A Score of Oysters Flashcards
the Founders (alphabetical)
Anna Easter Brown, Beulah Burke, Lillie Burke, Marjorie Hill, Margaret Flagg Holmes, Ethel Hedgeman (Lyle), Lavinia Norman, Lucy Diggs Slowe and Marie Woolfolk (Taylor)
the Sophomores (alphabetical)
Norma Boyd, Ethel Jones (Mowbray), Alice Murray, Sarah Meriweather (Nutter), Joanna Berry (Shields), Carrie Snowden and Harriet Terry
the Incorporators (alphabetical)
Julia Evangeline Brooks, Nellie M. Quander, Nellie Pratt Russell, Minnie B. Smith
Ethel Hedgeman Lyle
Birth: 1887 – Died: 1950
Educator
Ethel Hedgeman was the visionary and principal founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Her warmth and outgoing personality, combined with a strong desire to join with other collegians with like minds and exceptional talents for the betterment of themselves and mankind, propelled her to spearhead the movement that led to the founding of the nation’s first black sorority.
Anna Easter Brown
Born: 1879 – Died: 1957
Educator
Anna Easter Brown was the first treasurer of Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. While at Howard University, Brown was an honor student, a library aide, a member of the school choir and a passionate writer. She graduated from Howard University in 1909 and began her teaching career in Bricks, NC, where she ultimately taught in Rocky Mount, NC for over 30 years. She also was the chartering president of Chi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha in that city in 1925. Brown was an advocate of history and was known especially for her annual Negro History Week exhibits that received national media attention.
Beulah Elizabeth Burke
Born: 1885 – Died: 1975
Educator
Beulah Elizabeth Burke is credited with having created the name, motto and colors of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She became a charter member and president of Beta Omega Chapter in Kansas City, MO, a charter member and president of Mu Omega Chapter in Kansas City, KS and chartered the first three undergraduate chapters of the sorority that were established after incorporation.
Lillie E. Burke
Birth: 1884 – Died: 1949
Educator
Lillie E. Burke enrolled in Howard University’s preparatory academy in tandem with her year-younger sister Beulah and subsequently they both enrolled in Howard’s College of Liberal Arts at the same time. At the time of the formation of the Sorority, Burke, like her sister, was an honor student, a Greek scholar and a senior. She is credited with having helped with the creation of the Alpha Kappa Alpha motto and was a charter member of Xi Omega Chapter, the first graduate chapter in the District of Columbia.
Marjorie Hill
Birth: Unknown - Died: 1909
Educator
Marjorie Hill was a senior at Howard when she joined the small group that went on to form the sorority and graduated in May of 1908. She chose to pursue a teaching career at Morgan College in Lynchburg, VA immediately after her undergraduate degree was conferred.
Not much is known of Hill after she left Howard University as she died during the summer of 1909, becoming the group’s first Ivy Beyond the Wall (deceased member of AKA).
Margaret Flagg (Holmes)
Birth: 1886 – Died: 1976
Educator
Margaret Flagg helped write Alpha Kappa Alpha’s first constitution and bylaws. It is through her recorded recollections about the personalities of the other original founders that the character sketches of those pioneering young women now exist for future generations of members. Nine years after her graduation, the talented teacher married and moved back home to her childhood home of Chicago.
Lavinia Norman
Birth: 1882 – Died: 1983
Educator
Lavinia Norman was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha’s first Constitution and Bylaws committee and was the presiding officer at the first Ivy Day ceremony (when the sorority’s members planted sprigs of their symbol of strength and endurance at the south end of Miner Hall, the organization’s on-campus birthplace) before her graduation in May 1909. She settled in Huntington, WV and was an active member of Beta Tau Omega Chapter there for many years.
Norman was the last survivor of the original nine founders when she passed away at the age of 100, after serving the organization for over 75 years and serving professionally for over 40 years at Douglass High School in Huntington as a teacher of English, Latin and French, coach of the school’s winning drama team and advisor for the student newspaper.
Lucy Diggs Slowe
Birth: 1885 – Died: 1937
College Dean
A conscientious, hardworking and serious student, Lucy Slowe was the newly-formed organization’s first president, once its freshly-minted constitution and bylaws stipulated that the holder of the office should be in her senior term at the college. She also held the position of chairman on both the constitution and bylaws and nominating committees.
After graduating as valedictorian in 1908, Slowe began her teaching career at Douglass High School in Baltimore and later moved back to the District of Columbia to teach in high schools there. Her notable achievements included being the first black female college dean (Howard), the first black member of the National Association of Women Deans, Administrators & Counselors and winning the 1917 American Tennis Association national tournament in Baltimore, the first African-American woman to do so.
Marie Woolfolk (Taylor)
Because of her passion and strong-willed nature, Marie Woolfolk was selected by Ethel Hedgeman to help her make the case for a sorority to the Howard administration in the fall of 1907. Once the sisterhood was established, Woolfolk served as its first secretary, was a member of the first Constitution and Bylaws committee, she extended invitations to the Howard sophomores who were eventually added to the founding group. She became the chartering president of Kappa Omega Chapter in Atlanta
Joanna Mary Berry (Shields)
Joanna Berry, a distant relative of co-founder Lavinia Norman, was known for her dignity, poise and grace and served as custodian of Alpha Chapter’s records during the fall of 1909
Norma Elizabeth Boyd
Birth: 1888 – Died: 1985
Educator
In addition to being one of the seven founders in the sophomore group, Norma Boyd was also an incorporator of Alpha Kappa Alpha and director of its National Non-Partisan Council (NPC) on Public Affairs, the nation’s first full-time minority lobby. She served as Alpha Kappa Alpha’s first national corresponding secretary, as president of Xi Omega Chapter in Washington, D.C. and as a North Atlantic Regional Director.
Ethel Jones Mobray
Birth: Unknown – Died: 1948
Culinary Artist
Like Lucy Slowe, Ethel Hedgeman, Lavinia Norman and Harriet Terry before her, Ethel Jones, one of the seven sophomores accorded founder status, became the president of Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in the last semester of her senior year in 1910. And when the sorority’s existence was threatened in 1912, she worked with incorporator Nellie Quander to take measures to ensure its survival. After the sorority was chartered as Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Jones was installed as vice president of the first board of directors (directorate).
Sarah Meriweather Nutter
Birth: Unknown - Died: 1950
Educator
Among them was joining Alpha Kappa Alpha and delivering the oration at the May 1909 Ivy Day Celebration. It has been said that some of the ivy that grows on the grounds of Howard University to this day were planted there by Meriwether, who had a penchant for planting cuttings in prevalent spots throughout the campus. Her involvement in the sorority was so strong that it induced interest in her mother Mary Robinson Meriwether, who was inducted as an honorary member in 1913.
Alice Porter Murray
Birth & Death: Unknown
Educator
Alice Porter Murray was one of the founding sophomores invited to join Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in 1909. She quickly became an integral part of the literary and social activities sponsored by the group that benefitted the members and the public.
Carrie E. Snowden
Birth: Unknown – Death: 1948
Educator
A sophomore when the sorority was founded in 1908, Carrie E. Snowden was one of those who took on the mantle of leadership as six of the original nine founders graduated that May. During the fall semester of 1909, she became the new sorority’s corresponding secretary.
Harriet Josephine Terry
Birth: 1885 – Death: 1967
Educator
She was the first of the sophomores to assume the role of president in the sorority, succeeding Lavinia Norman in the fall of 1909 after Norman, Hedgeman and Brown, the last of the original nine founders to graduate, had completed their studies in the spring.
Terry was a skilled songwriter who composed a hymn for the sorority’s first induction ceremony in 1909 that was adopted as Alpha Kappa Alpha’s national initiation hymn (not to be confused with the sorority’s National Hymn, which was penned by member J. Marjory Jackson and approved as the official sorority hymn in 1941).
