6 minute read
Centennial Reflections
By Valerie Hollingsworth Baker
25th International Centennial President
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At 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 13, 2020, New York City subway riders at the 125th St. train station in Harlem—the city’s historic heart and soul for Black folks—got the surprise of their lives during their morning commute. About 35 Zetas in head-to-toe royal blue and white made their way down the platform chanting, shrieking in excitement and waving sorority flags and fans! I was right there making a joyful noise with them.
Our voices were insistent, powerful, proud.
“Are you Zetarized?!!” I yelled out to the sorors.
“That’s my Grand!!!!” I heard a voice in the distance shout.
Again came, “YESSS!!!”
It’s hard to faze commuters in the City That Never Sleeps as impromptu street performances are so common, but our enthusiastic band of sharply-dressed African-American women in blue got their attention.
Some stopped boarding the trains to keep watching what was happening. A lot of people taped us on their cell phones.
Others asked what was going on, thinking it might be a protest. That gave us the opening we had hoped for.
We explained that we were Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, a Black-Greek-lettered organization; that it was our 100th anniversary; and that they were meeting the sorority’s president—me, in their subway!
The 125th train station in New York City was among locations nationwide unveiling billboards and digital signage that day touting the Centennial of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. Other cities included Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta and Memphis. We even had signage at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in D.C., where Past Grand Jylla Moore Tearte, 2020 Centennial Commission Chair, led a stroll line to the “Zeta Phi Beta’s Got Soul” chant, the video of which made it onto Watch the Yard’s social media pages!
It was three days before Zeta Phi Beta would turn 100 years old on Jan. 16, 2020, and we wanted everybody to know it.
The Centennial Zeta train officially pulled out that day, Sorors!
Now that’s how you kick off a Centennial!
Grand Val helps unveil the Centennial digital signage in the 125th St. train station in Harlem.
A Movement
From the start, it was my intention that Centennial be a movement. A revolution, if you will. A movement to take it up a notch. Everything bigger, grander than had ever been done before.
In short, over the top, larger than life. That’s because, Sorors, you deserved V.I.P. treatment. You’d been ardent supporters of the sorority and our programs, some of you for a great many years.
That’s why we participated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in November, making history as the first Greek-lettered organization ever to do so, and why we recruited cultural icons Chaka Khan and Vivica A. Fox, as well as the respected Archbishop Mary Floyd Palmer and Retired Maj. Gen. Dr. Linda L. Singh, into our Sisterhood as honorary members.
I’ll let you in on a little something. This whole idea of being grandiose—of being “extra,” as they say today—in our Centennial planning came about during a 10-hour, marathon brainstorming session within three weeks of my becoming your international president.
On Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, I met with Centennial Commission Vice Chair Kim Sawyer and Event Planner Mercedes Alexander in the sun room of my office at headquarters for a strategy session. It was so bright outside when we started, but completely dark when we were done at 10:30 p.m.
But we had no time to waste. We had to hit the ground running. I was elected in July 2018 and Centennial was January 2020, a year and a half away.
Thanks to Past Grand Dr. Mary Breaux Wright and others, preliminary planning had started, but now the huge tasks ahead were arranging for entertainment and other key details of the festivities.
Going bigger and grander has meant being fearless about going after major talent. We landed a contract with the phenomenal A-List singer Mary J. Blige to headline our Centennial/Boulé in June 2020.
Grand Val cheers as she marches into Zeta’s Founders’ Centennial celebration at Howard University.
We can forever be proud of that, even though global conditions ultimately put a hold on large gatherings.
Acting big has meant enlisting a top-notch public relations firm used by the stars that helped us secure interviews with radio, television, newspaper and online news outlets to get the word out about our sorority’s milestone year, as well as ensure our billboards and other marketing was of superior quality.
So, even in the face of the pandemic, we have been able to keep getting before audiences with whom we could share our story.
I must thank Branding Director Kendra Hatcher King for her incredible contacts and for spearheading our messaging, keeping our eyes always on those things that are “newsworthy and noteworthy” so people want to hear us.
Kept Momentum High
We never took our feet off the gas pedal, Sorors. We kept the Centennial momentum high through the very end.
We got the party started with your legendary 100th Anniversary Founders’ Weekend Celebration in January 2020, held over several days in Washington, D.C. that will go down in the books for its unprecedented breadth, excellence, and elegance, complete with time spent at Howard University, where it all began.
It concluded with a bang: On Jan. 15, 2021, we reactivated our chapter in Monrovia, Liberia after years of dormancy due to civil war. It was so important because, as you know, that’s where we made history in 1949 as the first sorority to charter a chapter on the African continent.
Our Centennial year saw two streets named after our Founders during our Centennial year, one in Philadelphia for Triumphant Founder Arizona Cleaver Stemons and one in Brooklyn, N.Y. for Triumphant Founder Fannie Pettie Watts. Both had ties to those cities, where they worked and founded graduate chapters.
And soon, hopefully, the street on which headquarters sits in Washington, D.C., will be renamed Zeta Phi Beta Way! ‘Still Our Centennial’
I am immensely pleased that we found creative ways to fund our Centennial activities without imposing a membership tax.
We utilized a combination of corporate sponsorships, vendor fees, visionary giving, anthology sales and royalties from Centennial paraphernalia.
Sorors, we can look back fondly on our Centennial as that movement, that revolution that quickened our hearts to a fever pitch for our beloved Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, a fever so high it’ll carry us into the next century!
I want everyone to remember that, while the corona virus made the past year one of the most difficult times in our lives, we were resilient. We made it through. We never gave up.
The June Boulé didn’t happen for us, but we did have a virtual one in the fall—and the world knew it was still our Centennial.
We had the right people in place who shared the same vision: high-capacity leaders like Past Grand Tearte, Kim Sawyer, Kendra Hatcher King, and the rest of the Centennial Commission, plus countless others whose work was evident in all that was done to immortalize our Centennial year!
I had a close relationship with Triumphant Founder Fannie Pettie Watts toward her later years. All the while I planned our Centennial year, I was guided with the thought of trying to please her. I would hope that, was she alive, she would say: “Good job. Well done.”
