History of Sigma Zeta Omega

ALPHA KAPPA ALPHA SORORITY, INCORPORATED

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated was founded January 15, 1908 at Miner Hall on the campus of Howard University in Washington D.C.

The woman with vision for this great organization was Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, a junior education major. She thought that a black sorority would be ideal for the campus because it could be used as an instrument to make the college experience as meaningful and as valuable as possible by enhancing the capacity of college trained women to foresee their significant potential.

In addition to Hedgeman Lyle, 15 other young ladies also helped form this great sisterhood. They are: Norma Elizabeth Boyd, Anna Easter Brown, Beulah Elizabeth Burke, Lillie Burke, Marjorie Hill, Margaret Flagg Holmes, Ethel Jones Mowbray, Alice P. Murray, Lavinia Norman, Sarah Meriweather Nutter, Joanna Merryberry Shield, Lucy Diggs Slowe, Carrie Snowden, Marie Woolfolk Taylor, and Harriet Josephine Terry.

The members of Alpha Kappa Alpha wanted to ensure the livelihood of the sorority for years to come and therefore, they decided to incorporate the sorority. On January 29, 1913, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority became incorporated. There were six incorporators and of the six, four of them were not founders. The incorporators are: Norma Elizabeth Boyd, Julia E. Brooks, Ethel Jones Mowbray, Nellie Pratt, Nellie Quander, Minnie Beatrice Smith. The sixteen founders with the four incorporators total twenty young women that believed in the ideals and the future of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Today, the sorority serves all mankind through a nucleus of more than 170,000 women in the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa.

For more information about Alpha Kappa Alpha’s history, visit the international office’s website, http://www.aka1908.com.