If a woman in red demands to be noticed, a thousand women in red are impossible to ignore.
At least that’s what the members of Delta Sigma Theta are counting on when they head to the Hill next week, clad in crimson and cream, to lobby their senators and representatives on the African-American sorority’s national agenda.
Don’t let the word “sorority” fool you: The Deltas won’t be pushing to lower the drinking age or fighting for their right to party. Most of the women who will attend the 20th annual four-day legislative seminar known as Delta Days at the Nation’s Capital are long out of school, and they’re coming to learn how to be effective advocates on issues like poverty, affordable housing and education.
“It’s an awesome sight to see so many black women here on the Hill,” says Nicole Williams, communications director for Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). “There’s a powerful message, I think, that black women have a place at the political table.”
Deltas such as Williams have helped make sure of that.
From Hill staffers like Williams to elected officials like Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), members of the sorority formed in 1913 by African-American women at Howard University have followed trailblazing sorors — as Delta sisters call one another — including former Reps. Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Jordan (D-Texas) and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) to become a quiet force in the nation’s capital.
Delta and the other “Divine Nine” African-American fraternities and sororities serve as built-in career networks, support systems and social clubs for many of their members in the capital, but Delta has a particular history of political action that its sorors are committed to paying forward. Its founders broke away from Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s first black sorority, at Howard in part because they wanted to be more civically engaged. Their first public action was to take part in the Women’s Suffrage March in Washington — although, because they were black, they had to march at the end of the line.
For African-American women on the Hill, the Deltas’ brand of political sisterhood is a powerful resource. “I can definitely say that, living in Washington just in general, in the political circles, it’s very exclusive,” says Velvet Johnson, counsel for the Senate Federal Financial Management Subcommittee. Being a Delta, she says, “helps in connecting to people — and not just people, but the right people in the right places.”
Shrita Sterlin, director of communications for Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), has been on the Hill less than a year. For her, the Delta network has been like a map to a maze.
“For me, when I first got on the Hill — you know, the Hill can be an interesting place,” she says. “The ceilings are tall, the hallways are wide, there are thousands of people in the building at one time, and you just are navigating through the labyrinthine processes here.”
Since then, fellow Deltas have helped her with everything from where to go to find information on a particular bill to where to go for food. It has been especially important, Sterlin says, to know that there are others around who understand her struggles — and also to “see someone on the other side that has been successful.”
Not that long ago, says Sterlin, when the barriers African-American women faced were even higher, the Delta connection was even more crucial — and less overt. “Back in the day, it was almost like an Underground Railroad network of sorts, an opportunity to be brought through and brought up,” Sterlin says.
Today’s Deltas on the Hill are freer to be loud and proud: Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), who died last year, was an outspoken Delta who made red her signature color and was buried wearing her DST pin.
They are, however, no less committed to bringing their members through.
“It’s an organization of leaders, and we expect to continue to bring leaders along,” says Fudge, herself a past national president of the sorority. “We think that’s our responsibility and our obligation.”
Fudge, who served as Tubbs Jones’ chief of staff, recalls that when she and Tubbs Jones first arrived in Washington, former secretary of labor and soror Alexis Herman held their first fundraiser. Fudge and Tubbs Jones shared an apartment but didn’t have any furniture. The Deltas brought them some. When Fudge ran for mayor back in Ohio, it was the Deltas who raised the money for her campaign. And after the loss of her friend and mentor, Fudge says, it was the Deltas who persuaded her to run for Tubbs Jones’ seat.
“We really focus on political awareness and involvement,” she says. “We talk about why it’s important to have our own members in positions of authority. And we start out by saying, ‘Anybody can run for school board or city council. Be the head of your PTA, be involved in some policymaking arena that will allow us to get our agenda out.’ So we really do try to start people at the most basic level, and then hopefully continue to move them forward.”
Those who come to Delta Days hear from experts in various issue areas — then-Sen. Hillary Clinton was among those who spoke last year — and they learn skills such as how to prepare legislation so they can help move agenda items through their city council or county government. Then they hammer out the sorority’s agenda and head to the Hill to ask their representatives how their priorities will be addressed.
When they return home, says Fudge, they are charged with sharing what they’ve learned with the rest of their chapter — and with making themselves known and their voices heard in their communities.
And when they’re in Washington, Fudge says, as long as a Delta is in her seat, “they know if they can’t be heard anyplace else, they’re going to be heard here.”
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1 comment:
I loved reading that story about our wonderful sorority. Thanks for sharing Soror!
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