I pledged Delta SigmaTheta at my Alabama HBCU in 1976 because I had family members who'd done so and back then, I believed in their community-service stated goals. I also absolutely LOVED being a part of this bigger-than-me, Black excellence that actually DID shit for Black folk in the community everywhere I turned. Yeah, colorism was rampant (my Black ass couldn't, nor wouldn't pledge AKA because of it).

I'll never forget when the husband was stationed in Panama, driving from the Atlantic side to the Pacific side and being stopped, horn-blowing, lights-flashing by a soror headed in the opposite direction who'd seen my ΔΣΘ plate on the front of my car. It happened to be during Black History Month and she told me about a play the Pacific side chapter was gonna do, Ntozake Shange's, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Was Enough." I auditioned and became "The Lady in Green" (wonderfully accurate considering my previous life's missteps)!!

Not only was that sisterhood (at least when you're younger!) incredible, it was so damned, self-affirming. But later on, as I moved around in the U.S., I didn't feel the same. It seemed we'd become, as you said, "patterned after white organizations that couldn't have them as members." And I withdrew (still have).

I wish I could find a chapter even close to the ideals for which I initially joined. Maybe I'm not lookin' hard enough, but what I've seen here in TX tells me -- they've changed, and are not going back.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane, Professor!