IN SEARCH OF SISTERHOOD: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement

by Paul Giddings ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 15, 1988

A long-winded history of a black sorority as it celebrates its 75th anniversary. Delta Sigma Theta was founded in 1913 by 22 unusually bright and energetic young women who broke away from Howard University's only sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. From its beginnings, DST stressed scholarship and social issues over dancing and dating: shortly after its founding, members marched in the 1913 women's suffrage parade in D.C. (In that Jim Crow period, these black marchers were placed at the rear rather than behind the banners of their home states.) For a number of years, DST's primary goal was to establish chapters in other universities, especially in the North and West, where blacks were denied dormitory rooms and eating facilities. These new chapters also served as a lobbying force against campus discrimination. From the mid-20's to the present, DST has espoused full integration of blacks and, over the years, has fought for federal antilynch legislation, equal (rather than higher) insurance rates for blacks, civil-rights and full-employment legislation, etc. It also foreshadowed Johnson's Great Society laws in calling for job training and assistance for blacks displaced from defense jobs after WW II, and funded mobile libraries in the rural South. Individual chapters also espoused needed social projects, e.g., a halfway house for young Detroit women released from prison. A former Delta member herself, Giddings (When and Where I Enter, 1984) offers a repetitive, frequently convoluted prose larded with minutia. But this will probably not discourage past and present Delta members, as well as specialists in black women's history, from boring through her turgid pages.

Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION