On January 15, 1908, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. was founded on the campus of Howard University with inspiration from Ethel Hedgeman Lyle. She was joined in her Salmon Pink and Apple Green vision by Anna Easter Brown, Beulah Elizabeth Burke, Lillie Burke, Majorie Hill, Margaret Flagg Holmes, Lavinia Norman, Lucy Diggs Slowe, and Marie Woolfolk Taylor. These ladies were followed by a group of Sophomores so that the Sorority would continue after the first group graduated. These phenomenal women were Norma Elizabeth Boyd, Alice P. Murray, Ethel G. Jones, Ethel Jones Mowbray, Sarah Merriweather Nutter, Joanna Berry Sheilds, Carrie Snowden, and Harriet Josephine Terry. On February 11, 1909, these women were the first to participate in initiation ceremonies.
AKA was incorporated on January 29, 1913 to ensure longevity by Norma Elizabeth Boyd, Nellie Quander, Julia Brooks, and Minnie B. Smith.
It’s 200,000 plus members worldwide enrich and cultivate the social, intellectual, and cultural aspects of everyday life. From entertaining you on your favorite television program, to teaching a student the fundamentals of learning, to leading a movement that will change the face of black history, Alpha Kappa Alpha women are the essence of our culture today. Undergraduate and Graduate chapters are located throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, West Africa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas.
Alpha Kappa Alpha women are college presidents, deans, directors of Fortune 500 companies, judges, mayors, and members of Congress, state legislatures, city councils, and school boards. We are rural and urban teachers and counselors, poets, musicians, artists, dancers and role models. We shape our world, our communities, and our campuses. We are fighters for civil and human rights. We are the strong mothers and wives of brave men who have carried burdens in the heat of the day. We are kinsmen- mothers, daughters, sisters, - but often we ourselves are the leaders of catalysts. We come together to make history. There are no average or even typical Alpha Kappa Alpha women. We fit no common physical characteristics, yet we are all the same- the women who wear twenty pearls. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. does not make these great women. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. is made up of these and many more extraordinary women.
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