Which DST Founder would you like to meet?

12dn94dst · #1 03-17-2002, 12:29 AM

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

Reds6 · #2 03-17-2002, 12:03 PM

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.

Quote:

Originally posted by 12dn94dst
If they were still alive today, which Founder would you like to meet. Additionally, if anyone has met one of our Founders, please share.

ladygreek · #3 03-17-2002, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by 12dn94dst
If they were still alive today, which Founder would you like to meet. Additionally, if anyone has met one of our Founders, please share.

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.

JJSP01 · #4 03-18-2002, 11:18 AM

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!!

pebbles_6 · #5 03-18-2002, 06:13 PM

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

c&c1913 · #6 03-18-2002, 11:04 PM

Sorors Madree Penn White and Myra Davis Hemmings.

CrimsonAngel2001 · #7 03-19-2002, 01:21 AM

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.

mccoyred · #8 03-19-2002, 09:16 AM

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!

Three_Love · #9 03-19-2002, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by 12dn94dst
If they were still alive today, which Founder would you like to meet. Additionally, if anyone has met one of our Founders, please share.

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?

CrimsonTide4 · #10 03-19-2002, 04:23 PM

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

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.

Nubian · #11 03-19-2002, 04:45 PM

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

12dn94dst · #12 03-19-2002, 05:20 PM

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.

BeeJae · #13 03-20-2002, 05:36 AM

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....

ladygreek · #14 03-20-2002, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BeeJae

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....

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.

Virtual Violet · #15 03-23-2002, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Three_Love

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).

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!!