okay here goes my story and I'm going to try and make it short although it's long. Before college I didn't really know too much about NPHC greeks other than the stereotypes portrayed in "School Daze." For some reason though, the stereotypes didn't phase me at all. I'm not one of those people who believes everything she sees and hears anyway...I have to find out for myself. So I never really thought that "School Daze" was realistic and the only NPHC org that I had even heard of in high school was Delta Sigma Theta and the way I found out about them is a hilarious story for another time. Anyway, I ended up going to a VERY predominately White university in upstate Pennsylvania and the only NPHC groups there were Kappa Alpha Psi and Phi Beta Sigma. There were no active NPHC sororities although there was one AKA that transferred from another school. Ironically though, even though the campus was small, the Black population was smaller, and greek life was damn near non-existent, we talked a lot about the NPHC orgs because Kappa Alpha Psi had the most members and a lot of Kappa Sweethearts. Anyway I ended up being "on court" (remember that term?) for my ex-boyfriend who was pledging Phi Beta Sigma. When he went over, I became very close to the members and they wanted myself and the other ladies who were on court to become Zetas. Even though there was no chapter of Zeta Phi Beta on the campus, they had ambitions to try and get a chapter chartered. Ironically, myself and the other ladies weren't really interested in being a part of any sorority at the time. Anyway, I ended up transferring to another predominately White university closer to my home with a much bigger Black population. They had all the NPHC orgs except for 2. I stayed in touch with the Sigmas from my previous school and since Zeta Phi Beta had a chapter at my new school, they encouraged me to check them out. I made no promises but told them that I would keep my eyes open. At this point I still hadn't made up my mind that I wanted to be greek. The first people I ran into at my new school was a girl that I went to high school with and another girl that I knew from the neighborhood I grew up in. They had become friends and I was glad to see them because I really didn't know anyone coming in as a sophomore. I also began working in the campus restaurant and became friends with a member of Sigma Gamma Rho who was a manager there. Ironically, my SGRho friend knew my friends. My SGRho friend invited us to a "Meet the Greeks" and we made our way around to every NPHC sorority table but spent the most time at the SGRho table. I remembered that I told my Phi Beta Sigma friends that I would check out their sorors so I did go over to the Zeta table but I found myself right back at the SGRho table shortly after. All the SGRho's were just friendly, cool, classy, and fly. And everybody liked them and had great things to say about them; greeks and non-greeks alike. They were also very visible with their programs and community service. I could see myself rolling with them and being able to just be myself (which was sooooo important to me). Before long they all became my friends and I was attending the rush.
As for my Phi Beta Sigma friends, they took the news about me wanting to be a Sigma Gamma Rho better than I thought and called to check on me all the time throughout my intake process and congratulated me when I became a member. They said they were happy if I was happy (yeah right!) but it was all good. Coincidentally our SGRho chapter was really close with the Sigmas at my new school so I became close to them also (It's a Sigma thang!). As for my friends from high school and the neighborhood, one of them became my ls and became a Sigma Gamma Rho with me and the other became my AKA sands. The end.
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