Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, the first Greek-letter organization for African-American women, was founded on January 15, 1908 by nine young female Howard University students. They were led by the vision of Ethel Hedgeman (Lyle); she had spent several months sharing her idea with her friends. During this time, she was dating her future husband, George Lyle, a charter member of the Beta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha.
After choosing a name for their sorority, the nine women wrote a constitution and a motto. Additionally, they chose salmon pink and apple green as the sorority’s colors and ivy as its symbol. A group of seven sophomore women were invited to become members. They did not partake in an initiation ceremony and all 16 women are considered founders. The first “Ivy Week” took place in May 1909 and ivy was planted at Howard University’s Miner Hall. On January 29, 1913, Alpha Kappa Alpha was incorporated.
Maudelle Tanner Brown Bousfield
Maudelle Tanner Brown Bousfield was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 1, 1885, where her parents were educators. She graduated from Summer High School and the Charles Kunkel Conservatory of Music. In 1903, she became the first African American woman to study at the University of Illinois. There were four Black male students when she enrolled and they would spend Sundays together at one of the African American churches, Bousfield later recalled.
A talented musician, Bousfield played piano and tutored math to earn money to pay for school. The tutoring gig brought in 15 cents an hour. While her desire was to major in astronomy, she was talked out of it because she had two strikes against her – race and sex – in the male dominated field. She studied mathematics and astronomy and graduated with honors in three years. She was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Illinois. That year, 1906, she began teaching math in East St. Louis, Illinois. She then moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she taught math at Frederick Douglass High School.
From the Illio yearbook
In the fall of 1914, she married Dr. Midian O. Bousfield and they moved to Chicago. Daughter Maudelle was born in 1915. Mrs. Bousfield spent seven years at home taking care of her daughter.
In 1922, she returned to teaching when she took a job teaching math at Chicago’s Wendell Phillips Senior High School. In 1926, after acing both the principals and deans exams, she became Dean of Girls at Wendell Phillips. Two years later she became the first Black principal at the Keith School. She went on to be principal of Wendall Phillips High School. Thus she was the first Black woman to be dean of students and principal of both elementary and high schools in Chicago. She was also the first Black to serve on Chicago’s Board of Oral Examiners, the committee that she faced when she took the principals exam.
From the Wendell Phillips High School 1947 yearbook
Bousfield joined the Theta Omega graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. which was chartered on November 5th, 1922. From 1929 until 1931, she served as the sixth Supreme Basileus (national president) of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
United States Office Of War Information, Danor, G., photographer. (1942) Women’s Policy Committee of the War Manpower Commission. At the first meeting of the Women’s Policy Committee of the War Manpower Commission on October 1, three members get acquainted. They are, left to right: Maudelle Bousfield, Margaret A. Hickey, chairman; and Sara Southall. The committee was formed to aid in mobilizing women workers for the war effort. United States United States, 1942. Oct. 1. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017698282/.
After she returned to her career, she spent the summers studying at the University of Chicago and her Master’s degree was conferred in 1931. She retired in 1950.
In 1965, she was named an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at the University of Illinois. She died on October 14, 1971 at the age of 86. A senior housing community administered by the Chicago Housing Authority located on South Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago is named for her.
In 2013, the University of Illinois named a residence hall in her honor. Several of her descendants attended the dedication of Bousfield Hall. Alpha Kappa Alpha’s third chapter, the first one at a predominately white institution, was chartered at the University of Illinois in 1914. There is a glimpse at the Gamma Chapter Centennial Lounge in this video at the 47 second mark.
