The Incorporators
She entered Howard University College of Arts and Sciences in September, 1906, In February 1908, she was admitted into the newly formed Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority without initiation, one of seven students in the sophomore class so honored. She majored in mathematics and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1910. Ms. Boyd was one of two women who was both a founder and an incorporator of Alpha Kappa Alpha, In 1913, she joined Nellie Quander and Minnie Smith on the committee formed to incorporate the sorority. She was named to the position of epistoleus on the first Directorate, and following that time, held many positions of honor in Alpha Kappa Alpha. She served as North Atlantic regional director, twice as basileus of Alpha Chapter, and as charter member and basileus of Xi Omega Chapter. in addition, she chaired the first committee to raise funds for the Mississippi Health Project. Many individuals believe, however, that her greatest contribution to the sorority was the establishment of the Non-Partisan Council on Public Affairs in 1938. The Non-Partisan Council, which produced the first full-time congressional lobby for minority group rights, was designed to secure full citizenship for all members of our society. It promoted cooperative social action to eliminate discrimination at all levels of government and thus to ensure a fully integrated society. In her statement of intent for the lobby, Ms. Boyd said, ". . . We can ask for and support such measures as will assure for our people decent living conditions, permanent jobs, and a voice in determining the conditions under which they live and work. We can effect these objectives only by making our power felt in the halls and floors of Congress, and activity toward this end begins with participation in the primaries of our land."
The council was in existence for ten years. During that time, Ms. Boyd developed the program of social and legislative action which was to win national and international respect for the sorority, and would lead to the establishment of the American Council on Human Rights. The council was the first sorority or fraternity organization recognized as an accredited observer by the United Nations.
Ms. Boyd was awarded a citation as "Woman of the Year in the Field of Legislation" from the National Council of Negro Women on June 13, 1948. Ms. Boyd traveled extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America and the British West Indies. Her travels, contributions, career in education, the suffrage movement and human rights are chronicled in her autobiography, A Love That Equals My Labor Women of vision, integrity and dedication are found throughout the story of Alpha Kappa Alpha. Ms. Norma Boyd, the longest living of the founders, exemplified all these virtues and by the example of her life, served as an inspiration to many. A founder and incorporator of the sorority and founder and director of the National Non-Partisan Council on Public Affairs, she combined the ideals of service to others with a warmth and humanity recognized and appreciated wherever she was.
Norma Elizabeth Boyd died in Washington, D.C. on January 4, 1985.
Julia Brooks was one of the pioneers of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Norma Boyd remembers that Ms. Brooks attended most of the early functions of the sorority at Howard University. When plans were being made to preserve the original names, ideas, symbols and form of the sorority, Ms. Brooks was one of those early members who was in favor of the incorporation. She was listed in Article IV of the Certificate of Incorporation of Alpha Kappa Alpha (officially registered January 29, 19 13) as one of the six members of its directorate, the tamiouchos. She served as tamiouchos from 1913 to 1923 and was succeeded by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, sorority founder, who remained in that office until 1946.
Julia Brooks was a member of Epsilon Omega Chapter in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1923, she became a charter member of Xi Omega Chapter in Washington, D.C. Ms. Brooks wrote The History of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority which was presented at the Public Meeting of the 1923 Boule in Baltimore, and the history was read by Barbee Scott at the Founders' Day celebration of Xi Omega Chapter on January 30, 1924.
She was still an active member of Xi Omega Chapter in Washington, D.C. when she died suddenly November 24, 1948.
Ethel Jones Mowbray's early schooling was completed in the Baltimore public schools. She graduated from high school with honors and in 1906 enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University Ethel was one of the seven honor students of the class of 1910 who was added without initiation to the Alpha Kappa Alpha founding group in late February 1908, thus becoming one of the charter members.
On May 25, 1909, the date of the first ivy Day celebration, she was among the group of young Alpha Kappa Alpha women who planted ivy at the south end of Miner Hall. Her future husband, George Mowbray, assisted her and the other girls in the historic occasion, Beautiful ivy graces many significant locations on the Howard campus, recalling that first and subsequent Ivy Day celebrations.
In 1909, Ethel Jones was elected to be the first vice president of Alpha Kappa Alpha and in March 19 1 0, she became basileus during the last semester of her senior year.
She graduated from Howard University with a major in mathematics and a minor in education. She returned to Baltimore and taught mathematics in the public schools. She remained there for two years while George Mowbray completed his undergraduate studies at Howard University. In 1913, he graduated from Howard University and went to Chicago to begin graduate studies at the University of Chicago. That summer Ethel married George Mowbray and moved to Chicago.
After a summer in Chicago, the Mowbrays moved to Kansas City, Kansas, where he was employed by the Kansas City Board of Education as a teacher, and she became a caterer. Her love of the culinary arts along with hard work brought Mrs. Mowbray success in the catering business, which she enjoyed. She also was an avid bridge player and belonged to three different bridge clubs.
Mrs. Mowbray was an involved Alpha Kappa Alpha soror all of her life. She was active during the period of incorporation, although she had graduated from Howard University by that time, and she was an initiator of the expansion programs which followed incorporation. In Kansas City, Kansas, after Mu Omega Chapter was established, she continued her sorority activities on the local level, She also worked with the PTA organization on the junior high school level where she was a room mother.
The Mowbrays had two children, Helen Henry Mowbray and Dr. Geraldine Mowbray Arnette. Dr. Arnette, a practicing physician, is also an Alpha Kappa Alpha woman and now lives in Hyattsville, Maryland.
Ethel Jones Mowbray lived and worked in Kansas until her death on November 25, 1948.
Nellie Quander was initiated into Alpha Chapter in the spring of 1910 and became basileus of the chapter in 1912. Because of her unique role with the founders, she aided in resolution of the most serious crisis in the earl), years of the organization. As an undergraduate, Ms. Quander had taken several courses in argumentation and in public speaking; and for a project in one of her classes, had made a study of the effect of Greek letter organizations on campus life. After extensive study into the history structure and background of these organizations, she concluded that as a sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha must continue to exist and become incorporated, She planned the incorporation, and on January 29, 1913, Articles of Incorporation were filed with the Recorder of Deeds in Washington, D.C. Thus, Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first sorority for Black women in America, became the first to be incorporated.
Ms. Quander was named supreme basileus of Alpha Kappa Alpha, an office she held until December 1919. She organized and presided at the first Boule held at Howard University in 1918, and the second held in Chicago in 1919. At the second Boule, she relinquished the office of supreme basileus and was elected the first Eastern Region organizer.
Ms. Quander continued to serve the sorority in numerous ways through the years. She wrote the preamble to the constitution-, she worked with Founder Beulah Burke in organizing Beta, Gamma and Delta Chapters. On November 25, 1916, she personally established Zeta Chapter at Wilberforce University.
Ms. Quander remained with Alpha Chapter even after the establishment of Xi Omega Chapter in Washington, D.C., to advise and assist Alpha Chapter. Thus, she anticipated the function of the graduate advisor before that office was formally established.
Nellie M. Quander died suddenly at her home on Saturday, October 23, 1961. She is buried in Washington, D.C.
A scholarship endowment of $125,000 has been established at Howard University by Alpha Chapter alumnae and other sorors to honor Ms. Quander. The drive to establish and collect this fund was led by the late Esther Garland Polard, a Howard University trustee and a past officer of Alpha Kappa Alpha. The endowment culminated in 1984 at the Diamond jubilee Boule with a presentation of the principle to Dr. James Cheek, then president of Howard University.
Nellie Pratt Russell was born on May 4, 1890 in Macon, Georgia. In 1907, she entered the College of Arts and Sciences of Howard University and was at once confronted with and intrigued by the discussion taking place among upper-class women with regard to the establishment of a sorority. She became an initiate of Alpha Kappa Alpha in the latter part of her sophomore year, Nellie Pratt, Mabel Gibson, Lena Jenkins, Ruth Gilbert, Mary Clifford, and Ella Albert Brown were the first group of women initiated into the sorority. She remembers the thrill and pride of wearing her plain gold ivy pin. Like her associates, Nellie Pratt was deeply committed to the volunteer activities sponsored by the sorority, and with other members of the sorority worked in different sections of Washington, distributing food and clothing to the needy.
She graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1911. Her first appointment was as an English and history teacher at Topeka Normal and Industrial School, Topeka Kansas. She remained in Topeka until her father's death in Macon in 1913. Then, in order to be nearer to her mother, she secured an appointment in Lawrenceville, Virginia, at St. Paul's Normal and Industrial School (now Saint Paul's College). She taught English at St. Paul's for 50 years.
In the same year (1913), she met and married her husband, the late Dr. J. Alvin Russell, president of St. Paul's College, a position which he held for many years.
The Russells had four sons and one daughter. Even so, Mrs. Russell found time to attend Columbia University and earn the Master of Arts degree.
As the years passed, more and more faculty members arrived at the college wearing ivy leaf pins. The group organized around Mrs. Russell and sought to further the cause of Alpha Kappa Alpha. Their first project was to encourage scholarship through the establishment of honor roll teas. By 1949, there were enough interested women at St. Paul's to form a new chapter, Gamma Lambda Omega. Mrs. Russell served this chapter as basileus, grammateus, epistoleus and historian. She also served as advisor to Alpha Upsilon Chapter, the undergraduate chapter on the campus of St. Paul's College.
With her associates in Gamma Lambda Omega, Mrs. Russell established a scholarship loan fund for undergraduate students, supplied milk to indigent children in local elementary schools, and initiated a clean-up week on campus. Gamma Lambda Omega members also worked with the Red Cross.
Mrs. Russell's daughter and three of her daughters-in-law are also members of Alpha Kappa Alpha. James, her oldest son, was president of St. Paul's College from 1971 until his retirement in 1981.
In 1969, Mrs. Russell received a plaque from her chapter for outstanding service to the sorority, and that same year she was elected "Mother of the Year" by the local chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity She received several other awards. One of the buildings on St. Paul's campus was named in honor of Mrs. Nellie Pratt Russell and Dr. J. Alvin Russell. She was similarly honored by the local chapter of the Student Virginia Education Association - Student National Education Association (SVEA-SNEA) which bears her name. An annual scholarship award was established at St. Paul's College in recognition of her service to the school.
Nellie Pratt Russell died on December 13, 1979 in Lawrenceville at the home of her son and daughter-in-law, Dr. James and Soror Lottye W. Russell. She is buried in Lawrenceville.
Minnie B. Smith was an incorporator of Alpha Kappa Alpha. "Beadie" Smith lived in Washington, D.C. and taught at the Mott School near Howard University. She attended the university while she worked and graduated with the class of 1912.
Ms. Smith, an initiate of Alpha Kappa Alpha and a very close friend of Nellie Quander, was still working in Washington when she was contacted by Ms. Quander and advised of the following situation. In the fall of 1912, an extraordinary meeting had been called. Some members of Alpha Kappa Alpha urged that the name, motto, colors, and symbol of the sorority be changed and that the organization move in a new defined direction, Nellie Quander, who had graduated that summer and was the past president of the sorority, had been invited to the meeting. She was horrified by the radical proposals, but had been unable to prevail upon the young women attending the meeting. She decided to contact as many of the graduate members of the sorority as possible to explain the situation. Ms. Smith was responsible for writing many of the letters to graduate members, advising them of what was happening at Howard University, and seeking their support for the continuation of Alpha Kappa Alpha. Nellie Quander, Minnie Smith, and Norma Boyd formed a committee to discuss plans for the continuation and the national expansion of the sorority, On January 29, 1913, the three young women signed the Articles of Incorporation of the first national sorority among Black women.
The first Directorate was established with Nellie Quander as basileus and Minnie Smith as grammateus. Other officers selected were Ethel Jones Mowbray, first anti-basileus; Nellie Pratt Russell, second anti-basileus-I Norma Boyd, epistoleus; and Julia E. Brooks, tamiouchos. According to the Articles, they were to retain their position until five ancillary chapters were established and a national election held.
In 1916, when Nellie Quander took a leave of absence from her teaching position in Washington to study mentally retarded children in Delaware and the socioeconomic conditions affecting them, Ms, Smith acted as basileus in Ms. Quander's absence.
Minnie Beatrice Smith died in the influenza epidemic of 1919 after an illness of only a few days. She is remembered by Alpha Kappa Alpha members throughout the world for the key role she played in the growth and development of the sorority.
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