Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Much has been made about the role of Black women in the 2024 election, but this is not a new thing. In February 1913, before women’s right to vote was added to the U.S. Constitution, Nelly M. Quander, a Black woman, Howard University graduate, and then-president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., engaged pointedly with the women’s suffrage movement. We know about this little corner of history from a letter that is displayed in the National Archives. Ms. Quander’s letter was part request, part protest. She implored Alice Paul, chair of the women’s suffrage parade, to permit the college women of Howard University to participate in the women’s suffrage procession without being relegated to a demeaning position in the procession because of their race. It was her second letter on the topic, the first having been ignored. 1913 was also the year of the founding of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. The members of Delta Sigma Theta joined that suffrage procession.
From 1955 to 1956, the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycotts credited with desegregating buses in Montgomery, were organized by Black women on the ground in Montgomery years before the 13-month protest. Later, Alpha Kappa Alpha was one of 89 organizations that formed the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, lobbying for the successful passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as organizing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The keynote speaker of that march, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the first fraternity for Black college men.
Fast forward to 1983, and Howard University students took the walk to the Washington Monument to recreate the March on Washington 20 years later. These college marchers were born around the same time as the original march. They would go on to protest apartheid and advocate for continued access to the American Dream. This was the era in which Vice President Kamala Harris attended Howard University, joined Alpha Kappa Alpha and went on to attend law school.
Organizing and acting collectively is a survival skill developed over the course of the Black experience in the United States. When Vice President Harris was named to the 2020 presidential ticket of Joe Biden, Black women were among the first to utilize their considerable grassroots ground game to garner support for the ticket, newly energized with a woman who embodied the promises of the March on Washington and all that came before. Harris was recognizable to us immediately as a product of the HBCU experience and the Divine 9. We knew what she stood for intuitively, and we knew she would need our help. Words like “service” and “helping” are built into the missions of our organizations. So too, is the word “excellence.” When we see excellence, we come running to lift it up. In Vice President Harris, we see a woman who played by the rules of hard work and accountability even when the rules were unwritten and definitely did not favor a Black woman. Her series of firsts belongs to us all. They tell us that we, too, are worthy. We, too, are Americans. They tell the story of our diaspora and our American origin story.
While five of the Divine 9 organizations are over 100 years old and boast hundreds of thousands of members each, the broader American culture is only now starting to regard them as more than a curious corner of their college campuses. Vice President Harris’ amplification of her sorority as her source of strength and inspiration and the success that has flowed from her experiences has brought them into the full view of the mainstream. The fact that these organizations have large and active post-graduate chapters makes them a ready collection of civically engaged influencers in their communities. These college-educated community members also have financial resources to support candidates. The combination of clear-eyed, mission-oriented organizing and the financial strength of the post-segregation generation has created the environment in which a Vice President and potentially President Harris can not only exist but win the highest office in America.
Jill B. Louis is a Dallas attorney and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. line sister to VP Kamala Harris.