Founded Wednesday, January 15, 1908 on the campus of Howard University in Washington, DC, in Miner Hall, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated is an international service organization. It is the oldest Greek-letter organization founded and established by African American college-educated women. Alpha Kappa Alpha is an exemplary organization founded on a legacy of sisterhood, scholarship and service. 

 

Howard University co-ed Ethel Hedgeman Lyle dreamed of creating a support network for women with like minds coming together for mutual uplift, and coalescing their talents and strengths for the benefit of others.  In 1908, her vision crystallized as Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Negro Greek-letter sorority.  Five years later (1913), lead incorporator Nellie Quander ensured Alpha Kappa Alpha’s perpetuity through incorporation in the District of Columbia. 

Together with eight other coeds at the mecca for Negro education, Hedgeman crafted a design that not only fostered interaction, stimulation, and ethical growth among members; but also provided hope for the masses.  From the core group of nine at Howard, AKA has grown into a force of more than 280,000 collegiate members and alumnae, constituting more than 980 chapters in 42 states, the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Germany, Africa, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and on the continent of Africa.

Because they believed that Negro college women represented “the highest—more education, more enlightenment, and more of almost everything that the great mass of Negroes never had" — Hedgeman and her cohorts worked to honor what she called “an everlasting debt to raise them (Negroes) up and to make them better.” For more than a century, the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sisterhood has fulfilled that obligation by becoming an indomitable force for good in their communities, state, nation, and the world.