ALPHA KAPPA ALPHA SORORITY INCORPORATED

Celebrating 100 Years of Service

Happy Founder’s Day to all of my sorors including my daughters Banke Tiffany and Julieannah.

BY LISA GANT - SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BANNER

"OCALA - In 1908, William Howard Taft became the 27th President of the United States, Mother's Day was celebrated for the first time, and Henry Ford produced his first Model T car. It was also the year that Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., came into existence.


Tuesday marks the 100th anniversary of the sorority's founding, an event that has inspired a yearlong series of tributes and festivities that will take place across the country. The culmination of the celebration will occur at the sorority's biennial international confab, during which more than 20,000 members are expected to travel to Washington D.C., the birthplace of the organization.


Saturday, members of the Eta Tau Omega Chapter hosted a centennial luncheon at the Hilton Hotel in Ocala, where sorority members and their guests reflected on the history and accomplishments of the organization. The women created a special video in honor of women who have been members of the sorority for at least 50 years, and later recognized all visiting members. The luncheon concluded with a balloon send-off involving 100 pink and green balloons.


Founded on the campus of Howard University in Washington, DC, on January 15, 1908, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., is the first Greek-letter organization established by African-American college-trained women. Led by the vision of a young woman named Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, 20 Howard University students are credited with its creation and eventual incorporation on January 29, 1913.


Over time, the organization grew as members joined and went on to charter chapters across the country. Today, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., is comprised of over 200,000 college-trained women and has more than 950 chapters in various countries around the world, including the United States, the Caribbean, Germany, Korea and Japan.


Members of the sorority include many of the world's most renowned and influential African-American women, such as author Maya Angelou, civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, and most recently, singer/songwriter Alicia Keys.


Operating under the sorority's motto, "by culture and by merit," members of Alpha Kappa Alpha have spearheaded a myriad of community service programs and activities at the local, national and international level.


Some of the sorority's most innovative programs include the Mississippi Health Project, which worked to improve educational opportunities among children in rural Mississippi; the Cleveland Job Corps Center, a residential training center for women; and the Educational Advancement Foundation, which provides educational scholarships and community service awards.


The sorority's current national program, entitled E.S.P. (Economics, Sisterhood and Partnerships), encompasses five major platforms: non-traditional entrepreneurs, economic keys to success, the Black family, technology and health resource management.These programs are often designed to address pressing issues of universal importance, such as education, economic empowerment and health, but the primary goal of Alpha Kappa Alpha, as stated by its members, is to create a legacy of "service to all mankind."

Vera Richardson is the author of “A Case of Racial Discrimination and Retaliation Real or Imagined."

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