Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

If they were still alive today, which Founder would you like to meet. Additionally, if anyone has met one of our Founders, please share.

Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

Great question! I would love and be humbly honored and blessed to meet all 22 if I could. But If I could meet just 1 it would have to be Soror Madree Penn White, she was the inspiration behind our beloved sorority. She was and still is the epitome of a strong determined hard working women, that didn't let race or gender stop her from achieving.

Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

I am honored to say that I met, chatted with and had my picture taken with with Founder Bertha Pitts Campbell at the 75th Anniversary convention in San Francisco.

I also am extremely blessed to have attended the 100th birthday party of Founder Naomi Sewell Richardson along with my mother and daughter. I presented her a gift on behalf of the Midwest Region and she engaged my daughter (who was an Alpha Chapter neo at the time) in a conversation about Howard University.

I would have liked to have met Madree Penn White. The second best thing is knowing her daughter Grace White Ware, a member of Greater Cleveland Alumnae, and hearing first hand stories about her mother.

Wow...I'm jealous!
 

LadyGreek,
I'm jealous that you had a chance to meet such powerful founders! I'd have to agree with others when they say Soror Madree Penn White...I'd love to sit and chat with her and also say "thank you" for her inspiring to create Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

All of our founders were powerful women! Phenomenal women of DST!!

If I couldn't meet them all, I'd love to meet Madree Penn White, Edna Brown Coleman. and Myra Davis Hemmings.

Sorors Madree Penn White and Myra Davis Hemmings.

I'd have to say Soror Madree Penn White because I am an aspiring Writer/Journalist and she was a leader in that field, also her initiative to found our illustrious organization is enough to want to meet her also.

I would also wat to meet Osceola Macarthy Adams because of her involvement in the arts something else I love as much as writing.

I know the thread said 'Founders', but I would really LOVE to meet Soror Sadie TM Alexander, our first National President. She took Soror White's vision and built on Soror Hemmings' foundation to expand our distinguished sorority around the country and across the globe. Truly awesome!

Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

Like most of the replies, I'd like to meet Founder Madree Penn White. She's the Delta Founder who intrigues me the most - I'm sure if she were alive, she'd just love to participate in Delta Days at the Nation's Capitol. When I think of her, the word COURAGE always comes to mind...CHANGE is COURAGEOUS.

I'd also LOVE to have a sit down with Founder Edna Brown Coleman and hear her position on the relationship between Delta and Omega Psi Phi, also known as the "Coleman Love" phenomenon. (oops, am I allowed to say that here, LOL).

Finally, I'd love to meet Founder Florence Letcher Toms and ask her about her elephant collection. Silly I know, but hey, this is FantasyLand, right?

Those Dynamic Sensational Tenacious 22
 

One of the things I enjoyed most about ISOS was reading about the founders. The women all seemed so likeable as well take charge. Their impact was immense not just on the campus of Howard University and Delta Sigma Theta, but within the world.

I would want to meet Soror Bertha Pitts Campbell because I found it funny that we were both small busted women. I know this might seem :eek: ish to you all.

I would also want to meet Sorors Zephyr Chisom Carter and Naomi Sewell Richardson because I think they might have made me a member of the Dust Club. FYI the Dust Club was for women who were unable to attract suitable boyfriends.

I would have wanted to also meet Soror Jessie McGuire Dent because she attended one of the first Black high schools in Texas and I am an alumnus of the only Black suburban high school in Cleveland.

I would have wanted to meet Soror Mamie Reddy Rose since she hails from Beta, South Carolina and both of my paternal grandparents were from Gaffney, South Carolina.

Having served in several leadership positions, Soror Myra Davis Hemmings and I would have to meet.

Soror Pauline Oberdorfer Minor and I share a love of gospel music since we both grew up singing in the church choir.

Having pantomined "Dream Variation" by Langston Hughes in the third grade, I would want to meet Sorors Osceola Macarthy Adams, Winona Cargile Alexander, and Madree Penn White.

Finally as a teacher, I would want to meet all of the soror founders who became teachers -- Sorors Naomi Sewell Richardson, Wertie B. Weaver, Olive Jones, Vashti Turley Murphy, Eliza P. Shippen, and Pauline Oberdorfer Minor.

I would love to meet Osceola Mcarthy Adams. I would want to know what it was like to be a black performer during that time in history, and what made her decide to choose that career field given the racial climate at that time.

Nubian

I would like to meet Soror Olive Jones because she's not among the "big name" Founders like Sorors Penn White, Letcher Toms, and Brown Coleman are.

I had the pleasure of meeting and taking pictures of - and with - Sorors Osceola Macarthy Adams, Winona Cargile Alexander, Bertha Pitts Campbell, and Naomi Sewell Richardson between 1981 and 1992....

My most memorable moment was in '81, in DC, marching down Pennsylvania Avenue with Soror Campbell... she insisted that the limousine that was designated to CARRY her down the street FOLLOW her down the street... and our National President at the time, Mona H. Bailey (who had presided at my initiation!), had to endure that walk in HEELS!!! (haha).. Soror Campbell is also featured in "Roses & Revolutions", reciting "For My People", a poem by one of my favorite JSU instructors, Margaret Walker Alexander... so I guess I have a strong "attachment" to her.

She was not a founder, but Soror Lillian P. Benbow lit the spark that made me KNOW that I would be a Delta. If you ever heard her speak, you'd never forget her, especially since she had a commanding voice and one of the BAAADEST Afros I'd ever seen. She visited Fisk my freshman year and I was HOOKED....

Ditto
 

I agree with you about Lillian Benbow. As a 1 month old neo, still in college, I was invited to visit with her in HER ROOM at a regional conference. She wanted to hear about my experience as a pledge because she was going to crack down on hazing. From that point on, every time I saw her at a convention or conference she always stopped to acknowledge me by name. She was definitely the second biggest Delta influence (after my mother of course) in my life.

Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

So very true, I would love to have Founder Edna Brown Coleman tell us what I suspect is the truth; that Omega did not "help" to found Delta Sigma Theta and we are not their "Sorors"! (...Still looking for this in ISOS!)

As for the other Founders I would have been honored to meet them all, but especially, I would have liked to have met Founder Bertha Pitts Campbell and Founder Naomi Sewell Richardson, since they lived the longest. They could have given us the best perspective of Delta througout the years. And from what I've heard they were pretty feisty too!!:)

Re: Those Dynamic Sensational Tenacious 22
 

Re: Re: Those Dynamic Sensational Tenacious 22
 

i agree w/you wholeheartedly. from the history i've learned and from talking w/older sorors, very little is known about her, after graduation, w/the exception that she was a music teacher.

I was blessed to be able to see Founders Osceloa Mc Carthy Adam, Betha Pitts Campbell and Naomi Sewell Richardson, when I was a delagate attenting the 37th National Convention in Detroit. I remember at the closing banquet, the Soror Founders were kidding that they were the only Deltas with two sorority pins, AKA and Delta Sigma Theta. Their comments brought the house down. At one Founders' Day luncheon I was able to get Founder Adam's autograph on the program. And sadly to say, a little while later I attened her Omega Omega cereomony.
One soror I truely would have loved to meet was Barbara Jordan. Soror Jordan had such a presents and a voice that it just sent shivers down my spine to hear her speak. :)

Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

Have you read "Shaped to it's Purpose" - I've only skimmed it, not for that purpose, but there might be something there or a lack of that reference may answer your question!

Re: Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

I'll check it out.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

I have read Shaped to Its Purpose twice; I don't recall any specific mention of Omega in it. This book disappointed me in that while it covered the first 50 years of Delta history, very little time was spent on the early days (ie first 10 years of existence).

Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

Where can you find that book? I would like to read it to use it as a supplement to ISOS.

Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

I believe it is out of print and can only be ordered from National HQ.

HE WAS SO KOLD.
 

I would loved to have met PAUL W....

Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

There is a taped and written interview with your last living Founder which details the depth of the relationship between Delta and Omega and it contravenes your "suspicions". Talk to an older member of the Sigma chapter of DST and you may be surprised at what you hear.

The Most Honorable Founder Edgar A. Love had great things to say about Madree Penn White and Sadie Alexander as well as his girlfriend who was a founding member.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

So far, I hearing about the personal interrelationships between the Founders of Omega and Delta. I have read ISOS and Shaped to Its Purpose and neither document references Omega "helping" to Found DST, which is what at least 2 people have tried to tell me in the past. That is the issue I have and I don't think my suspicions would be unfounded. (no pun intended) I don't dispute the Founders of the two organizations were close to each other personally.

This thread is about which Founder my sorors/and others would like to meet, so unless you wish to state which of my Founder's you would like to meet, you can PM me with any further comments.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

I'd like to meet the ladies who had the favor of my Founders Love and Coleman. Then they could tell me why I am so smitten with Delta women.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

GOOD ANSWER!

That's because they knew intelligence and beauty when the saw it!:)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Which Founder would you like to meet?
 

Doggy, please define older for me (so I will know what age person I should ask) and tell me why it should be an alumnae of Sigma chapter in Atl. Thanks

TTT
 

This was a great topic. Sorors and Interests, keep your answers coming.

I would like to meet Osceola Macarthy Adams and Marguerite Young Alexander, who also founded my chapter...Magnificent Lambda Chapter, on the campus of the University of Chicago, where I graduated from in June of 2001. :D

If I were granted the opportunity to meet any founder, I would like to meet Osceola Macarthy Adams. I am interested in what it was like to be one of the first African-American women to perform on Broadway. I am interested in knowing the many obstacles she had to overcome and ways she dealt with everything that was going on in her day. I also would ask her what aspect of Delta she feels needs the most work or what is more distant from the ideas she and the other founders had when they founded the organization.

It has taken me awhile to decide which one of your illustrious founders I would really want to meet. Of course it would be a pleasure to meet all of them but Myra Davis Hemmings is the "one" founder I would like to meet and chat with. Before the founding of Delta Myra Davis Hemmings was the president of Alpha Kappa Alpha. I think that it would be interesting to hear her account of the dissatification the group had for the sorority, as well as her own personal account as the president of such an organization that wasn't favorable to the members. I just want to know how she came to gripps with the fact that something needed to be done and just how she reacted to Madree Penn White's ideas to change the name, motto, color, and flower. I think that would have been a bit much to take in, even though they all new a change was needed.

This is difficult because I would want to meet all of your founders, but, if I had to narrow it down it would be:

Winona Cargile Alexander - She contributed much to the welfare
of others here in Florida.

Vashti Turley Murphy -I had an opportunity to hear her
granddaughter Bishop Vashti Murphy
Mckenzie speak.:D Powerful!!!

Edith Motte Young -She was an effective educator.

not a founder but....
 

I would have done anything to meet Sadie TM Alexander... She is my idle. I ran across her name about 10 years ago when I was in high school. I went to a high school that did not have many African Americans, and when I told my advisor (who was black) that I was thinking about being a lawyer, she wanted me to have a black woman to look up to and admire and she gave me her name. I looked her up, and knew from her strength and conviction that I could do it! She was the first black woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania (an Ivy League School) with a law degree and PhD and the first in the country. She changed Penn and black women in law as we know it.

I have worked hard to achieve my dreams and in the fall I will be attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School. I thank her for her inspiration....

ttt

I'd have loved to meet:

Vashti Turley Murphy because she seemed like such a spiritual woman (not that the others weren't), Olive Jones (cuz there's not a lot of info out about her), Madree Penn White & Osceola McCarthy Adams (to find out how they went about shaking everything up with the AKAs), and I'd also love to hear stories from Ethel Cuff Black & Bertha Pitts Campbell, about the initial rivalry, the "discussions" they must have had with the campus "bosses" about the founding.

Dang, y'all, I wanna just sit in the center of ALL of 'em and be like : Oooh, y'all, tell me EVERYTHING!!! :D

Erratic

I would like to meet all 22 Amazing Founders of DST. To hear from them what their driving force was in 1913 against all odds and at such a young age. I would be awestruck!

Well
 

This one is hard But ..I would like to meet Soror Vashti Turley Murphy simply becasue I have the honor of having her great granddaughter as my LS!!

I agree 1000%!!!!! I would like to meet them all!!!!