The West Broadway Kroger was busy on a recent Saturday with shoppers braving the slippery ground and humidity to stock up on groceries. Amid supermarket carts and cars in the parking lot, women donning rain ponchos in shades of pearl, apple green and salmon pink handed out flyers and called out their message.
“Are you registered to vote? Do you know where to go on voting day?” they yelled.
The women were volunteers dressed in the official colors of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.’s Eta Omega chapter in Louisville. They were trying to reach possible Black voters ahead of next month’s election.
“Sometimes people are still like, ‘OK, what do I do? I don't even know. Like, I can go to the polls, look at the ballot. Who are these people?’ So, we are just wanting to make sure that they get the information and know where to go to get the information,” said Latisha Cahoon, the chapter’s president.
Alpha Kappa Alpha was the first historically Black sorority. It was founded at Howard University in 1908.
It’s also part of the Divine Nine – a collective of four Black sororities and five Black fraternities across the country.
They’re service-oriented, and have a tight-knit relationship that goes far beyond college campuses, Cahoon said. Many Black women organizers and leaders — like Maya Angelou, Coretta Scott King, Bernice King and Toni Morrison — were members of AKA.
At the Kroger parking lot, another AKA member decked in green, pink and pearls made the rounds: Democrat Paula McCraney, the Louisville Metro Council member for District 7, which includes Graymoor-Devondale and part of St. Matthews.
She said it was important for AKA to direct voter mobilization drives and efforts toward disadvantaged neighborhoods in west Louisville, where many residents are Black and low-income.
“And the good news is we've run into a lot of people who said they're already registered, so now our message is, ‘Make a plan to get to the polls either early or on Election Day,’” she said.
After a couple hours at Kroger, AKA members made their way to St. Stephen Family Life Center in the California neighborhood. On the damp sidewalk outside the church, women in crimson skirts and T-shirts with the slogan “Stroll to the Polls,” stopped to greet Cahoon. They were from Delta Sigma Theta, another Divine nine sorority that was founded at Howard University.
To Cahoon, sororities represent a sisterhood passed down generations of women. She said she’s stayed friends with her sorority sisters for more than 25 years.
“The difference with the Divine Nine’s outreach is all of the work we do, we still do after graduation, as compared to our counterparts, which usually ends at graduation,” she said.
Black Greek-letter sororities were forged during the rise of Jim Crow laws and a time when many Black people didn’t have opportunities to go to college. They were still treated as second-class citizens. Cahoon said she’s amazed at the confidence of the 20 young Black women who were a generation removed from slavery and created a network to support each other.
“Laying that foundation at such a time when you had all this hostility, and Black people were just not really able to think for ourselves right at that time, you had sophomore-age women in college coming up with something that has been in existence for 116 years now,” she said.
At St. Stephens’ Family Life Center, politicians, activists and representatives from partner organizations spoke about the importance of voting. McCraney repeatedly emphasized that the AKA voter drives and events were nonpartisan and did not support a specific candidate, although Kamala Harris, the American Vice President and Democratic nominee for president this year, is a member.
“We are on this precipice of history that could be made if she is, in fact, the first woman to be President of the United States. I'm just imagining all women. Doesn't matter race, color, creed, young girls. Just knowing that we can shatter the ultimate glass ceiling is just amazing,” said Cassandra Miller, who serves on the president's council of another local chapter, Pi Lambda Omega.
Cahoon said in an email Eta Omega represents members who align with different political parties. And, as a 501(c)(7) nonprofit, the Eta Omega chapter neither endorses nor opposes candidates.
The national AKA organization also doesn’t endorse candidates. But this year it’s taken a new step. In August, after Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the nominee, it created a political action committee. The PAC hasn’t yet reported fundraising to the Federal Election Commission.
Harris, for her part, has stayed close to her Greek ties. In a speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, she likened AKA and the Divine Nine to “family.” And this past July, she addressed AKA members at the sorority’s annual conference in Dallas.
Long way to go on voting rights restoration
At the canvassing effort outside Kroger where AKA members started the day, McCraney pointed out that many people she met there believed they couldn’t vote because they were convicted of felonies.
“We are telling them to reach out to the Louisville Urban League so that they can get their rights restored,” she said.
The local nonprofit helps people expunge their criminal records and helps pay for that process.
Kentucky is one of 10 states that indefinitely bars people from voting if they’ve been convicted of certain felony crimes, unless they receive a governor’s pardon or complete another type of action.
In 2019, Gov. Andy Beshear expanded voting rights to 170,000 people who had committed certain nonviolent felony offenses, but not all.
People can apply to the governor to have their voting rights restored by an executive partial pardon. They can also apply for an expungement of the felony.
At the AKA voter mobilization event, Stephanie Johnson, a statewide organizer with local advocacy nonprofit VOCAL-KY, highlighted how voting rights restoration needs to be a priority.
“If you've done your time and or you pay taxes — you purchase things, so there's tax on that, right? — why can't you vote?” she said.
Johnson noted that while many Kentuckians have had their rights restored, not all of them are aware.“People say, ‘I can't vote.’ I said, ‘Well, let's check real quick. It takes 20 seconds,’” she said.
People can check the status of their voting rights at the state’s civil rights restoration website.
November 5 is Election Day.
Correction: A previous version of this story described Eta Omega as a 501(c)(3), but it is a 501(c)(7). It also incorrectly attributed a quote from Cassandra Miller. The story was also updated to clarify AKA’s role related to endorsements.
