The Sorority

Friendship versus principle. Right versus wrong. Easy versus difficult. History stayed versus history made.

It seems to me that I have been making choices like these all of my life. The circumstances of my birth, more than anything else, caused most of them. And, of course, the timing.

Members of the Greatest Generation were my parents. World War II would end within a year of my birth. Race relations in the United States were nowhere near good. And I was a *colored* child whose interracial family was impossible to understand for people with racial prejudices.

The word "first" became a common adjective used to describe me. I was the first non-white child to be admitted to St. James Catholic Elementary School in my hometown of Maywood, Illinois. I was the first black student elected to a class office at the local high school. I was the first black majorette in the history of the school, and allegedly the first black girl in the history of the school to be named to the National Honor Society.

So in 1962 when I applied to and was accepted with a scholarship by Ripon College in central Wisconsin, I was well-prepared to step into an environment where I would be the only African American woman on campus for the first two years of my time there.

No one in my family had ever attended college, so I knew very little about the ways of campus life. Yes, I had read articles in Seventeen Magazine and Glamour Magazine, so I knew what fraternities and sororities were. What the articles failed to mention, however, was the existence of exclusionary clauses in the charters of most national Greek organizations.

It didn't take long for me to become well-schooled on all of that. Shortly after my freshman year began came the rush season. On bid day -- the day that freshmen were given invitations to pledge or join fraternities and sororities -- I received none. By then I already knew I wouldn't be pledging anything. Despite the fact that every one of my closest friends in my dorm had received multiple bids, we all knew that I was doomed to be a GDI -- god damned independent.

That was hurtful, yes, but not at all unusual in my experience. Another one of my "firsts" in high school was to attend a school dance with a white boy. We knew what we were doing. We knew that the dance chaperones, usually teachers, would take one look at us on the dance floor and proceed to have some version of apoplexy. And, no, we weren't at all surprised when we were asked to leave shortly after we arrived.

We were shocked, however, when on the following Monday morning we were summoned to the superintendent's office. Assembled there were several other students, black and white, with whom I had been working somewhat informally to try to loosen the unwritten rules about fraternization between the races.

Jesse Owens at the Berlin Games

None other than 1936 Olympic Champion Jessie Owens was seated next to Mr. Kochendoerfer, the superintendent. I knew who Owens was only because my boyfriend, who was also among the summoned, was a track and field star there in high school. Owens had been invited by the school administration to "talk some sense into" this group of young people who were actively seeking to change things both in the school and in the town. My boyfriend had lead an effort to convince the local roller rink to *allow* African Americans to skate there. At the point the meeting with Owens was taking place the owner of the rink had reluctantly agreed to allow us to skate as a "private party" on Monday nights, the night the rink was officially closed.

The awe-stricken look of hero worship on my boyfriend's face was soon gone. In its place emerged a gaping-mouthed, eyebrow-raised look of disbelief. "It is not your place to be doing these things," Owens announced. "You all need to stay in your places as students."

Owens had made a serious strategic error. Uttering the phrase "stay in your place" was almost synonymous with speaking the N-word in those days. It evoked a mental image of characters such as Stepin Fetchit and Lightening from old Amos n' Andy radio and television programs -- subservient, cowed, and ignorant. As Owens droned on, any observer would have seen each student in the room mentally and emotionally shut down. He had been dismissed as an Uncle Tom.

So, no, it came as no particular shock four years later when it was explained to me why I hadn't received any bids to join a sorority. What it did was make my friends very, very angry. They all actually pledged with the Alpha Phi Sorority, quietly vowing to change things from within the system.

Of course I survived. I took a job as a freshman dorm counselor in my sophomore year, while all my friends moved into the sorority house. My spirit had been wounded, but not slain, so I went on with my studies and my involvement in a variety of extra-curricular activities. When Rush Week rolled around in the fall of 1963, I was invited to several Preference Parties -- an opportunity for a prospective member to alert the sorority of her interest. I went to all of them. In the meantime, my Alpha Phi friends, now active members with voting rights, had initiated a petition to Alpha Phi's national leadership to throw out the racial clause (which, by the way, also excluded Jews) so they could invite me to pledge.

At the same time, another sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, had become well-known to me through a number of girls I'd met in my various classrooms. They were all fine young women, just like my other friends. Unbeknownst to me, they too had initiated action with their national organization challenging the racial clause, with the specific statement that it was their intention to pledge me.

One evening I was studying at my desk in the freshman dorm when I was startled by loud banging on my door. Four Alpha Phis, all my close pals, pushed into the room screaming and jumping. "Lez, we just heard from national! They said you can join Alpha Phi!"

Elated, I jumped up and hugged them all. One of them, though, had a strange look on her face. It was far from joyous.

"You're going to be a Social Member, " she said, not looking at me.

They explained what that meant. I would be welcome to join them in the sorority house, live among them, and pay my dues until I either left the school or graduated, whereupon I would be required to surrender my pin.

On that very spot, at that very moment, I changed from a young girl to a woman. I realized then that for my friends, it was a question of how to get me into the group, but for me, it was something much bigger. It was a matter of principle and personal honor.
A week later, the Alpha Chi Omegas were rumored to have threatened their national to pull out of the organization if they were not granted permission to pledge me and anybody else they saw fit. It was time for the bids to be distributed and I was convinced that I would be choosing between two unacceptable solutions to a problem -- me.

That's not what happened at all. I received a bid from Alpha Chi Omega. It was delivered to me personally by the sorority's campus president. "We know that Alpha Phi was not able to get clearance to pledge you. We feel very sorry for you and for all the girls we know are your friends. But, Lezlie, we have prevailed. If you accept our bid, you will become an Alpha Chi Omega for life."

Unable to eat or sleep for the next few days, I struggled with my options. I was tired of skating in the rink when the rink was closed. I was tired of being told "you are great, Lezlie, but you are different." I was tired of being a token.

I am an Alpha Chi Omega. To this day, several of my Alpha Phi friends have never forgiven me. We were all much too young and much too naive to grapple with the significance of these events. I was forced to choose between friendship and principle. I've never regretted what I chose -- my sorority sisters have been lifelong friends -- but I will regret forever the loss of those friendships.