Not long ago, members of Alpha Kappa Alpha could tout themselves as being the nation’s oldest and largest African-American sorority.
Established at Howard University in 1908, the sorority can still lay claim to being the oldest. With 150,000 members and more than 900 chapters, AKA is among the largest.
But sorority members, known for their trademark pink and green colors, can no longer say that the club is exclusively black. Nor can most other historically black sororities and fraternities.
Their diversity is simply a sign of the times, says AKA president Norma White.
“We no longer refer to ourselves as an all-black sorority,” says White, who is presiding over the AKA national convention in Dallas, which began Saturday.
“We still say the AKAs were founded for and by black women, but through the years, because of societal changes, we have become an interracial sorority. We’re multicultural now.”
Although the membership of the AKAs is overwhelmingly black, Asians, Hispanics and whites have become a part of the mix and will be among the estimated 10,000 members expected to attend the annual meeting, which runs through Friday at the Dallas Convention Center.
Black sororities were established by black women college students during a time when they were unwelcome in sororities started by whites, says White, a longtime AKA member.
“In the ’30s and ’40s, a person of another race would not have wanted to join us,” she says.
Women of other races started joining the AKAs in small numbers in the 1960s. At Stetson University in DeLand, the undergraduate chapter was started by white women, she says. She recalls white women joining the graduate chapter in Tallahassee when she was regional director in the mid-1970s. And during that time, a Hispanic woman was accepted into a Miami chapter.
The AKAs have accepted some women of other races as honorary members, including former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Ritu Singh, an Indian woman who joined the sorority in 1998 while studying psychology and African studies at The George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., will be one of the conference panelists.
She says she learned about the AKAs when she was in high school and was invited to attend a friend’s debutante cotillion. She says it was the members’ style and community-service activities that inspired her to join.
Although she was embraced by most of her sorority sisters, her transition was not as smooth as she hoped it would be. She says she felt “completely ostracized” when she attended a regional conference and one of the black sorority sisters questioned having non-blacks in the sorority.
“I had only been an AKA for three weeks, and it shook me up a bit.” When she shared her feelings with other members, they assured her that she was welcome in the group.
She says the experience hurt her but didn’t discourage her. She has held a number of positions within her chapter, including president.
Singh says people still ask questions about her affiliation with the AKAs.
“They automatically say, ‘Isn’t that a black sorority? I have to let them know that it’s predominantly black, not exclusively black.”
Some members of the Dallas chapter say they have no problem with the AKAs becoming more diverse, as long as the group doesn’t lose sight of its mission or forget its history.
“The purpose of the sorority is a purpose that is not limited to race,” says Dallas lawyer Jessica Dixon, who is an AKA member.
“It is an organization that focuses on community service. But it was founded by black women to help the black community, and I would want it to keep that soul and spirit,” says Dixon.
Even though the racial makeup of the AKAs has changed somewhat, the gender base remains the same.
“We’re still an all-female organization,” says White, the AKA president. “The only person we wouldn’t take is a man.”
