FROM THE PRESIDENT

BY KELLY MCGINNIS BECK, EK , NATIONAL PRESIDENT

This past June, Vice President Jessica Bridwell Wright, ZP, and I traveled to Indianapolis and spent several days at national headquarters with Executive Director Krystal Geyer Slivinski, GR, digging through the archives to better understand our past. The learnings we uncovered will be shared in a future Phoenix article. It was an intense weekend as we poured through boxes of reports and correspondence. We enjoyed reading about how national council meetings in the 1960s were held in person for one week each year while the rest of the year work was done through written correspondence. How different times are now!

There was a lot of correspondence with Mrs. Sharp, as well as letters written between officers referencing the health of Fred and Wilma Sharp. It seems very few important decisions were made without first consulting Mrs. Sharp for her opinion. We also uncovered correspondence that was both disheartening and difficult to read. Written letters that referenced the intentional barring of Black women from membership, and others like the one that referenced the university closure of a chapter due to the suspicion of homosexuality among members. It was disappointing to read these documents, especially by members we have come to highly regard within Alpha Sigma Alpha.

As I reflected on these communications from the 1950s and 60s, I was also struck by how progressive our collegiate women were during that time, advocating to welcome non-white members into our sisterhood. Some members terminated their memberships because of the lack of inclusivity. I was equally struck at how concerned, and in some instances fearful, the alumnae were to see their beloved sorority change with the times. But change we did, with the initiation of a Black woman as a founding member of the Gamma Iota Chapter at Rochester Institute of Technology. How many amazing women did we miss the opportunity to initiate into our membership because we were fearful of change? We will never know.

We read how in the early 1960s the Gamma Delta Chapter at Queens College, NY repeatedly asked the national council to initiate their advisor, Miss Keturah W. Cox, only to be discouraged time and again because she was Black. If she were alive today, I would extend to her our deepest and most sincere apologies, as well as an invitation to membership. She was a dedicated advisor before they were installed as an Alpha Sigma Alpha chapter and for many years after. Despite the discrimination she encountered from our organization she continued to ensure our sorority provided a meaningful experience to members. We are forever grateful for her dedication and service to Alpha Sigma Alpha.

We also uncovered information regarding our first Recognition of Eminence Award recipient (1952), Ethel J. Alpenfels, BB. Ethel was an anthropologist, a “collector of people” as she describes it. Copies of her book, “Sense and Nonsense about Race,” can be found in our archives. As I read through this book, published in 1965, I couldn’t ignore the fact that some of the comments and questions she posed back then are still relevant in our conversations today. There are two sections that I would like to share here with all of you.

In Chapter 4 Race and Culture Are Not The Same: “Why Are Cultures So Different?” …The fundamental fact is that culture is learned, not inherited biologically…Why then did Northern Europeans suddenly spurt forward to places of leadership? The most important reason is that they did not hesitate to borrow freely the inventions of others…The early colonists who came to the United States and Canada brought with them all the inventions then known in Europe…Immigrants, some forty million of them since the Revolutionary War, have made their varied contributions to every phrase of life in the United States, their adopted homeland.

Today, through the inventive genius of individuals and the cooperation of superior members of all stocks, races, and national groups, the United States and Canada are advanced in technological development and in their standard of living…The thing to remember is that the centers of culture have moved many times in the past. Mesopotamia, India, China, Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire were temporarily leaders of civilization. If our nation is to survive, we must learn one lesson that these nations did not learn – that with leadership goes responsibility.

In our modern day we need the contributions of individuals from every race. The technical giant that we have created makes our actions, our values, and our beliefs all the more important. Modern means of communication make it possible to report the slightest indecent in race relations to the most remote corner of the earth.

In Chapter 5 Face the Facts: “We Have No Race Problem in Our Town”

Today, there are few towns in the United States where nonwhite citizens can escape the indignities of racial discrimination in one form or another. In towns north of the

Mason-Dixon Line, it is true, there is no legal segregation and many communities have made positive efforts to foster good relationships. But in many subtle ways, segregation is a northern as well as a southern problem. We segregate in large cities such as New York or Chicago with residential ghettos that hem people both in and out. We segregate the children in schools through zoning laws that keep social and economic groups together. Perhaps the cruelest segregation of all is that we segregate by indifference and say, “We have no race problem in our town.” …In all our towns we shall begin to solve our problems only when we dare to bring them out into the open and examine them together. There are no panaceas, no ready solutions for all the dynamic and explosive problems that surround race relations. We begin to solve them when we take a realistic and world-wide view, when we begin to set in motion a constructive program of action to improve race relations at every level in our community and national life.

There are those who say this can’t be done. But man has changed the physical world in which he lives. One needs only to look around to see that this is so. Cannot man also change his dealings with his fellow man? Is it not possible to break through human barriers and teach every man to feel and understand and appreciate the human potential of all men?

You who read this pamphlet may be either part of the problem or part of the solution. How much longer will each of us have a choice?

Ethel wrote these words over 50 years ago and I can’t help but wonder what she would think today. Progress has certainly been slow, but in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, we have seen an awakening and a commitment to improving the world around us, for all people. Certainly, within Alpha Sigma Alpha, we have strengthened our focus on inclusivity and a sense of belonging. Each of us must be part of the solution to build a better world for those who come after us. In another 50 years, I hope members will read Ethel’s words and they will describe a past that is truly in the past.

In Alpha Sigma Alpha,

KELLY MCGINNIS BECK, EK NATIONAL PRESIDENT @ASAKELLYM

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