Roses and Revolution: Black Sororities' Responses to the Black Feminist Movement 1968-1980

Abstract

The post-civil rights era was a transformative period for Black organizations. In this period, organizations had to contend with the changing cultural and political terrain of the United States. Typically, social movement scholars have examined movements at the level of the state, paying minimal attention to the relationship between movements and organizations. This dissertation examines the interactions of Black sororities with the Black feminist movement from 1968-1980 as a case to illustrate how movements affect organizations and explores reasons for different responses. Through a comparative historical analysis of two Black sororities, Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta, I find that while one sorority engaged in racial uplift and respectability politics – frames that the organizations had historically engaged with – the other sorority began to incorporate Black feminist frames and language into their organization.