of cultural pride or other than the race is often a confident in that same year 1912 there were 22 of us there were all types personalities and interests we were represented in every single
Campus club now if you give me a minute I can just about remember everyone’s name the musician Ahlan there was Margaery and Winona and then Paulie or Bergdorf or I used to give her a hard time about that knee or bird or fur she was roommates with Naomi Sewell we
Had to Ethel’s that I remember one had a car and the other one did not there was awful cuff from New Jersey and then there was fo car and of course her car was in her last name and that used to crack me up oh listen is he um there was Jimmy bug
Liza she was a sweetheart wordy and the tallest of the bunch Florence Holmes she had a thing very early on for collecting elephants that really took off now didn’t it let’s see there was a made me ready she was so sweet such a powerhouse and president of the
Literary club and then you had Osceola she was always graceful and is really beautiful too she wasn’t actress speaking of beautiful there was Vash tied turley now this girl was shot every day dressed to the nines all the time but she was always down earth and on the ball yeah I still remember
Miss Bosch and those hats to this day the beauty habits of college women of african-american college women I think were very much still in the Victorian era we were trying to assimilate we were trying to be very respectable we wanted to for people to look at us and think
That we were leading the race it was racial uplift so it wasn’t about expressing yourself and you know being avant-garde it was about conforming and part of that conformity was to be very neat to be very proper to be very very respect there were the Texas girls Frederika chase Jesse dent and our
Sorority president Myra Hemmings now she was a blustery one I mean she just take over everything then we had some of the funniest women I’d ever met they were Bertha pits and zippy Chisholm now it was also Madrid Penn a real firecracker they belong to the dust club
That meant they have no boyfriends so they were collecting dust was cute but now some of us were really in love like Edna Brown she was smart as a whip the class valedictorian and president her beau was Frank Coleman he was also popular on campus we were close friends
With his fraternity Omega side by Edith dated another Omega and girl love but Frank and Edna were engaged to be married like most of us eventually did I think out of twenty two of us only one or two never married in most cases our single days ended with our college days
One of the things that marriage does for black women at the turn of the century is that it enables them to – immediately by virtue of having a husband and entering into the marriage institution you are able to let go some of this cultural baggage of being promiscuous
All over the place loose uncontrollable so marriage in that sense I think provides even more social capital for African American women given that cultural baggage so it’s extremely important because it enables enables you to take on this mantle of respectability there’s an old saying my day give a man
A free hand and he’ll run it all over you that was great advice given to young ladies when they started to date it was also what we learned during our sorority days at Howard trying to get some privacy that works to me works for me when I think of the
Deltas early forming because they weren’t working in a room or space curtain’d off they were working behind the veil in a certain kind of ways like they were completely in secret you knew what was going on everybody on a campus and Howard University at the time we’ve known the women were meeting somewhere
To form an organization men were always threatened and not in that society so you they they weren’t going to meet without the men knowing and without the men having a sense of one’s own now Howard administration men were into everything for both male and female students they were so much involved in
Our affairs that a bunch of us women about 30 or so a number got together at one point and demanded from the administration a Dean of women students Oh we were a feisty Bunch we fought hard but that was a battle that wouldn’t be one for another
Years eventually in the 20s Lucy Sloane became the first Dean of women students at Howard she was black and looking black was certainly another issue a serious issue all together for colored folk on and off the campus particularly among the women it was pretty bad during
Those days I’ve been asked time and time again about Brown Bag tests and light-skinned women’s groups while I never exactly saw a brown bag next to anyone’s head I heard of that happening to anyone you must understand that in some ways it was far more subtle today
And in other ways it was just as obvious and ridiculous okay oh when we talk about the politics of complexion which is real and painful we have to we have to locate the politics of complexion always within institutional institutionalized racism and institutionalized sexism in other words a color cast and light-skinned privilege
Emerges out of a particular racial context in the u.s. the black people did not originate so we need to always begin a discussion about the politics of complexion thing about the racial apartheid in the u.s. which had a preference for light-skinned which has to do with having a preference for
Anything that we don’t know what now I’ll give you an obvious ridiculous example while most of us at Howard were well-meaning bright ambitious broad-minded women all of us we’re not you see there was an ad published in the ever-popular Howard Journal now I would say just about every
Student on campus read it you think the paper had several sections you know the front page news the funnies you get the picture where there was this one section we all loved it was a calling where students published their wishes most of them were funny and cute however I do
Remember one that stirred up some serious commotion in our dorm minor hall a group referring to themselves as the blue vein Society published it now the smartest thing they did was leave their real names off of it that could have become very ugly very quickly
You see most of us the 22 lived in minor Hall and a dread that they wanted to be free of the tainting of the darker skins of minor hall you know I just it’s just so complicated when you consider that people were part of this need to conform
And this need to assimilate that there were people who really believed that if they the lighter their skin was the more privilege they deserved that they were better than other people even though this foolishness was going on let me set the record straight for you young people
Color didn’t mean anything to us and this was before and after we became deltas we cared much more about what was in your head and on your academic record than the amount of melanin in your skin needless to say that it was around this time that we began to notice the need
For a new direction amongst particularly women students see when we came into Howard as freshmen most of our older sorority sisters were in the College of Liberal Arts they placed a much higher priority on the benefits of being cultured now the more we talked about it the more we disagreed
I mean tea parties were nice and all but to most of us younger ones languages philosophy and literature were essential only if they could be used to make a difference in the world for our people we were enrolled in the Teachers College we were starting to move away from the
Old ideas in 1908 when a KA was founded basically all nine women who were enrolled in the school rolled in the college liberal arts in 1913 you have 22 women enrolled in the school and of that number a good number of them are now enrolled in the Normal School as
Teachers so you see a shift over time when you have liberal arts education sort of promoted as the only option and by 1913 you see another option that’s driving students that become delta sigma theta basically looking at education and search for the community consider in the
World we lived in and the few choices that were given to us it was highly sensible to go into teaching now this way we knew we could not only get a job but we could go back into our communities and raise the next generation of libro minds coming up behind us
I believe teaching was a noble profession then and I believe it is today at the time Booker T Washington said there was a whole race trying to go to school as women we took that chance to teach and we took it seriously it was it was it was it was extraordinarily
Important for black women to receive the kind of education that they could to teach it was it was important for two reasons because that was the engine that drove this racial uplift ideology that you know goes back to slavery so it was extremely important for black women to
Get the kind of education meaning BA degrees because for 50 years before then black women had been teaching sometimes when they only had let’s say what would be the equivalent of a junior high school education so for example you could teach if you had a tenth what
Would be the equivalent of a 10th grade education or elementary school so it’s extremely important for black women to get college degrees where they could you know go and participate in in racial Upland now I don’t know your age but I’m surely much older than you
And your parents for that matter yet and still you probably know of or have heard of this man Booker T Washington or perhaps this man wTB Dubois it is without question that they stood tall for race equality and Negro causes I know firsthand I heard them speak I was there they were
Both truly amazing but you never heard them speak if you know them it’s because you were taught history or shall I say his story I guess my real point is that you know them mostly because during my day it was a man’s world need i say more when we
Think about black liberation and when we think about black struggle which is primarily been defined by black men black men don’t talk about gender schisms we think that it’s really important because racism is our primary enemy to present this united front so we say black people want black people think
And within that black people speak black people want there’s not necessarily an attention to well what is it maybe that black women rock want is that different than what black men so black liberation has been defined generally speaking in the u.s. is a quest for the reclamation
Of black manhood and the assumption is that if black men are okay then the community and our families and our children and our women will be okay so gender is sort of outside the context of this way we didn’t go to college to learn to sew
And to find a husband we wanted to be about the business of making a difference in our world and we were striving to reach that goal now we were proud of all the race men that spoke out for colored people but we women had something to say to these women trying
To form early Delta Sigma Theta at the beginning would have seen themselves as race women in other words whatever pride you wanted and being a Negro was going to be invested in and and brought in to your efforts to form another institution which is what had her only a movement
Among these sisters would have been we didn’t just see the world from the small windows in minor hall we saw from the broad view of our minds you see despite the hardships we saw examples of Negro womanhood that made us all believe that anything was possible for us long before
Oprah was in her mother’s womb the women of my time had Madame CJ Walker to look up to she was a beacon of life she created jobs for colored women funded schools and funded anti-lynching campaigns she was better for us than our own government what Madame Walker had
Founded her company the madam CJ Walker manufacturing company in 1906 by 1912 she was really on a roll she was really starting to make a name for herself and at that point African Americans had been out of slavery for two generations and there were people who now were former
Slaves and the children of former slaves who were really emerging as leaders in the community the n-double-a-cp had been founded there were lots of national organizations like the National Negro business League the fraternities and the sororities had been founded just a few years earlier and Madame Walker was
Among the people who were part of this talented tenth this group of emerging african-americans who were using some of the advantages that they had gained in the 50 years since slavery and even though we had giants like Madame Walker and Anna Cooper there was a general opinion of black women in the public
That we fought every day this country just didn’t know what to do with a black woman who stepped too far out of the kitchen we couldn’t afford not to be dignified the white books and newspapers plays and pictures showed us to be so I can’t even fix my mouth to say some of
Those awful things in human debates are sexually insane ugly unclean illiterate stupid and basically only fit to to to be serviced but that’s an extremely tenacious stereotype about about black women that actually the black Women’s Club movement and sororities like Delta Sigma Theta are struggle to dismantle or eradicate
But it’s an extremely tenacious construct that black women have seven literally to our bats coming out of slavery crossing the Atlantic in the Middle Passage picking up steam during slavery and marching itself straight through the Progressive Era into the beginning of the 20th century so it’s
Heavy baggage so as we continue to move beyond our side of town and try to begin to understand government we realized then maybe we didn’t consider how busy they were in the White House because they were far too busy to care that hundreds of Negro men and women were
Lynched each year from the brutal hands of southern whites they were too busy to even pass an anti-lynching bill to stop it as a matter of fact they were too busy for the almost twenty years after we graduated they were certainly too busy for women both white and colored
Too busy for all the barefooted Negro children with no schools or no food or no parents at all too busy to protect black laborers of all kinds well I guess that’s not entirely true our newly elected President Woodrow Wilson was not too busy to give us Jim
Crow laws he won his second term by slim margin in the electoral college just to get back in and take us to war now that was my president I’m sure your president is much better in 1912 I think African Americans were really beginning to hit their stride in terms
Of some of the organizations that had been found at the n-double-a-cp the National Association of co-ed women the National Negro business League many of the church organizations a lot of the the fraternal societies that weren’t fraternities but were some of the benevolent societies and we were dealing
With a lot of issues like lynching like discrimination on public transportation like getting an education being able to be a part of government like being able to vote we there was so much discrimination Jim Crow laws were really very very much in effect during that period of time and we were trying to
Show that we were worthy that we were full American citizens we were a few years away from World War one but as World War one was ramping up we wanted to go off you know we wanted to go off and fight and show that we would give
Our blood for this country even when the country wasn’t appreciating us Woodrow Wilson was elected around this time Woodrow Wilson had no real interest in helping African Americans resegregate ‘add public buildings in Washington DC so we were really fighting some of those basic fights that really would not be solved
Until the civil rights movement so all this forward-looking and thinking how to dress impact on us Laurie we didn’t fit aka we wanted to create a new black sorority one that answered the call for service and to us I mean all of us that gave us
Purpose we wanted to be true race women and to be part of something at Howard that would prepare us to go into the world as leaders the ways in which we wanted to make a difference we could do better by dissolving aka altogether we came to a point that we wanted to serve
More than so Sheila and his group forming paths Howard of this tunnel which you would have seen this early Delta’s trying to do would have just said here we are in this College here a group of elite women very exceptional ones we’re going to go out we know and
Make very different groups of contributions to society would have said we’re wasting our time to a certain extent here if we can’t go out into the alleys and other places here in Washington and do things well there they knew there were opportunities on organizations at churches back in their
Hometowns there would have been clubs and circles or whatever there was nothing about it was mad repin oh she was fired up about the changes who went first to our presidents Myra Hemmings to discuss change in the name motto colors and symbols Myra shared the news with our good friends the Omega
They had just won a long battle with the administration to form their fraternity they were very supportive Madrid consulted a Greek professor on the possible name and means Myra our president then commissioned Madrid to draft a constitution that system a dream was on it she was so inspirational of the whole
Delta movement things are changing and it’s gonna take a lot more than two parties exactly Mara and I know we can make a better organization everything was changed the colors the name everything it’s just beyond me how she could be so juggled by our suggestion rejection IRA you’re waked joggle the
Mighty general Oliver o Howard himself no seriously Marlon the way you stood at that lectern today he would have made all of Texas proud Oh correction Bertie all of Negro Texas proud well I hope the dear Reverend Brown is not too alarmed by us all barging into his living room
Again my dream after a while I will have to take up residence with the room we met and met and met again I remember those days so clearly we were on the move Oh miss I feel the Makati my stars my stars when your performances on stage
Stopped my home not I humbly request your signature Marie please not another one about the theater his rehearsal dogs torturous enough perfect social hour seconds I have awaiting shall we we would go regularly to end the Browns home at 6th and family Northwest Osceola brought newspaper articles about women’s
Suffrage others brought books on progress we were sharing information about all the work that was being done and its rightful what would we have to do and the brown was a gracious hostess it was a beautiful spacious home but we filled it up quickly the house was bustling with energy it’s
Almost as though we knew we were making history we wanted our time together to matter to make a difference in and our defining moment was now we must first think for good Reverend sterling Brown and his daughter our sister miss Edna Brown for their most generous use
Of their home Edna do you have something to share before we begin thank you kindly miss Hemmings I hope you all have enjoyed the teen hors d’oeuvres my sister Elsie prepared as is custom we are welcome to stay for as long as we like thank you and then we have several
Reports to consider this evening but before we delve too deeply into the business at hand I would like to read a quotation this quotation comes from Walden by Henry David Thoreau things do not change we changed I will let you ponder the meaning of that and allow it to become
The background of our thoughts this evening this is a time of great change for our sisterhood our broadening views of the world lead us to reach out into the community because we wish to serve more than socialize and meet the challenges of the times in which we live
We elect to change our organization this evolution my sisters will bring about an entirely new presentation we elect to change our colors our letters our offices our credo and our Constitution our first report comes from a sister who sparked the fire change that burns in our hearts this evening she is full of
Energy tireless in her devotion and resolute in the mandate for a new organization she is dear to Howard but dearer to us on the matter of the Constitution I call forward miss Madrid pen thank you thank you I was first shared that I am equally spirited to be part of
The class of 1914 it is always a privilege and a challenge to follow our beloved president therefore I will refrain from my desire to lecture and redirect my energies to the new constitution I will read each proposed action and we will enter into a brief discussion around each item at the
Conclusion I will turn the floor back over to our president for a vote we will begin with the sorority flower the recommendation is the African violet as you know the colors of the African violets are purple and gold Edna could you pass the round for everyone to see
I’m just glad that Frank home and didn’t decide to give Edna ginger ooh now Zephie these are official proceedings but to your credit the colors purple and gold do also pay homage to our dear friends the three musketeers of a mega sci-fi they have been wonderfully encouraging and
Generous and spirit is an exquisite choice and you should know that the African violet is said to be the only flower that has touched every continent in the world thank you fo now on to a discussion of the official sorority colors they are bold and beautiful and chosen carefully for what they represent
Bertie is wearing a skirt in the color we have proposed could you stand birdy wait just one moment I have something to say I believed in what we were doing and the direction we are moving in is fine and even though it’s not the right
Thing for us now just as I love each and every one of you in here I love Nellie and those sisters out there and this is tearing me apart Eliza this is high time what you Express we all feel but just as you feel sympathetic we also feel committed to
Progress we must be true to ourselves and true to our times we will always be sisterly but we have come to a fork in the road and we must take a different path to arrive at a different place in history Liza do not forget that just as we are
Making a choice so are they this is not a time for indecision this is Delta time and that means it’s time to work so let’s get on with it birdie I’m ready to get on with it I know that it’s time for change this is not about loyalty to friendship
This is about loyalty to an idea an idea greater than us all service and what on earth could be greater than that now we were all sick on March 3rd less than two months after our founding it was time to put our plan into action we couldn’t have been more ready
Women’s suffrage was at its height there was change in the air white women were ready to vote and you can believe that we were – we were ready to take up the cause for women’s rights and to make sure colored women would be heard but in case we hadn’t had enough resistance for
You so far now take a guess at who else was against us white women black women have have been in all of these March have been in all of these woman suffrage marches and basically what they’ve been told is to well let’s just say first of all always
Been in the movement and either told her stay at home if it’s in the south so it’s not to upset the racial etiquette of the south or as in the case with the the women in Washington from how at the Delta women were told to to stay in the
Back in other words be in the back like on the back of the bus uh they they needed black women uh because they wanted as much support as they could but they also subjected black women to national racial etiquette which is be here but be in your places and so that
Was that was pretty typical of their very typical maneuvering part of right suffrages to on the one hand want black women to be present but want them to be present in a way that the country would say black people still in place Lawrence towns you remember her held the banner
Because she was so tall she disobeyed her parents to obey the laws of moral justice like we all did and it wasn’t a pretty sight no matter how pretty those pictures you see are men they yell go back to the kitchen you wouldn’t believe how hostile they were
Against us by the time the 60s came around we were no strangers to the cruelties of this country but because of Delta we knew to take a stand we were sisters sisterhood that is the ways in which black women bond with each other has probably been the key to our
Survival is black money not all not many for other things that people say in other words I think that that that that at very very deep levels black women have been under siege within the larger community and also frequently within our own communities and that the ability to
Bond with other women and I mean mothers aunts grandmothers sisters cousins girlfriends is probably of what has enabled black women to be sane and in notice I didn’t say to survive because you can survive and not be saying I think the sisterhood the the bonds of sisterhood and I mean both biological
And fictive sisterhood particularly girlfriends in this case I think has enabled us to be home healthy and to always on most of the time have a vision of the future that says we can turn this stuff around and so I think that the organizational manifestation of sisterhood in sororities delta-sigma
Failure is is is the visible organizational manifestation of the deep commitments the black women have to system it’s been nice talking to you you take care of yourself now what would you say Oh Who I am I’m sorry sorry for my manners
Not at all for Who I am I am as old as an ancient African Queen as slave women washer women and babies I am as new as activist women I’ve been at all of the moments I was an abolitionist I helped earn women’s rights civil rights preserved entire communities and kept myself Oh
America will never remember my story the way that weed Oh and delta sigma theta Oh wrong-o Oh Oh you you
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