Oh Alpha Kappa Alpha, Dear Alpha Kappa Alpha

Admittedly, I never paid too much attention to International Women’s Day or Women’s History Month.  This year during the tenth anniversary of President Barack Obama’s proclamation that created Women’s History Month, I am challenged to think more critically about how womanhood has shaped my life, my experiences, and how to lean into the innate challenges and power that comes therewith.  The focus of this reflection will be centered upon membership in my beloved sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

By way of background, father is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.  I don’t know that I really thought much of Black fraternal organizations beyond my father’s insistence that I call his “sands” uncles and his constant pointing out that (seemingly) half of pivotal figures in modern Black history were also Alphas.  My mother attended the esteemed Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising – where there weren’t and aren’t still any Black Greek Letter organizations.  The idea of joining a sorority was not one of those things that I had really even considered before college.  In my formative years, I always felt that cliques were exclusionary and created more division than they did good.  Thus I’m sure it took everyone by surprise when I displayed my interest the Lambda Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

My change of heart was driven by a few shifts in perspective.  Growing up in the Norwalk/Artesia/Cerritos area, I always felt somewhat out of place.  I jokingly tell friends even now that unlike a lot of my Black classmates, I was first generation suburnanite.  In a first for both sides of my family, my parents moved from traditionally Black neighborhoods in LA/Inglewood/Compton to the ‘burbs.  While both my parents were college educated, I still felt keenly aware that the move to the suburb brought us into a new level of perceived Black success, and to be honest I think I resented it.  This resentment was born of what felt like such an aberration from my idea of success.  Success to me was my grandmother being valedictorian of Walter Cohen High School– New Orleans’ first Black magnet school – in their second graduating class ever.  Success to me was my other grandmother going back to school in her forties, after marrying at 15 and completing her high school diploma and earning college credits.  Success to me was my own mother, starting as a loan secretary and working her way up to Vice President of a bank with no bachelors degree.  In my young mind, it seemed so different from my Black peers’ parents that were alumni of Ivy League schools, or members of the Links, or doctors, or had multiple degrees.  Different didn’t mean better or worse, but I did take pride in my family’s success and valued it that much more knowing that they literally “got it out the mud” (to quote the young folk lol).

So when I got to college at California State University, Long Beach, there was this awakening of sorts.  There were all these Black people attending the same school as I did and for me it was surreal.  It forced me to look at the Black experience through a much wider lens.  I had peers who’s grandparents and even great-grandparents went to college.  I had peers that were first generation college students.  The big kicker for me was that being Black was the great unifier; regardless of where we grew up, what our socioeconomic backgrounds were, or how much exposure we’d had to fancy things, we were sharing a common experience in being Black college students.  I had always felt some pressure to live up to the “talented tenth” narrative, but being a Black college student amplified the feeling.   When I attended Black Student Union meetings and events and couldn’t help but notice that the people in leadership positions were typically women.  Black excellence was all around me and by and large it was being driven by Black women.  The same tenacity I saw in my grandmothers and my mother, was the gasoline in the engine that made Black student life on campus so exhilarating.

I don’t remember when I went to my first Study Jam (a study / tutor session that Lambda Alpha Chapter hosted for students), but I do remember feeling comfortable.  I was in the presence of poised, articulate, confident women and it made me want to reflect the same – the decision to pursue membership was almost instantaneous.   Suddenly it all made sense to me, membership in this organization wasn’t about division or elitism; it was about aligning yourself with like-minded women that can propel you to become your best self.  In Spring 2007, I was initiated into a sisterhood of service.  The beauty of membership in my sorority is trifold:  the commitment to service for all mankind, the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives amongst my sorors, and the common sentiment of responsibility to achieve greatness and help others do the same.  I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the FIRST Black Greek letter sorority also boasts so many members who are also firsts in their respective fields:  Belva Davis, the first Black news anchor on the West Coast; Emma C. Chappell, the first African American woman to create a commercial bank in the US; Hazel Harper-Johns, the first woman president of the National Dental Association; Mae Jemison, the first African American female astronaut in space; and of course the first woman Vice President of any race:  Kamala Harris (amongst innumerable others).

My pride in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated is not to the denunciation of other Black sororities.  If anything, I think it’s wonderful that there are so many options for Black women to choose an organization as a reflection of how they see and want to be seen in the world.  Alpha Kappa Alpha has provided me with sorors to call friends, mentors, and role models.  I have been inspired by their greatness and my membership allows me to be reminded of the greatness that resides in me.  That greatness is centered in my Blackness and my womanhood.  In serving others both within and outside of my sorority, I’m able to remind other Black women that they have greatness within too.  Black women have and will continue to drive progress in all aspects of life.  We are the beneficiaries of a world made better by the struggles and triumphs of Black women.  I believe my membership in the illustrious Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated is best incapsulated by the idea that Alpha Kappa Alpha member and Madame Vice President Kamala Harris so eloquently reminds us: “I may be the first, but I will make sure I’m not the last”.  It is in this vein that I am honored to travel along the path blazed for me by women and to map new roads and opportunities for those coming behind me.