Alumnae AKAs initiated while undergraduate students at Texas Southern University fundraising to establish legacy endowment in the name of chapter founders to provide scholarships and support undergraduates through the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® Educational Advancement Foundation.
Historically Black College and University [“HBCU”] Texas Southern University [TxSU] was established in 1947. Just three years later, on November 15, 1950, an undergraduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® [“AKA”] was founded on the TxSU campus by friends, educators, and visionaries Mercedes Terry, Clarice Lowe, and Evelyn Thornton. Situated in the urban oasis of Third Ward in Houston with a mission centered on providing quality education, research, and public service to prepare students for leadership roles in urban communities, TxSU, home of greats like the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, late Congressman Mickey Leland, artist John Biggers, is the last public, independent 4-year institution of higher education in the State of Texas. Of its many credits today, TxSU boasts of a law school created when the University of Texas did not want to admit Black lawyer aspirant Heman Sweatt, resulting in the seminal 1950 U.S. Supreme Court case of Sweatt v. Painter evaluating merit of the "separate but equal doctrine," a pharmacy school that continues to graduate more Black pharmacists than any other higher education institution in Texas, an Aviation Science Management Program that just acquired a dozen new Cirrus SR20 planes, a historic investment that positions its students alongside industry leaders like United Airlines, a multi-award winning debate team, including holders of the current International Championship Debate Team title, and a School of Communications established in 1975, by and large thanks to the vision, leadership and stealth work of long-time professor, the late Dr. Clarice Lowe. This GoFundMe is established to support an endowment honoring the legacy of TxSU AKA Founder Clarice Lowe along her co-founders Mercedes Terry and Evelyn Thornton.
The TxSU AKA undergraduate chapter founders were pioneers and visionaries who desired to help young women reach their full potential through “Service to All Mankind,” like they did. Mercedes was a philanthropist, librarian, artist, and art history aficionado. Clarice, when approached in 1973 by TxSU President Dr. Granville Sawyer, chaired a planning committee to propose a School of Communication, convening the committee that developed a budget, curriculum, facilities plan, and catalog for the school. The proposal for the school was accepted on its first reading by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on October 18, 1974, and officially authorized on April 18, 1975. She is one of the most longstanding professors in TxSU history. Evelyn made history as the first Black to complete her PhD in Mathematics at the University of Houston, thereafter spending half a century as a professor and administrator at Prairie View A&M University. As the TSU undergraduate AKA chapter turns 75 in November, alumnae TSU AKA chapter sisters, organized by ad hoc leadership known as the Pretty in Pink at 75 Alumnae Committee, endeavor to memorialize endowments honoring the memory of our founders by providing scholarships in perpetuity to TxSU students in need. For everything great that is happening to educate TxSU students, more funding in perpetuity through individual scholarships “is a serious matter” for us, especially given the current socio-political climate while knowing ~85% the TxSU student population receives financial aid with more than half receiving substantial federal grants. In short, money is tight and help goes a long way to help struggling students be great. We hope you will support our effort by making a donation through our “Go Fund Me” page.
With an ad hoc committee and alumnae chapter sister base dedicated to cementing our founders’ legacy while supporting the goals of and modeling to current chapter sisters how to fundraise for legacy giving, your gift, no matter how great or small, helps us meet some needs of college students at our HBCU. You can learn more about our love of sisterhood and commitment to raising and celebrating at our PrettyinPinkatAKA75Website . If you live in and/or will be in the Houston metropolitan area, you may consider attending and/or giving to our brunch-raiser in November, which you can do here . A portion of every contribution through our website is tax deductible, just as through GoFundMe, if we can verify your identity. Notices of your tax-deductible contribution will come through the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® Educational Advancement Foundation. No one of us can do everything, but we can all do something to be great. Please join us in raising for TxSU students. Our society needs as much greatness as it can get in times like these, and there's not time like homecoming season and the final quarter of the calendar year to give.
PrettyinPinkat75 Alumnae Host Committee: Alicia Hughes (Atlanta)(Spring ‘94), Chair; Miss TSU ’74-75 Regina Carrington (Houston)(Spring ‘73), Co-chair; Shannon Marie Moore-Davis, (Lake Conroe)(Spring ‘94), Treasurer; Miss TSU '53-54 Minnie Ryan Roy (Houston)(Fall '51); Miss TSU '54-55 Gladys Rogers Goffney (Houston)(Fall '51); Charlotte Bryant (Houston)(Fall '52); Sylvia Brooks (Houston)(Fall ‘60); Cherry Ross-Gooden (Houston)(Fall ’63); Miss TSU ‘87-’88 Jeanetta “Kitty” Alford (Houston)(Fall ‘88); Miss TSU ‘88-89 Karen Shaw Shephard (Spring ‘88); Taffeta Denise Harris (Dallas)(Spring ’89); Tanya Allen-Easter (Houston)(Fall ‘89); Katrina LeVert (Fall ’92); Karen Dumas Manning (Houston)(Spring ’94); Stacey Frank (Houston)(Spring ’97); Monique Myatt-Galloway (Philadelphia)(Spring ’00); Meagan Lynn Callegari Waters (Houston)(Spring ‘07); Tamara McKnight (Houston)(Spring ’22); Chantel Adé McKinney (Houston)(Spring ‘24)
Disclaimer: The Pretty in Pink at 75 Alumnae Committee is composed of Texas Southern University alumnae initiated as members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® (from the 1950s through the present time) while undergraduate students in Texas's most long-standing chapter of uninterrupted service: celebrating 75 years. Pretty in Pink at 75 Alumnae Committee activities are neither sponsored by nor officially sanctioned by the Gamma Psi Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® or Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® However, all revenue (income minus expenses) generated by Pretty in Pink at 75 Alumnae Committee activities, including the Farewell Jazz Brunch Benefit, will go directly to seeding a Gamma Psi-specific endowment through the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® Education Advancement Fund Endowment to benefit Texas Southern University sorority initiates while in undergraduate school, permanently memorializing and honoring 75 years of exemplary service, leadership, strong character, and high scholastic "Excellence in Achievement" in the Houston metropolitan area and beyond.
Organizer
Alicia Hughes
Organizer
Houston, TX