Aka founders day

How it works

Founders Day here is a Greek-letter anniversary, not a U.S. federal holiday and not daylight saving time. AKA means Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. DST means Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Searches for dst founders day, founders day dst, and founder day aka are the same family of January dates at Howard University in Washington, D.C. They are two organisations and two mornings. Do not merge 13 January and 15 January. Do not merge either date with the March clock change that also abbreviates as DST in other tabs.

Chapters keep the days with rededication, services, history hours, and service projects. Universities and cities sometimes issue greetings. Howard University itself posts Founders Day messages for both sororities on their dates. Those greetings do not close the federal government. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a separate federal Monday in January. In some years it sits near these anniversaries. It is still a different legal object. A workplace that is closed for King Day is not closed “for AKA.”

Membership rites, colours, and chapter events belong to the organisations’ own rules. This page dates the foundings. It does not admit anyone, sell a shield, or list every chapter banquet. If a flyer says “Founders’ Day weekend,” read which letters are on the flyer. Pink and green are AKA. Crimson and cream are DST. The wrong colour on a graphic is how January gets scrambled.

January 15 is AKA

Alpha Kappa Alpha was founded on 15 January 1908 in Miner Hall at Howard University. It is the first Greek-letter sorority established by African American college-educated women. Ethel Hedgemon Lyle led the effort. The nine founders were Anna Easter Brown, Beulah Burke, Lillie Burke, Marjorie Hill, Margaret Flagg Holmes, Ethel Hedgemon Lyle, Lavinia Norman, Lucy Diggs Slowe, and Marie Woolfolk Taylor. Seven sophomores of the class of 1910 were invited without initiation and are also honoured as founders: Norma Boyd, Ethel Jones Mowbray, Alice Murray, Sarah Meriweather Nutter, Joanna Berry Shields, Carrie Snowden, and Harriet Terry. The sorority counts sixteen founders in that combined sense.

Incorporation came later, on 29 January 1913, under Nellie Quander with Norma Boyd and Minnie Smith among the incorporators, so the organisation would outlive one campus chapter. Founders Day remains 15 January 1908, not the incorporation morning. Official colours are salmon pink and apple green. The motto in the historical materials is “By merit and by culture.” Ivy Leaf is the journal begun in 1921. None of those facts is a public holiday. They are how members recognise the date.

15 January 1908: Alpha Kappa Alpha founded at Howard; AKA Founders Day. 29 January 1913: AKA incorporated in the District of Columbia. 13 January 1913: Delta Sigma Theta founded at Howard; DST Founders Day.

March 1913: DST’s first public act, participation in the Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington, D.C. Federal holiday: neither date. King Day is a different January mark. Founders Day is a chapter date, not a federal Monday. Do not file AKA, DST, and daylight saving under one abbreviation.

January 13 is DST

Delta Sigma Theta was founded on 13 January 1913 by twenty-two collegiate women at Howard. Some had been members of AKA’s Alpha chapter. They wanted a national body aimed at public service and political work, including a name change the graduate members of AKA rejected. The twenty-two left and organised Delta Sigma Theta. Myra Davis Hemmings, who had been AKA chapter president, became DST’s first president. Nearly two months later, on 3 March 1913, the new sorority marched in the Woman Suffrage Procession, with Mary Church Terrell among those who walked with them. Incorporation of Delta Sigma Theta came in 1930. Founders Day stays 13 January.

The twenty-two names are part of the day’s speech: Osceola Macarthy Adams, Marguerite Young Alexander, Winona Cargile Alexander, Ethel Cuff Black, Bertha Pitts Campbell, Zephyr Chisom Carter, Edna Brown Coleman, Jessie McGuire Dent, Frederica Chase Dodd, Myra Davis Hemmings, Olive Jones, Jimmie Bugg Middleton, Pauline Oberdorfer Minor, Vashti Turley Murphy, Naomi Sewell Richardson, Mamie Reddy Rose, Eliza P. Shippen, Florence Letcher Toms, Ethel Carr Watson, Wertie Blackwell Weaver, Madree Penn White, and Edith Motte Young. A Founders Day program that cannot say 13 January for DST and 15 January for AKA has mixed the Howard week. Keep the mornings separate. Keep daylight saving out of the room.