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FOUNDER SPOTLIGHT
Edith Motte Young - an accomplished pianist from North Carolina, Ms. Young was the first Recording Secretary of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Alpha Chapter. Upon graduation from Howard University, she moved to Youngstown, Ohio. Later, Mrs. Young taught at Claflin College in Orangeburg, South Carolina and went on to receive her M.A. Degree in Biblical Literature from Oberlin College in Ohio.
Dr. Betty Shabazz Delta Academy
Dr. Betty Shabazz’s Delta Academy (“Catching the Dreams of Tomorrow, Preparing Young Women for the 21st Century”) is designed for girls ages 11 to 14, who have an interest in developing leadership skills. The program is named in honor of sorority member, the late Dr. Betty Shabazz, wife of Malcolm X.
Participants of this program demonstrate potential for success, but may not have support systems or access to financial resources. The program exposes girls to math, science, technology, and non-traditional careers. The Delta Academy sessions may also include service learning activities, field trips and book clubs. The Delta Academy’s symbol is the dream catcher, which is a Native American culture and symbolizes the power to capture bad dreams and entangle them into a web. Thus, the good dreams pass through the dream hoop’s center into the person.
Born Betty Dean Sanders (May 28, 1936 – June 23, 1997), in Detroit, Michigan, Soror Shabazz was an adopted child and grew up in a fairly sheltered, middle-class household. Her early social life consisted of the local Methodist church with her parents on Sundays, parties on some Saturday nights with church friends, and movies on Fridays. After graduating from high school, she attended Tuskegee Institute and encountered her first racial hostilities, which she didn’t understand, and her parents refused to acknowledge. “They thought [the problems] were my fault,” Soror Shabazz later wrote in an autobiographical portrait printed in Essence magazine. After two years in Alabama, she moved to New York City to attend nursing school at Brooklyn State Hospital.
After the death of her husband, Malcolm X, Soror Shabazz raised and educated her daughters, but still managed to further her education. Between 1970 and 1975, she completed a master’s degree in public health administration and received a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In 1976, she joined the faculty of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn as associate professor of health administration. Shortly thereafter, she became director of the school’s Department of Communications and Public Relations.
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Sisterhood is the essence of all the wisdom of the ages,
Distilled into a single word.
You cannot see sisterhood,
Neither can you hear it nor taste it
But you can feel it a hundred times a day.
It is a pat on the back,
A smile of encouragement,
It’s someone to share with,
To celebrate your achievements.
What is a sister?
She is your mirror shining back at you with a world of possibilities
She is your witness who sees you at your worst and best
And love you anyway.
She is your midnight companion,
Someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark.
If you should feel sorrow or pain,
She will share it with you,
If you should feel happiness or joy
She will rejoice
Every tear that you weep,
She shall catch
Every smile that you smile,
Will lighten her load,
And traveling at the speed of light,
Will return to you threefold.
We are joined through sisterhood.
As generations of women gone before,
We are as individual as the sun and moon,
But tempered of the same fire – The Torch of Wisdom
Therefore we are as one.
Our power is in our strengths combines,
We are Delta Women.
By Soror Darrylyn Swift
