User:HistoricDST/Sandbox- Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Founder Ethel Cuff Black

Ethel Cuff Black

Founder Ethel Cuff Black (1890 - ) was a Founder of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Founder Black was also a teacher and a college professor.

Background

Founder Ethel Cuff Black- (Born 1890) was from Wilmington, Delaware. Ethel Cuff Black who married David Horton Black a real estate agent.1

Education

Ethel Cuff Black graduated from the Industrial School for Colored Youth in Bordentown, New Jersey with the highest scholastic average.2 In 1909 Ethel Cuff Black enrolled in the Howard Academy. The Howard Academy was a high grade preparatory school administrated by Howard University.3 In the Fall of 1910 Ethel Cuff Black officially enrolled in Howard University.4 Ethel Cuff Black graduated from Howard University in 1915 because of illness.5

Ethel Black was a very involved in student activities while at Howard University. She was a member of the Howard University choir6 and she served on the collegiate committee of student chapter of the YMCA from 1911-1912 while at Howard University.7 Ethel Cuff Black was also a member of Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. In October 1912 she was elected vice-president of AKA.8

The Founding of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Ethel Cuff Black was one of the Founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Soror Richardson was present at the meeting of Alpha chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in the Fall of 1912.

Participation in the 1913 Women Suffrage March

Ethel Cuff Black participated in the 1913 Women Suffrage March in Washington, DC. Ethel Cuff Black with twenty-one other founding sisters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority marched with honorary member Mary Church Terrell under the banner of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority in 1913 for the enfrancment of women less than three months of the founding of the sorority. Ethel Cuff Black and her other twenty-one founding sisters and other Black women marchers were subject to racism not only by people who were opposed to the enfrancement of women, but by the march organizers who were reluctant to advocate suffrage for Black women because of White supremacists within their ranks. “For example, Mary Church Terrell who marched in the parade with African American Delta Sigma Theta Sorority women from Howard University assembled in the area reserved for Black women. Several years later, Terrell confided her feelings about the NAWSA and about Alice Paul to Walter White of the NAACP. Terrell questioned, in particular, Paul’s loyalty to Black women, concluding that, if she and other white suffragist leaders could get the Anthony Amendment through without enfranchising African American women, they would do so.”9

Participation in the Expansion of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Founder Black was extremely active in community and civic affairs, and was a Charter member of the Queens (NY) Alumnae Chapter.

Career

Ethel Cuff Black became a social studies teacher, holding positions in cities across the country, and retired from the New York School System. She was the first Black teacher in Richmond County, NY. She served, also, as a professor at Delaware State College, Dover, DE.

References

Brown, Tamara L. (2005). African American Fraternities and Sororities: The Legacy and the Vision. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. Boyd, Alice, (1995). A Life of Quiet Dignity: Naomi Sewell Richardson, First Edition, New York: Red Elephant Publishers. Greene, Robert (July 1981). Delta Memories: A Historical Summary. Washington, DC: Robert Ewell Greene. Morris, Edna B., (August 1944). Delta Sigma Theta: Its History and Development. Gary, Indiana: The Gary American Publishing Company. Giddings, Paula (1988). In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement. New York, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. Vroman, Mary (1965). Shaped to Its Purpose: Delta Sigma Theta - The First Fifty Years by Mary Elizabeth Vroman. New York, New York: Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. with second release from Random House Inc. in 1993.

Footnotes

1. ISOS, page 189.

2. ISOS page 34.

3. Ibid, page 34.

4. Ibid, page 31.

5. Ibid, page 65.

6. Giddings, Paula (1988). In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement. New York, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., page 36.

7. Ibid, page 39.

8. Ibid, page 48.

9. Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. (1998) African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920 (Blacks in the Diaspora). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, page 123.

External Links

Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority, Inc. http://www.dstnyac.org/noteworthy_members.shtml http://www.dstquac.org/index.html