[Applause] welcome to conversations with dr skip mason pastor preacher historian author teacher librarian archivist world traveler collector family historian avid reader and creator of the popular vanishing black atlanta facebook page but a lot of folks who love history most importantly he’s our dad who loves his family
And who taught us the importance of our history and having important conversations join him now for this episode of conversations with dr skip well good afternoon my brothers and sisters good sunday afternoon i am so excited and so delighted to be with you today uh to share uh with uh an amazing group
Of women uh who are leaders of their respective sororities uh who are going to come and to share with us today a little bit about some amazing women from the cme church who were a part of their organization still is a part of the organization uh and who led
Uh tremendously during the time that they serve i am skip mason pastor of the west mitchell street cme church in atlanta georgia and host of cme 150 facebook live conversation and so i greet you in the wonderful and marvelous name of our lord and savior jesus christ i trust
And pray that you had a great worship experience this morning uh and that you’ve had a chance to get a little to eat uh and that now you are ready to hear this great conversation today let me first of all acknowledge and greet our senior bishop lawrence l reddit iii
And mrs wendy jones reddick the chair of the college of bishops bishop kenneth wayne carter and mrs rosia carter our distinguished distinguished colleague of bishops excuse me and their spouses uh and let me also agree uh bishop james walker uh who is the chair of the cit committee
Mrs delores walker and my bishop bishop thomas lewis brown senior and dr louise baker brown he’s also the coach here uh and let me thank dr teresa duhar for all the work that she continues to do to support our beloved church and so today we are going to uh look at uh
Greek organizations and sororities especially today uh and the role that they play and have played in the development of this world and the great contribution of leaders that they have given us uh including many of our bishops uh who are members and we’re members of the divine nine and one
Very special one that you will see uh very shortly it is not uncommon uh for the church and the greek letter community fraternities and sororities to have a relationship uh together uh we know that uh at our general conferences as i had to dig deep to pull up photos whenever there’s
A general conference you can always count on the sororities and the fraternities gathering together for the annual picture as we see here with the the akas and of course the the deltas have gathered and phi beta sigma and zeta phi beta uh together um we have sigma gamma rho uh
Sorority uh they were here at west mitchell street cme church and and as many of you pastors know that they have their founders day services they do uh service projects as well uh and so wherever you see them whether we’re at a conference or at a unity summit we’re gonna always
Gather and take a picture as i did with my brothers uh some years ago and uh again the deltas and i had to throw the campers in reverend reginald bonds the pastor brown memorial cme church uh president mauld brown porter’s church and of course the
Vegas so i i think i got everybody with the exception of iowa to phi theta uh and i just could not find a picture of them at the cme church but i’m going to continue uh to dig deep but greek letter organizations have been very much a part
Of our organization some of our bishops as i mentioned are members bishop spouses it’s nothing to look on facebook and see these two all wrapped up and draped up in uh alpha kappa alpha of course barbara campbell uh our president of our connectional lay council and our international president of the missionaries
Mr jacqueline scott also an aka so we know the role that these organizations and the pride that we have uh with them today but today we’re going to uh be blessed with the presence of these uh dynamic women we’re going to come and share a little
Bit about our member with sir but also tell us a little bit about the work that the organization is doing particularly during this age of over 19 the pandemic uh as uh president uh beverly smith was telling me earlier the delta president she survived being president under president trump so we got some
Stories to share and we want you to share hit your share button and also uh if you are a member of the divine line put that in the chat uh and as i see them come up i’ll try to share of some of them i am excited today to welcome these wonderful leaders
And president My brothers and sisters let us welcome the distinguished presidents of the divine and our own bishop presiding prelate of the fifth episcopal district the honors of introducing each of them uh today first i want to present to you dr glenda baskin gov glover she is the international supreme bacillus of alpha cap alpha
Sorority incorporated and also as the distinction of being the president and ceo of tennessee state university we have my dear friend uh president beverly e smith the national president and ceo of delta sigma theta sorority uh incorporated uh just ii so glad to have president smith with us let me also welcome
President rashida liberty the international uh grand bacillus of sigma gamma rho sorority uh and the national president of zeta phi beta uh valerie hollinsworth baker will be with us soon and then of course everyone knows this person in our church the first female elected to the college of bishops bishop teresa jefferson
And i don’t think uh you need to guess what sorority she is a part of today ladies good evening good afternoon we are so happy i’m happy to have you all with uh with me today and i know that even on a sunday sundays are work days for you all of them
And other obligations that they were working me in between and i am so grateful uh to have them to spend a little time uh with us today uh good evening ladies good to have you with us we’re gonna move right into uh our first honoree our legacy uh mart porter brown
Uh who had the distinction of serving uh as the seventh uh international president of alpha kappa alpha uh sorority and let me put her picture up this is sister maul porter brown a distinguished educator as well and before uh dr glover comes up to talk take a look at this
Two years later on the 15th of january at historically black howard university in washington dc nine co-eds led by ethel hedgeman courageously broke with tradition and founded the alpha kappa alpha sorority incorporated or aka the first college sorority started and incorporated by african american women young miss hegeman who was inspired by
Her english teachers accounts of sorority life at brown university envisioned a support network for black women with like minds to coalesce their talents and strengths for the mutual uplift and benefit of others the mission crafted for alpha kappa alpha comprised five basic tenets that have remained unchanged since the sorority’s inception
More than a century ago these tenets are to cultivate and encourage high scholastic and ethical standards promote unity and friendship among college women study and help alleviate problems concerning young black females in order to improve their social stature maintain a progressive interest in college life and be of service to all mankind since
I wanted to share that dr glover so glad to have you here with us would you please uh tell us a little bit about your seventh uh supreme basilisk uh and then i want you to talk a little bit about the work that you’ve been doing uh as the uh international supreme basis
And particularly the work with the hbcus thank you dr mason i am so honored to be here today and even more pleased to join the celebration as as your 150 years of this powerful historical cme church it’s so special to celebrate the women and share the information about some of
The greatest leaders this country has ever known i want to also acknowledge the first female bishop bishop theresa jefferson snorton thank you for allowing god to lead to elevate you to these unbelievable heights and thank you very much for that so tell you a little bit about the
Ma brown porter i mean i love this time period in which we find ourselves when more national attention is focused on divine line leaders four outstanding women of history so i’ll proudly focus on the seven international president of alpha kappa alpha here’s what makes her so great she was godly and
A visionary leader who dreamed of this very day a day when we would have a very difficult very different conversation right now one that includes how african-american women are at the pinnacle of excellence and we can celebrate sister marcia fudge the new secretary of health she dreamed
Of this day loretta lynch who served as attorney general aiza taylor morton who served as the first treasurer black treasure united states of america you’re honored pamela harris who’s now the first vice president says this is what she dreamed of the other founders dream of this very day
So now she was a legend in louisville kentucky the first black to do so many things and she expanded the ymca to do more to empower women and eradicate racism and she was an outstanding educator who just she was short of stature she stood her ground and made sure that certain certain
Things happened in the school system i recall she was in the early 1930s she was in the last spread of aka i think it was from 1931 to 33 and so at the time of the height of segregation when racism was rampant and there was just no rights they were respected in the
African-american community so we were under this everybody equal doctrine remember now brown brown people of education didn’t come on to like 20 years later so but she still found a way to serve alpha kappa was a service organization and so she was so significant they named uh they renamed chess chestnut street
Methodist church it renamed the brown memorial church cme church in louisville as a tribute to dr brown and she just mean her her role in education her role in politics her role in advancing women’s rights and then she married a cme bishop uh dr porter in 1948 and
They became legends in louisville so she’s just a musical part of albuquerque about history cme history so this is more than a celebration for us for all the four of us were here today it’s an acknowledgment it’s a recognition it’s a confession it’s like an admiration of these women
Of a spiritual leader dr brown a couple that changed louisville that changed his Country oh that is wonderful i i tell you uh we so appreciate your sharing this legacy of this great woman uh you did mention that she was indeed married uh to uh the 17th bishop of our church uh bishop uh henry porter and for that we are very proud and
I know even bishop snort and jefferson snort who grew up in remember her i remember hearing about her great accomplishment so so madam president tell us about alpha kappa alpha during the last during the tenure uh as you’ve served as president you’ve been very busy uh and i i
Think you all have finally uh somewhat calm down a little i guess now that your sorrow is in the white house uh and we know that not only did you all celebrate but that all of the sororities and fraternities celebrated this major accomplishment because she is
One of us you know as a part of the greek letter movement and hbcus madam president yeah we have a point and she’s asked us to make sure that we don’t just sing about alpha kappa alpha and so i’ve been as i’ve done these shows i’ve tried to make sure
I carried out her wishes and that is to make sure that we include the buying nine because we could not have done it she could have done it without the entire divine nine so we just have an agreement among us that we always recognize it was not
An alpha kappa alpha effort i mean we are proud of her as a member of sorority absolutely we know that it took more than just the 300 000 african african alpha women but now yesterday we settled down so i don’t think this is such an inspirational moment there is no settling down
We’re so happy that these four years are behind us that but we’ll be sustaining the street and dancing you know in in church we’re gonna go back to our pentecostal roots just dance in the church as much as we can we’re just celebrating so but
But we’ve had to you know ask me how we’re doing now how we manage and we just had to to pivot all of us into buying line we had to pivot and redirect our operations because we’re still in this virtual format but we still find a way to serve we’re all
Of us are service organizations so we find a way to serve and and and to make sure the community still gets the benefit of our service so and we’ve all worked together i mean i know two things that we’ve done after capital alpha number one uh along with the by nine
We got together the divine and organized his massive and unparalleled get out to vote effort you know that’s we we claim five million of us together and five million actively engaged voters we can count our family and stuff and there’s no small song so all of us did something in the
In this movement and this get out the vote movement so without the cop alpha dead we made sure we had a thousand lawyers from around the country to make sure that they protected the vote you know we paddled with the net party with the national bar association nacp and uh general jerry young
With the national baptist convention we just we partnered with them to make sure to vote not only was it cast but had to be protected and counted we know what to expect in this election we still know what to expect right now but so that was the first and the second
Thing specifically alpha kappa alpha hpcu initiative we made sure we have a project you know being an hbcu president i know firsthand the problems that hbcus have and it’s so related to funding so we we do one million dollars in one day we raise a million dollars from the membership
And a few others who throw in and help us but we said we’re going to dedicate one day during during the month of september where we raise one million dollars in one day they say well are you crazy we can’t do that so yes we can
So you know we go on a fast right before we do it you know you know you really want to empty it out and get let god pour in and help you going fast and so we were the first day the first time we did it we raised a million dollars so
Because we’re starting endowments at hbcus because you know we suffer sustainability is what we needed endowments represent sustainability so we’ve already given out 75 of these so we do 50 to 100 000 the first one was bennett bennett college to get a hundred thousand dollars for an endowment
We want to make sure that we we at least helped hpcs where they needed most we didn’t remain in 25 we’ve done 75 already 25 more this year and finish a month so that’s the importance of hpcus so we’ve brought attention to the whole world by hbcu
That’s where we are now this is the year of hbcus so we brought that world attention because and it shows the caliber of people who graduate from hbcus and to call attention to the contributions that have been made by hbcu graduates but kamala hara is a howard graduate one
Of the most proud hbcus in the country so and it shows that that’s where we are now so and i’m waiting for somebody to ask me that question again i actually see who’s relevant there’s no way i think people are embarrassed to ask that question now the relevance of hbcu because the value
Add is so significant now no one can ever raise that question again our htc is relevant we’ve proven the relevancy of hbcus we know the work we know the value of hbcus now and so this is a happy moment for hbcu students graduates workers those who paid for someone to go
To hbcu these are these are all happy moments now for members of the historical black college community yes indeed yes indeed well we commend you uh and the ladies of alpha kappa alpha sorority for the great work that you uh continue to do and the wonderful partnerships that you have uh within
The community and we also uh amend the sorority for uh taking a part in the development and making of our bishop bishop teresa jefferson snorton uh and some photos from her days uh as a young sorrow and vanderbilt uh university uh and if you have not heard her preach madam president
You know i googled and heard whatever i know you did i was my husband said are you okay i said yeah i’m okay yes indeed well i’m glad this is amazing and uh bishop you want to say anything while we’re in this alpha kappa alpha moment bishop is really on to talk about
Uh after president smith she and uh president kennedy were good friends but in this alpha kappa alpha moment bishop would you like to say anything unmute yourself or did i let’s see now i i can do it uh just want to say i’m proud to be a member of alpha kappa alpha sorority
So proud of our uh sister where did you dig up these pictures dr glenda glover and proud of the sorority that really does um model excellence and it’s just a great day uh to to have hbcus as well as the divine nine highlighted uh both in the mainstream media but certainly as we
Uh in the church appreciate the ways in which sisterhood and fellowship make a difference thank you thank you so much bishop and dr glover thank you my dear friend and sister it’s so good to see you and i think i uh may have put up mrs carmelina williams pitcher
But i also want to uh place uh lady clarice flake cunningham she’s she’s also another uh aka the wife of our late bishop cunningham who’s always draped in pink and green every time we see her uh on facebook and so we we thank you and all of the ladies of alpha kappa
Alpha in the cmb church we salute you thank you and thank you so much and now uh let me set way to the ladies of delta sigma theta sorority would you just take a look at this please Women were getting tired They couldn’t only land they couldn’t make it there were so many things denied of women but they wanted the vote With sarah mary church sorella the lead the members of delta sigma theta came together as an organization and marched in support of white women in their effort to get the vote even though they would not have that same right for years to come so it is my honor and pleasure to
Present to you the president and ceo of delta sigma theta sorority the honorable beverly smith my dear friend madam president hello how are you dr mason you know i gotta get i’m so skipping i have known each other for a very long time so i have to say dr mason
To be very professional today well you’re very kind you’re very kind you know it’s it’s like when i go home when i go to my mother’s house the first thing she says is hey skipper okay so that brings me to right where i need to be in her
In her house but i am so glad to uh to have you with us uh and to first of all to share uh about an amazing woman dr uh yvonne kennedy uh who served as a 19th national president of your sorority uh an amazing seeing me woman as well and also
To talk about some of the wonderful things that you’ve done and been doing with your sarahs doing the most interesting time period as we discussed earlier and so would you please just tell us about dr kennedy’s work uh as president of delta sigma theta absolutely you know the blessing i had is that
I actually worked for dr kennedy dr kennedy was uh yvonne was president of delta sigma theta when i was executive director of delta sigma theta so we got a chance to see each other on a regular basis and work to each other with each other
During her term there she is oh my gosh you know she is astounding i i have to admit i don’t know how she did it all she was not only the national president for delta sigma theta but at the same time she was the president of bishop state
College and she was a member of the house of representatives in alabama i mean she this woman did it all you know she was always stately for those of you who knew her she always commanded attention she was always at the forefront of things i have to tell you i went back
And looked at some of the notes we had in terms of what she did and i found something that bishop vashtai murphy mckenzie said and i i think it just epitomizes her she had a swag she could walk into a room and command it in a matter of seconds and she absolutely could
Uh you know and when you talk about uh yvonne kennedy uh i looked up the i went to your website for the cme church and i saw something there the theme on the website said getting back to basics as we envision our way forward taking care of god’s business uh that
Theme that the cme church truly is the same theme that yvonne had and lived during her lifetime uh with us she died in 2012 we were got a chance to be at the funeral i have to i have to tell you it was in a convention center with 3 000 people
And a parade and a marching band i have never ever been to a funeral like that but it was incredibly impressive to me but you know during her time she really did go back to basics in terms of what she did she renovated our headquarters operation when i was executive director she
Renovated that building uh tore it apart from the bottom up and rebuilt it uh had delta shares did a capital improvement campaign during the time she was in she did the first major reclamation that we did in delta sigma theta and again back to basics in terms of what we did
She worked with a program called school america and i will never forget the program because we got involved with the bush family and i can remember going to the white house at a luncheon with barbara bush at the request of dr kennedy we really combined together with them in the kellogg administration
Education obviously was extremely important to her but she wanted to make sure that we were focused on literacy focus on school america in terms of what we needed to do she was she had a hugo disaster relief fund she was the first we now have emergency response fund that delta uses
But she began that again back to basics of the needs for people um she valued education as i mentioned she received actually an naacp image award for the contributions delta made to the arts she was an outstanding as you can see by the trophy that she received their leader
She was a great president at bishop state college she was in the alabama legislature for decades and did an incredible job you know i can’t say enough about the kind of person she was and the opportunity she was miss alabama state yes i see her picture
There in terms of what she did but she was a leader an activist an educator and she passionately served the community she was in the state of alabama and the sorority um and i was blessed to really have the opportunity to work with her so i’m so glad that you all are
Acknowledging these outstanding greek women who were a part of the cme church and shared leadership in their organization so many times we hear members of the sorority sometimes say that you know their pastors or their churches will tell them that they can’t worship two people it’s an issue we have with
Renouncement they can’t worship uh sorority and god we don’t worship our sororities our our intent i think all of us would say is we are all very focused on our christian faith uh and make sure that we do all we can to understand who our god is and whose we belong to
And that partnership between the churches and the sororities is a very strong one so thank you for the opportunity to get a chance uh to talk about um our beloved uh yvonne kennedy thank you president smith now take a few moments and tell us about delta sigma theta
Under your administration and all of the things that you all have been doing great things you’ve been doing in spite of a president and in spite of a hurricane and in spite of a cove at 19. i will i can’t believe you told people that i said i hate i served when trump
Did but that’s okay i don’t think you’re alone in that category oh i’m sorry what i will say you know it and i think for all of us um coming in at a time when society faced such difficulty and there we are with our members of congress
Uh social action had to be at the forefront and you know that is one of those things where did you find these pictures i’m going to be like the bishop uh it’s one of the things that we really do focus on and there we are keisha lance bottoms
Uh and i was acknowledged uh there she is a fantastic mayor uh and i i am pleased to say that uh the general assembly still chose to consider me an outstanding citizen of georgia uh even though we had the issues that we’ve had recently but i um we have worked very diligently
We’ve tried to work very hard in this covert environment we tried not to skip a beat because i think that was important for the sororities and focus to understand where we were and what we’re about we tried to make sure we maintained our memberships activities we still do membership intake we have a
Virtual process with complete with animations we did seven regional conferences last summer for 23 000 sores which is not something you ever want to do i think i did mention to you earlier zoom is now a four-letter word it keeps us so very busy um we got engaged in drive-bys and it’s
Funny because i mentioned the other day i hadn’t thought about it i think kova in this environment has given us another meeting for drive-bys we have done drive-by voter registration worked on voter suppression we have done drive-by community service we did membership intake by dropping our pyramids their uh
Needs for membership intake drive by on their front doorsteps i think this covert environment has a has forced us to do what black people always do and that’s to be innovative and inventive in terms of what we do uh the best in us comes out in crisis when you look at
People of color i would uh biggie back on what dr glover said the fact that all the divine nine organizations and the black women’s organizations under her leadership and direction came together to make sure we did what we needed to do in this environment was incredible
I’m not so sure had we not faces the crisis we were in that we actually would have come together like we did but i think the friendship and i see uh my friend grand valles or uh hollinsworth baker has joined us i don’t know that the four of us the
Four sororities would have developed the kind of relationship and the five fraternities that we had had it not been for the crisis that this country faced that we felt we had to do strength with so what did kova do for us it forced us to come out of our boxes
Yes it did be innovative and inventive it forced us to make sure our community showed the strength that only african-american communities have and as uh brother greg lewis in atlanta the late leader for georgia says it forced the church to come out of the building
As well there you go uh and so we certainly are in agreement with that but we thank you so good to to see madam president valerie hollinsworth baker joining us bishop jefferson snorton in that same light as we continue uh to share on uh president yvonne kennedy dr von kennedy would you just
Share with us about her as a staunch member of stuart memorial stuart chapel cme church uh and her activity in the cme church as uh thank you dr mason what an honor as dr smith has said uh dr yvonne kennedy was an amazing woman she uh all the things that
She accomplished in her sorority uh as president of a historically black college and as a alabama state legislature are amazing but in the midst of that she did not neglect her church and her faith and she said she was a real active member at the stewart memorial cme church a lifelong member
There in mobile alabama and not only was she active in the local church missionary and a lay leader and a sunday school teacher and christian educator but she also held those same roles and had the same impact in our district and in the region and really throughout the connectional church
She was a strong advocate advocate for christian education she believed in sunday school and bible study and she didn’t talk about it but she would teach she would literally sometimes she would even preach uh she was acting as a missionary because she really believed in community service
And her her faith was so evident in the kinds of bills that she sponsored she was always looking out for the least and the loss some of the things that she advocated for were improved education curriculum as a state legislator as well as appropriate aid for people who had been victims
Of natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes a lot of happen in the arena of uh government to provide assistance was the direct result here in the state of alabama of her efforts to make sure that people who were suffering and people who were on the margins and people who were oppressed were not
Forgotten about she was just an amazing amazing woman she was a lay leader she was a local leader leader at the regional level nationally and one of the ways in which her um impact on the lay organization of our church has been embodied was with the renaming of a scholarship
There was a scholarship in our church called the graham webb scholarship named after two men who were leaders but after her death the lay organization renamed that scholarship because they knew that she had promoted that scholarship she believed in the scholarship and she was worthy of now scholarship being called the
Graham webb kennedy scholarship absolutely amazing last i was privileged to uh serve with her for a few years uh on the board for the trustees at miles college and she was a powerhouse she really understood the ins and outs and the intricacies of uh running a college in historically black college
And she was a resource when she died it was a tremendous loss to the board of trustees at miles college personally she was just a friend she encouraged me he supported me as a matter of fact i give her credit for uh me ultimately deciding to offer myself
For bishop in 2006 after our uh elections of bishops at the general conference where she was always a delegate she served on major committees because she was a powerful woman of influence but you could count on her to get things done so at the 2006 general conference after
Uh the election of bishop comes back to carter uh she got up and congratulated them and you know made the appropriate speech that she ended with saying and i hope this is the last time we only elect male bishops i heard that i and i experienced something in my
Being when she said that i agreed with her at the moment i did not have any intentions of it of it being me but first and the encouragement of several others like her and i can tell you at the 2010 general conference dr yvonne kennedy had my back she
Worked the room she encouraged people she supported me she had a reception invited key people to come she was when she believed in something uh and from that moment on i knew that everything that i did and when i became her bishop i wanted to make her proud
Because dr yvonne kennedy was one of those amazing women that only comes by every once in a while but if you know her it truly is a blessing and i can still say to this day i miss her terribly there are times when i would like to just ask her thoughts on something
I try to conjure up her spirit because she was just such a wise wise woman who literally poured herself out for her community for her church yes she did and the city of mobile honored All her [Applause] And so today we honor and remember uh a great leader in the church and the 17th the 19th national president of delta sigma theta sorority dr yvonne kennedy president beverly smith thank you so much uh for sharing with us today we appreciate it bishop jefferson snoring as always thank you
As i said bishop jefferson snorton has probably been the most frequent guest that i’ve had uh since i started this just a little over a year ago but i’m so glad that she consented to come uh and to share with us on today and we are delighted now that the
Third person within the cme church to serve as a national president mrs evelyn hood who is also my member i’m her pastor uh at the west mitchell street cme church is a bona fide member of sigma gamma rho sorority take a look Since 1922 sigma gamma rho has worked to enhance the quality of life in the community the sorority was born from the needs of seven school teachers to create a network of women working to impact the black community through education over the years the sisterhood has grown to include women from all professions
And from all ethnicities the 500 alumni and undergraduate chapters of sydney and monroe throughout the united states the caribbean europe and asia continue to support children teens and families through our national programs and initiatives i am so delighted today to have with us the um it’s the newly installed
Uh the newest member of the divine nine presidents at least the sororities uh sister rashida liberty uh and i think you mentioned you were installed last year as a national president i came in virtually august first was my first day wow bless you well welcome we are
So glad to have you and that you would take some time to share a little bit about the amazing work of dr evelyn hood our beloved member uh who is watching in atlanta’s from her home uh tell us a little bit about doctor hood and then i’ll have you tell
Us a little bit about what’s going on with the great sigma gamma rho sorority as you all plan your centennial celebration yes so it gives me great pleasure to recognize our 15th and leader and what i love most is that she’s a leader that has personally groomed me
As a leader so she’s a georgia peach born in macon georgia went to payne college served where she has served as youth advisor director in christian education and still proudly serves as a steward um she has been just a phenomenal woman and i want to say something more
Personal on her i read a quote that she wrote she said my mom wanted me to be a nurse my grandmother wanted me to be a secretary and my grandfather wanted me to be a minister well she served in all those capacities as a second grade educator
For over 40 years so she said she has worn all of those hats and of course being a great leader in sydney yamaro’s sorority incorporated a very close friend of our filo affiliates who has really helped get them off the ground and they still honor her to this day
She wanted to provide a way for women who didn’t go to college to still affiliate with the organization as an affiliate member so our final affiliates are something that is near and dear to her heart she was the first to also establish our relationships and sustainable partnerships with the uncf
Uncf as well as the naacp and so we still keep those going she is a um there’s so many roles that you serve as you go up the ranks in the organization but she is a heart and soul of atlanta is what we call it stigma chapter they are one of the
Largest chapters in our sisterhood and we honor them and she’s been a proud member of ada sigma chapter for many years and then climbed up the ranks and really became a regional director which i’m proud to say i followed in her footsteps and became a regional director as well
In the sophisticated southeastern region and then made her way to become national president of the sisterhood and as national president she is known for establishing the national education fund which is a huge arm of our sisterhood that will go on record to give over a million scholarships so
She is really a phenomenal leader a phenomenal woman and a great mentor someone who has always pulled my coattails and told me she calls me rasheeda too dr mason so she doesn’t call me grant she didn’t call me grand vance was a regional director but she called me by my first
Name to let me know i got a point hotel sometime but she has just been a wonderful mentor friend and um definitely honored and beloved in sydney young world sorority incorporated wow thank you what a what a beautiful tribute uh and and she she not only pulls your coattails she pulls the pastor’s
Cocktail uh she is that that voice uh but so soothing so calm loves her sorority loves god loves the church so fellas what have you been doing uh as the the international grand basilisk uh in this eight virtual age yeah it’s nothing like i would have imagined and i i echo
Something that i know valerie hallisworth baker stated she asked uh coming off of their centennial brazil she said i never wanted i never aspired to be the centennial grand bassas i just i became the grand bastards at a time when a centennial event was held and so everything in my administration
As i went as i’m going for it is yes planning the event in a celebratory moment in our sisterhood but i am about sustainable well it looks like she’s frozen at least on my screen and of course that happens maybe she’ll come back in in just a second
There you go did i lose you yes but you’re back with us now okay i’m not sure what that was about but i did want to say that during this term i have really been committed to not only planning the event of the centennial but really looking towards what
Still said that i bring to the organization being in corporate america for over 30 years of really signing some significant partners and bringing them to the table to help us with some capital campaigns our largest one being seven schools that we will be that we will announce
In 2022 we have already built four of those schools so we will have seven of those schools committed and we will we are proudly marching towards 2.2 million dollars in philanthropy in the year 2022 and over a million service hours committed through our organization so that’s what my focus
Is on and of course like all of my divine nine sisters have stated we are always committed to what social action agendas that we can get behind it started with election season it started with jordan then it went into the georgia uh senate race and making sure we got
Voters out we were successful at doing that and now we are really focused on how do we eradicate kobe 19 in the best yes indeed yes indeed well president liberty and what a very interesting name by the way is is there a history tied to that name
Yes i always say that when people tell me your name is so cool i say well there was a great man attached to it mr gregory liberty proud member of phi beta sigma fraternity but his family are the liberties and they were in louisiana and so they named themselves liberty as
A sign of freedom wow so here i am i absolutely love it well we are grateful to you for spending some time with us we congratulate you uh as you lead uh sigma gamma rho sorority and yes west mitchell street has akas and deltas and zetas but my god
There’s a sigma gamma rho in every corner every few in the church uh and we’re grateful uh for that and we absolutely love uh and adore uh sister evelyn hood uh and i could not be more prouder uh than to be her pastor uh in this this season
And we thank you for uh sharing uh with us for these few moments uh the city of atlanta honored her she has been recognized and honored many times but um i was glad to stand with her in city hall chambers as she was recognized and we just look forward to your
Centennial celebration and hoping that all of you will be able to uh to get together very soon yes indeed thank you thank you and now we’re going to uh share uh with the ladies of zeta phi beta sorority uh and one of our own cmes who is so
Well known in our church mrs evelyn jury brown a graduate of morris brown college uh had the foresight and god blessed her to lead her chapter in creating one of the major national projects not only of zeta phi beta but of african american women uh the starts nest
Project but before i bring the president on please take a look january 16 1920 zeta phi beta began as an idea conceived by five co-eds at howard university in washington dc arizona cleaver myrtle tyler viola tyler fanny petty and pearl neal these five women also known as our five pearls dared to
Depart from the traditional coalition for black women and sought to establish a new organization predicated on the precepts of scholarship service sisterly love and finer womanhood it is just a delight to have the centennial president of zeta phi beta sorority incorporated the honorable valerie hollinsworth baker who has been to two
Or three events within the hour since we’ve been on the air but i am so glad that she could stop by uh and share with us a little bit about her sora evelyn brown uh our beloved cme member and also to bring us up to date and tell
Us what zetas have been doing uh during this a very interesting time president uh hollandswear faker welcome uh glad to have you on would you please share a little bit about sister evelyn brown and you can unmute yourself or let me make sure i don’t have you muted
There you go okay well good afternoon dr mason and thank you so very much for inviting me and i’m glad that i was able to to make it today and i i want to just say about my sorrow little a little history about how special she is to our organization
You see back in 1969 that’s where it really all began uh zeta phi beta sorority incorporated relationship with the march of dimes and that was because of evelyn brown who with her chapter epsilon zeta chapter uh which is one of the chapters there in atlanta answered the call of the local
March of dimes foundation to participate in a service project called at the time better infant births so evelyn’s chapter opened this shop in the spring of 1971 to provide infant clothing for social economically disadvantaged pregnant women who attended these prenatal classes and later on the chapter named this project
Stark’s nest and the sorority adopted it nationally as a signature program in 72 1972 and became a cooperative project with the march of dimes so we’ve been a partner a national partner with a national organization march of dimes uh for 49 years and looking to go into our 50th year
Uh we we know that we would not have been where we are had it not been for evelyn brown she was a woman you could look up to she was a mover and shaker she got things done her chapter was always on the move she was a confident a confidant to
Several of the past grants she would i’ve i even had the pleasure of working with her when i uh back in the late 90s when the uh national convention came to atlanta and she was the marshal and i just just looked at her just running from pillar to post pulling in
Uh sponsorships the uh program participants uh the everyone that it was needed to make that convention a success and she as i said one of the nicest nicest persons you would ever meet and she embodies our principles the principles of scholarship service sisterhood and truly finer womanhood because that is what we
See in evelyn brown final womanhood beautiful beautiful thank you and and we appreciate that that history of the organization and uh the wonderful relationship that you all have with march of dimes and we and we know how friendly competitive it can be i i remember when i was the
General president of alpha phi alpha you know uh the zetas would always give us a run with the march of dimes in terms of you know events and activities but it was all for a good cause you know and i think that’s what has been so unique and special about all of the
Divine nine organizations and we may be a little competitive sometime but when it comes down to serving mankind and womankind we are all working towards the same cause tell us uh madam president you you’re the centennial president uh and uh let me see it let me share this
And then i’ll ask you to come back and share a little bit about what you’ve been doing Zetas throughout the world continue to celebrate the legacy of our five triumphant pearls making history in the areas of politics entertainment health care journalism military entrepreneurship and so much more sadly after a magical and historic centennial founders weekend celebration in washington dc in january 2020 the coronavirus reached the united
States and hit our organization hard claiming the lives of zetas amikai family members and friends while forcing us to cancel our june celebration My Well what a proud moment not only for zetas and sigmas but for all of the divine nine uh to see you all in the macy’s thanksgiving day parade fellows madam president what have you been doing and how’s the sorority doing during these years of overt 19 and the pandemic and all of that
Well without them it’s been very difficult i would say uh we we as leaders we didn’t expect this you know this is something that um we just had to pivot and and try to do things differently everything that i had to do i had to start and think it had to be done
Virtually i i i never stopped um our intake in terms of once we just got geared up and it took us a month to do that we continued we we we continued our intake we did that virtually we did our induction ceremonies virtually i would we for 10 solid weeks
Back to that we we did intake uh for the inductions uh and i was at every single one uh making sure and i think sometimes that’s the difference in when we look at what’s happening in covet and what we used to do and what we’re doing now
What i think now happens is that i’m able to reach the sisterhood more because when you were without kovic you had to get on a plane you had to get to where you got to go you can only stretch yourself but so thin and you could only be it at so many
Places at the same time but with kovac and and now having to be on zoom or webex or any of the other uh things that we have to do or be facebook live we are there saying we can do this we can be at this a function we could be that event
The sisterhood sees me more the sisterhood i can engage more with the sisterhood we’ve we’ve still done our service projects we we do them virtually we have different ways in which we do them we do them with drive-by uh sometimes it’s just drop-off uh we we we raise our funds virtually
Just this last year we raised a 707 thousand dollars for the march of dimes uh and it’s the largest we’ve ever done uh since we have been with the march of dimes i mean we’re really proud of that because we believe we believe in what the march of dimes
Uh stands for and we we put our money where our mouth is and then we continue with our storks nest programs and now we’re doing storks nests virtually and reaching more uh women that are socio social this year that oh excuse me so economically disadvantaged uh because
We are you know we can touch them because we can we can see them and we can we can talk to them on online and get to help them i what i think is most important is that we were able to come together as the as the divine nine and we’ve been
Since i’ve been on the the team team divine nine as i like to call it we have been very together we have pulled together and we’re under one umbrella and we’re not even though we do some of the same things all of our organizations do but see we’ve pulled together as
One we’ve learned that our voices are in mass see we we we have over 2.5 million people that we touch but then when you when you bring all the the others that come all the auxiliaries and your families and everything that’s five million people so it’s our duty and our our purpose
To be able to get out there and like john lewis said honorable john lewis get into some good trouble we have pulled together because of the politics to make sure that what has been going on the past four years didn’t have to go on for another four years
We pulled together because of the census we’re now pulling together because of covet 19 making sure that we pass the information on to our constituents and their families and their friends all over not only the united states in the world that we all have we took can touch so that they know
They’ll be more equipped to make a better decision for themselves and their families about what they should do if they should take this the the vaccine and where they can take the vaccine and what are the what could be some of the effects of the vaccine it’s so important that we make sound
Decisions logical decisions coming from a place of knowledge and that’s our job that’s our job as presidents of these organizations because they depend on us they see us our members look to us to say what are you going to do about it how are you going to how are you going
To come back what can we do to bring it together so that’s what we have been doing not only just in our organization along with all of the all of the things that we have done live we are doing virtually and we’re even doing more our membership has even increased we are we
We are we’ve increased in new members we’ve increased in reclamation people are because you see they want to they want to be they want to belong they want to belong to something that makes sense yeah yeah making sense and i am proud to be a member of the divine nine and
Share this with my sisters here because we’re a team we’re team d9 and we do a good job we’re doing a great job and we support each other and it’s not about any of the different colors we wear we’re really sisters and brothers that believe
That what we do we do it for god’s people amen amen thank you thank you so much as we we prepared to close i always give each of you a chance to just make a closer remark in case there was something you didn’t say or mention or want to mention uh
And so we’ll start with you dr glover and then we’ll go to president smith and uh president uh liberty and then we’ll ask our bishop uh to close us out dr glover any any closing thought well just to say thank you just say thank you once again
For uh taking this program of this time of women’s history month to just to celebrate women leaders and then elevate the divine nine you elevate hbcus just elevate black women so we appreciate that and we’re just so thankful that god has allowed us to to be in this moment and share
This moment with you thank you very much thank you so much dr glover president smith i would echo the same feelings that dr glover had i do thank you for this dr mason uh i think it was a great idea to have a chance to honor these outstanding women in their relationship
With the church particularly the cme church it’s been an honor and a pleasure to be here and uh appreciate the opportunity and always good to see my sisters and good to meet your bishop bishop jenkins snorton it is wonderful to have the opportunity to meet you
And to know a little bit more about your relationship with dr kennedy so thank you thank you all thank you thank you so much dr smith uh president liberty i have to say that i love our divine nine unity number one because i think people are really seeing
The relevance and the power of the divine nine in such a special way i also want to say we win with black women and these women have all been phenomenal and they’ve been winning for a long time and i know each and every one of us want to continue to race
That they have all established those foundations and those footsteps have been laid for us to really plant our feed in so i’m grateful to celebrate our 14th international grand basis evelyn hood and definitely extremely grateful to celebrate all the wonderful women recognized today phenomenal histories thank you president hollandsworth-baker
I just want to thank you and and and say this has been a great opportunity i’m so happy to be here with all of you and i and i know that i will see you all again soon thank you very much thank you thank you so much bishop jefferson snorton
Well dr mason thank you for allowing me to be in the company of these four phenomenal women and i want to say to each one of them i am so very proud of you and the work that you were doing and i will hold you in my prayers because i know
That your challenges are great but know that god has chosen you for such a time as this thank you also dr mason for highlighting uh women of the church who have made a difference through their sororities i think it is really important uh in this day when when people want to fracture
And divide to show the unity that goes with uh how you live your faith and indeed these the women that you have highlighted today lived their faith through sorority leadership and i would say to all of those who are watching please use your gifts god has given each one of you gifts
And the world needs each one of you especially to my sisters especially to the women and girls who may be listening and a special shout out to the akash thank you thank you and speaking of shout outs i better shout out my mother who is a staunch member of alpha kappa
Alpha sorority incorporated as well so a mama i’ve done that um hello thank you she would appreciate that and continue to keep her in your prayers she is battling through cancer uh courageously uh and we have claimed the victory uh in that so just continue to lift her up in your
Prayers let me also say hello to uh reverend pastor marvin uh lou who is the pastor of stuart memorial and mobile i want to mention him as i mentioned reverend reggie bonds who’s the pastor of brown memorial in louisville someone asked me what about this daishiki you have on
This dashiki i have on is in tribute to the sororities i got some green in it i have some red and a little crimson i have some blue and some blue and white and some blue and gold so this is my my tribute to you all and i was
Wondering when i was gonna get to wear this uh today but thank you all for joining me today i’m so blessed out to these um tremendous ladies and leaders just thank god for you for my my old friends glendon beverly god bless you thank you continue to fight the good fight to my
New friends valerie and rashida and always to my bishop bishop teresa jefferson oh next sunday before you go let me also say before i go and let me not forget this that evelyn brown my different is a member of jose temple cme church uh it was erroneously listed and
It was my fault as butler street but she’s a member of jose temple cme church so let me correct that now uh so that i can rest and sleep in peace at night all right that’s what you get when you’re trying to pull a program together
The in the late midnight hours you know all of this stuff becomes jumbled i think on that sunday i’m excited about the show we’re going to be looking at four amazing women authoring lucy fannie lou hammer mamie teal mobley and ruby smith and the role that the christian methodist episcopal church
Had and the work that they did to advance the cause of civil rights i am so excited about that and i want you to join me on next sunday uh good lord willing at five o’clock and i tried to find a good old church hymn to close out but i said you
Know what my girl whitney houston was calling my name and i said let me just go ahead and close out with this i’m every woman before uh facebook is just sitting down god bless you my sister take care of yourselves and now we salute the women
Of cme church who are in the greek letter organizations and sororities and all of you be blessed stay safe wear your mask cover up get the shot and uh let’s live live and give god You
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