Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Celebrates 90th Anniversary In Chicago

Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Greek-letter sorority founded in America by and for Black women, recently held its 58th Boule in Chicago celebrating the organization's 90 years of community service and outreach.

At the 7-day confab, the sorority named as its 25th Supreme Basileus (national president) Norma S. White, noted music educator, administrator, and a major force in the Duval County (Jacksonville, FL) School District and community.

Retired from the Duval School District, she currently serves as part-time music supervisor and program facilitator for it.

Some 11,660 sorors attended the convention, which was held at Chicago's McCormick Place North, and took pride in this Boule's presentation of $120,000 in donations to Black organizations and educational institutions.

Among the major recipients of donations were the NAACP and UNCF, The National Council of Negro Women and AfriCare.

Keynote speaker for the 58th Boule's Public Meeting was renowned attorney Johnnie L. Cochran, and the featured entertainer for the gala confab was AKA soror and R&B legend Gladys Knight.

Among other highlights of the convention were the sorority's Congressional Town Hall Meeting, which featured U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, The AKA Career Fair and the eagerly anticipated AKA step show, hosted by comedian/actor Mark Curry, where sorority chapters from across the country competed in traditional step-line routines.

Today, there are more than 140,000 members in 870 AKA chapters in the United States, Caribbean, Germany, Korea, West Africa and England.

Annually, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority donates more than $1.5 million to various charitable groups and scholarships.