Happy 90th Birthday, Sigma Gamma Rho!

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Seven young women who were educators founded Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. on November 12, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. About six weeks later, on December 30, 1929, a charter was granted to the Alpha chapter at Butler University making the organization a national college sorority. It is the only one of the National PanHellenic Conference sororities not founded at Howard University, site of the Alpha chapters of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, and Zeta Phi Beta.


Sigma Gamma Rho’s founders are Nannie Mae Gahn Johnson, Mary Lou Allison Little, Vivian White Marbury, Bessie M. Downey Martin, Cubena McClure, Hattie Mae Dulin Redford, and Dorothy Hanley Whiteside.

Among the founding members of the Los Angeles chapter, when it was established in July 1939, was actress Hattie McDaniel, pictured above. Her role as “Mammy” in Gone With the Wind earned her an Academy Award. She was the first African American woman to win the award. She was also the first African American woman to sing on the radio in America. She has been honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for her contributions to radio and the other for her contributions to motion pictures. In 2006, she became the first African American Academy Award winner to be honored with a U.S. postage stamp.


McDaniel died from breast cancer in 1952 at the age of 57. Her sorority created the Hattie McDaniel Cancer Awareness and Health Program in her honor. Its mission is to provide education and support of early detection of breast, prostate, ovarian, colon and other cancers as well as research for prevention of the cancers.