[Ideal08]

Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
"She said, 'Everyone will claim you. The Delta sisterhood will be with you for a lifetime.' "

"It was a trust network, and an informed network," Herman says.

Herman still remembers the senator who said to her, "Who are these Deltas? Tell them to stop calling! You've got my vote."

Think of it as a calling card: Membership in any of these sororities confers an instant acceptance within the sisterhood. You can be a stranger -- but there's a bond based on shared values, experience and expectations.

"It changes the dynamics right way," says Cora Masters Barry, former first lady of Washington and a member of the Delta National Social Action Commission. "There's an openness. If someone says 'I'm a soror,' whatever needs to happen, happens."

"No matter where I go in this country, there are members of my sorority," she says. "If they learn I'm in town, they make it their business to greet me and present me with a little token."

Sorors used to communicate by newsletters and telephones. Now they have e-mail and the Internet. It's a new-fashioned old girls network.

". . . I made a life commitment because I believe in community service, and this is the group of women with whom I choose to do it."

The sororities, says Zeta president Barbara Moore, are helping to define the issues that affect African American women and their families. "They're service sororities, not social," she says. "It's for women who are truly committed to improving the human condition."

I loved this article!!! But the above things really stood out to me.