[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by ThetaDancer

Oh ok I found it! Sorry I got distracted because I was seriously interested in the fact that DST made it an organization-wide cause.

And the answer to your question is "no" Inspired by this thread, I looked in my copy of "Bound By a Mighty Vow" and learned that Kappa Alpha Theta never took an official position on suffrage. To be honest, it was actually a divisive issue for our sorority because there were women who were extremely passionate about women's right to vote, while there were also women who thought that it was "unwomanly" to protest, speak out, etc. Theta didn't want to alienate members...so they never took an official position.

I think Thetas have been pioneers for women in so many ways, but I was a bit disappointed and surprised to find out that we didn't officially support women's right to vote. I sincerely have a great deal of respect and admiration for your organization for making it such an important cause...that took a great deal of courage.

ETA: It was honestly sort of hard for me to come to terms with the fact that Theta resisted taking a stance because it might "look bad" because...I love and respect Kappa Alpha Theta so much, but I also love voting, and it's hard for me to fully grasp that they wouldn't stand up for women's rights. I know it's a product of the times, but it's really difficult for me to imagine that women would be so concerned with image and with being proper that they would not want to VOTE.

Thank you for your candid response. I think it brings what the other NPC ladies have said about the NPC agenda during this time in even greater perspective.

Originally Posted by aopirose

In my materials for AOII, which are not extensive by any means, I cannot say that we were not involved on an organizational-level basis. The suffrage movement was a discussion topic at our 1910 convention, but that's all it says. A bit more is written about one of our founders, Jessie Wallace Hughan. She was a determined political and social activist and even ran for U.S. Senate in 1924. Our first national philanthropy was adopted in 1906 to aid the National Committee on the Abolition of Child Labor.

Great info. Thanks. Is there a book (non-GLO specific) where this kind of info can be accessed? I would love to own such a book and pass it on to affiliated and nonaffiliated men and women. I know a lot of info won't be discussed in such a book but it's always good to be reminded and give credit where it is due.

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

I will! I think more and more, it's too easy for young women (and heck, old women) to forget how long and how hard women had to fight. March being Women's History Month, this discussion is particularly apropos.

The women's rights movement did cross efforts with the civil rights movment, but as DSTCHAOS mentioned in a later post, how much parity came out of it for caucasian vs. african american women is up for debate. Clearly, African American women face additional discriminations based solely on their skin color.

To the NPC/NPHC debate (LOL at Senusret he's just determined to have a full-on "race war" somewhere on this forum!), I think what you'll find in the history of NPCs are individual members who may have been active in the women's movement (ala my girl H.E. Butterfield), but working on behalf of the movement was not on the agenda of the NPC orgs themselves. Our founders, though, without a doubt, were pioneers on their campuses and did their own thing to promote women in their time and place.

NPHC orgs seem to have a much higher level involvement as a whole with the rights movements, so while I don't think it's necessarily an apples to oranges thing, I do think there are much different national directives about the role the national org should take in these larger national "causes".

Some interesting reads that provide info. on most of the above:
A Short History of the Women's Movement: http://www.legacy98.org/move-hist.html -- about halfway down, under "The Movement Expands", notable activists are named, among them are Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell , the only 2 black women to sign the petition that led to the formation of the NAACP, and just overall kick-a$$ ladies. And here's an article from a 2002 edition of Black Issues in Higher Education entitled Did black folks gain from the women's movement?

Thanks, cyberpal. I agree with everything you said, except I wasn't prepared to conclude that the NPHC sororities, as a whole, had a greater level of involvement at the macro level. I didn't know if that was true.

Thanks for posting these links and reminding me that I need to clean out my office so I can find these sources. If I run into other great sources in this office chaos, I'll post them in a Women's History thread or something. I know that not everyone cares about these types of topics but those who do should definitely fuel their knowledge of it.