So Nelly gets home from work and she sees an invitation to a special meeting of the sorority well she’s excited to go she of course being the last past active president a couple like three four months ago and um this was Myra Davis’s first meeting as president so she was super excited
Until she saw the agenda when she saw the agenda she saw the very few ladies that were in there were very excited about changing the name symbol and colors which confused her quite a bit because she had initiated these girls just a couple of months before and here they
Were trying to change the defining points of the sorority well she talked to them and she tried to Prevail upon them with what she referred to as reason and logic because she of course had been a member of the sorority um for over two years had also studied
Fraternities and sororities and how they affect universities extensively so much so that our paper got Awards and high marks and also um regardless regarded by Howard University is one of the main reasons it was so important to have them so she didn’t understand why the girls didn’t
Understand why it was so important to keep those things in place especially since Alpha Kappa Alpha means by culture and by Merit which is the way that they serve to uplift and by Culture by Merit well she saw she couldn’t Prevail upon the girls and was even more like
Surprised they invited her to go along with their plan and she was like um no I don’t think so so income enters Norma Boyd who of course had initiated Nelly and she talked to the Nelly and sorry Norma and Minnie and some other stores that were
In the DC area and she was like did you guys favor the change they were like absolutely not what are you talking about so they set about a plan to save the sorority so first they went to Administration to see if there could be two sororities they said fine she went
To George cook who was also part of the administration and said listen what can we do to preserve our sorority so that something like this never happens again he suggested incorporation they then set up the proposal the Constitution the changes and set about the motion and then got approval from this award from
The administration to incorporate the sorority in January of 1913. some people will say well you know why did it take so long to incorporate well you have to remember AKA was the first people to do it no one else had ever done it a sorority and no other D9 entity had ever
Done it entirely correctly at this point so AKA Still Remains the so AKA is still um Remains the only entity of the original eight sororities and fraternities that only had to incorporate once because back then women were not to be necessarily heard we didn’t even have the right to vote so
Let alone establish a negro sorority and our name proved to be difficult so we had to figure it out as well as established protocol for black sorority now the very next day the Howard Journal publishes a newspaper that says that there are some new members and new elected offices officers in the sorority
Which of course is news to the akas who don’t live on campus because there have been no initiation and a lot of these girls names were not on the role and they did not know how they became vice president at freshman some or any of those things so that was surprising but
You know the girls who lived on campus decided okay they’re going to publish this in the newspaper in the Howard journal and they say okay we’re going to go ahead and change the color symbols and name and they went ahead about writing a new constitution they wrote a new initiation they also
Um got in from it got help from Edward Porter Davis about how to change their name they got suggestions about colors and then they submitted in December in the same month as the akas who lived off campus as a proposal to get a charter for to form at
Howard University now they didn’t have a name by this time so when they submitted a charter it was like you know this organization but like a blank there you know it was requesting a chart so here’s where people get confused the akas who lived on campus received their
Permission to Charter as an organization on January 13th that same day they had a meeting and decided to change the name from Alpha Kappa Alpha to Delta Sigma Theta they changed the colors and they changed the symbol they did keep the purpose and pretty much everything else
The same so because of the fact that they had um put these people on roster as you know the members of the org they thought that that kept them as the original first black Greek sorority because at the time they were under the assumption that they were the leading that’s the
Wordy not understanding that the other members the akas who lives off campus had already gotten permission to incorporate and were already in the process of incorporation enter the latter part of January we find out that aka’s the ones that live off campus have Incorporated fully and because of the incorporation being
Incorporated fully it is now Perpetual it continues to go on but not only that is protected from any changes made outside of itself and all changes must go through the boulee and the boulee of course is listed by people who are know who are not listed as the aka’s on
Campus so Alpha Kappa Alpha the sorority Incorporated gets okay we have a boulee to make our decisions while Alpha Kappa Alpha Now Delta Sigma Theta the chapter on Howard’s campus um is St is wondering how they got it done so quickly but then also believing well we’re still viable as the first
Sorority period so in the interim of both these groups reorganizing they pretty much just kind of mind their own business and by that Delta Sigma Theta is creating Delta Sigma Theta and Alpha Kappa Alpha is making sure that Alpha Kappa Alpha retains its branding and all of those
Things so they’re each building their own organization and then we have 1933 well 1933 there’s a rebranding effort by Delta Sigma Theta where they’re at a convention and we’re in the same in the same city as Alpha Kappa Alpha sword is having their convention and this is a
Big convention because this is their 20th year and at the reading of it Osceola Adams who used to be in AKA is now a Delta tells a story in the history of Delta Sigma Theta and to everyone’s amazement she tells the stories written by Marjorie Penn who’s never an AKA that the sorority
Was the first negro sorority and this Alpha Kappa Alpha is amazed they’re amazed because they’re like what in the world are you guys talking about especially because um you’ll have to remember how it wasn’t the large University it used to be at um with the beginning in 1907 you had 10
To 12 girls who were College age who all by the way became akas in 1907 so when the sorority was being planned some of the Delta Founders were actually little girls at Howard Academy so she was like what are you guys talking about you remember when it was a sorority and
Enter Madre pen who has written this story about it being a club well we didn’t understand where Africa Alpha didn’t understand where they got that idea from it didn’t make any sense the word sorority means Sisterhood and they absolutely had one so none of it made sense in that regard so that’s when
Ethel writes a letter and she talks about how there’s three to four hundred people there that can testify to it how the Constitution testifies to it but then also how we should be bigger than to think of small things like this um that we have as Negroes I should just
Be better than us well where does the rumor come from then well the rumor comes from Alpha Kappa Alpha women who you know consider them as hex succeeding which basically means to disagree we decided to keep our sorority the same and you decided to change it so in Alpha Kappa Alpha
Women’s line it’s like okay well clearly you dropped out of this decision you didn’t agree with the majority of us because of course there was more Alpha Capital Alpha women than there were um in the room and just adding women from somewhere doesn’t you know change that
And so Delta Sigma Theta and their concept and this is a page out of the history book um stated they just merely reorganized it was never an intent to leave or an intention to leave so it wasn’t this nastiness that everybody has through they just wanted to change the name
Colors and symbols once they realized it was going to kind of be a separation they said okay well let’s just set focus on Service as well and make it bigger than ever so a lot of people want to make it seem as though the women who
Began Dr Sigma Theta did so because of they wanted to do service which is just a ridiculous idea because first of all they were in charge of the time so they could have just done service no one needs to change a name to do service but
Then also it makes it appear as though these women weren’t already doing service and they were they actually had a service project they weren’t members for even a full year and they had already had three service projects one which was supposed to be set up for a
Scholarship that had to be delayed a year because of this upheaval and then they apparently later on um even in that October did an auction where the proceeds were also supposed to go to that scholarship we don’t quite know what happened to that but that in
Itself is over a century years old but then also with that not only did they have service projects with the sorority they have service projects within the YWCA and the girls actually worked together akas and Delta side by side and other organizations they did so in here
You see the young ladies of collagen Arts and Science organization where AKs and Deltas are members of those organizations and that’s to keep in ties with all the people who graduated who of course since this is January 1913 were aka’s you also have um the YWCA the Girls Club the science
Club the Pelosi Club they worked hand in hand once again it was still a handful of them and so they dated each other’s family members they parted together you have to remember this is a very small select group of people so they weren’t that petty to be mad at each other about
These things and in fact everyone knew what happened now you have here you’ll see here in the CAC which became the naw our first president Lucy SLO with Delta Sigma theta’s First National president Sadie mosle Town who was by the fact raised by an AKA in alpha or who shall I
Say partially raised because her uncle of course was Louis B Moore who gave Alpha Kappa Alpha permission to form and her aunt her her step on shall I say was an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha and the house mother not to mention her two babysitters who became Delta Sigma Theta
Where aka’s the time they babysitted her here you have um Delta founder Myra Davis Hemmings an outgoing Delta president and the incoming president of AKA and the original founder Margaret flag Homes at our 50th Anniversary where we had our joint convention without joint but same convention at Washington 50 years later
So they’re commemorating the 50th anniversary of Elsa Kappa Alpha sorority incorporate it so you’ll see here everybody is cool there’s no condition there’s no fighting and all of the stuff about them being enemies are just rumors
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