Alpha Kappa Alpha
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50 free Alpha Kappa Alpha trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Alpha Kappa Alpha is the oldest Greek-letter organization established by African American collegiate women. What began with a handful of students in Washington, D.C., in the early 1900s has grown into an international sisterhood with hundreds of thousands of members, a long record of public service and a roll of alumnae that includes a vice president, a Nobel laureate and an astronaut. This quiz covers the story from the first meeting to the present day: the founders and the women who secured the organization's future, its symbols, titles and traditions, the health, teaching and lobbying programs that made national news, and the members and honorary members you already know from politics, film, music and sport. It is written for members brushing up before a chapter history night, for prospective members learning the basics, and for anyone curious about Black Greek life. Every answer comes with a short explanation, and the full set can be played online or printed.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which film tells the story of three NASA mathematicians who were all members of Alpha Kappa Alpha?
Hidden Figures
Hidden Figures earned three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. One of its three heroines, initiated at Hampton, became NASA's first Black female engineer in 1958.
Q 02On which campus in Washington, D.C., later attended by Kamala Harris, was Alpha Kappa Alpha founded?
Howard University
Howard University approved the idea as soon as two students pitched it to the administration. The result was the first Greek-letter organization founded by African American college women.
Q 03Which two colors, credited to founder Beulah Burke, do Alpha Kappa Alpha members wear as the sorority's official pair?
Pink and green
Pink and green, officially salmon pink and apple green, were chosen along with the name and motto. Flashes of the pair showed up among Kamala Harris's supporters in 2024.
Q 04Which sorority was formed in 1913 by Alpha Kappa Alpha undergraduates who had wanted to change its name and symbols?
Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta was founded by 22 women on January 13, 1913. Its first public act came seven weeks later, when members joined the women's suffrage march in Washington.
Q 05Alpha Kappa Alpha's umbrella group, the National Pan-Hellenic Council, is better known by which two-word nickname?
Divine Nine
Divine Nine counts the council's five fraternities and four sororities. The council itself was formed in 1930.
Q 06Which Nobel Prize-winning novelist joined Alpha Kappa Alpha while studying English in Washington, D.C., in the 1950s?
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison graduated in 1953 and later returned to the same campus to teach English. In 1993 she won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Q 07In which Southern state did Alpha Kappa Alpha run mobile summer health clinics for rural Black families in the 1930s?
Mississippi
Mississippi hosted the sorority's Health Project, whose volunteers set up clinics under trees. The US Surgeon General called it one of the greatest volunteer public health efforts he had seen.
Q 08Which doll brand marked Alpha Kappa Alpha's centennial with a collector's edition, its first to honor a sorority?
Barbie
Barbie maker Mattel suggested the doll after learning of the anniversary. It was unveiled at the centennial convention in Washington, D.C., wearing an evening gown in the sorority's colors.
Q 09Which earlier First Lady, like Michelle Obama in 2008, accepted honorary membership of Alpha Kappa Alpha?
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt became a champion of the sorority after members sent her a report on their Depression-era health work. Michelle Obama agreed to join during her husband's first presidential campaign.
Q 10Kamala Harris's 2024 campaign received over 1,500 donations of which exact amount, a nod to Alpha Kappa Alpha?
$19.08
$19.08 echoes the sorority's founding year. The gifts arrived within about a day of Joe Biden leaving the race and endorsing Harris, a member since college.
Q 11Which plant, whose leaf is Alpha Kappa Alpha's symbol, did early members plant at their campus birthplace in 1909?
Ivy
Ivy lent its name to that 1909 celebration, Ivy Day, and to the sorority's official journal, the Ivy Leaf, first published in 1921.
Q 12Which Latin title do Alpha Kappa Alpha members use when addressing one another?
Soror
Soror is Latin for sister and the root of the English word sorority. Members use it as a title, as a Florida lawmaker did online when cheering Kamala Harris in 2024.
Q 13In which city's Hyde Park neighborhood has Alpha Kappa Alpha had its permanent corporate headquarters since 1985?
Chicago
Chicago has housed the sorority's national office since 1949. The permanent building on South Stony Island Avenue gained a third floor in 1992 and a full renovation in 2017.
Q 21Which founder, remembered as Alpha Kappa Alpha's Guiding Light, led the drive to create the sorority as a student?
Ethel Hedgemon Lyle
Ethel Hedgemon Lyle took up the idea after a faculty member described sorority life at a New England women's college. She later served 23 years as national treasurer.
Q 22Which founder and first president of Alpha Kappa Alpha won the American Tennis Association's 1917 women's title?
Lucy Diggs Slowe
Lucy Diggs Slowe was the first African-American woman to win a major sports title. In 1922 she became the first Black woman to serve as Dean of Women at any American university.
Q 23Which early president led Alpha Kappa Alpha's incorporation in January 1913, securing its name and symbols in law?
Q 14Alpha Kappa Alpha gave $20,000 in the early 1970s to preserve the Atlanta birthplace of which civil rights leader?
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. had addressed the sorority's national convention during his lifetime, as had fellow activist Roy Wilkins. The gift helped save the house where he was born.
Q 15Which Alpha Kappa Alpha member played Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show before winning two Tony Awards?
Phylicia Rashad
Phylicia Rashad was initiated into the sorority's first chapter as a student. In 2004 she became the first Black actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Q 16Which Alpha Kappa Alpha comedian spent five years at the National Security Agency before her stand-up career took off?
Wanda Sykes
Wanda Sykes joined the sorority at Hampton University in Virginia. She kept performing on nights and weekends while working at the NSA, then left for New York in 1992.
Q 17Which honorary Alpha Kappa Alpha member recited her poem On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration?
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was the first poet to read at a presidential inauguration since Robert Frost appeared for John F. Kennedy. The sorority lists her among its honorary members.
Q 18Which jazz singer, known as the First Lady of Song, was welcomed into Alpha Kappa Alpha as an honorary member?
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald shares the honor with civil rights icon Rosa Parks and film director Ava DuVernay. Honorary membership is the highest honor the sorority gives.
Q 19Which astronaut, an honorary Alpha Kappa Alpha member, carried the sorority's banner into orbit aboard Endeavour?
Mae Jemison
Mae Jemison flew in 1992 as the first African-American woman in space. Her space suit later toured the country with the sorority's centennial exhibit.
Q 20Alpha Kappa Alpha member Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first elected female head of state in which country?
Liberia
Liberia elected Sirleaf in 2005, and she took office the next January. She shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her work to bring women into peace-building.
Nellie Quander
Nellie Quander became the first international president once the charter was granted. Her family, the Quanders, is considered one of the oldest free African-American families in the country.
Q 24What name does Alpha Kappa Alpha give its international convention and governing body, first held in December 1918?
Boulé
Boulé meetings were annual, scheduled around Christmas, until 1964 and have come every two years since. The 1942 gathering was called off because of World War II.
Q 25Which Greek title does an Alpha Kappa Alpha president hold, prefixed Supreme at international level?
Basileus
Basileus was the title used by Alexander the Great and by the Byzantine emperors. The fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi took a different Greek title, Polemarch, for its own presidents.
Q 26In which campus building did Alpha Kappa Alpha's founders hold their first official business meeting on January 15?
Miner Hall
Miner Hall also hosted the sorority's first initiation, held in one of its wings in February of the following year. The first group of sophomores had been admitted without one.
Q 27In which Ohio city did Alpha Kappa Alpha run a federal Job Corps training center for women from 1965 to 1995?
Cleveland
Cleveland made it the first sorority to operate a federal job training center, backed by a $4 million grant. The center trained women aged 16 to 21 who had left high school.
Q 28At which international organization did Alpha Kappa Alpha become the first sorority to gain observer status, in 1946?
United Nations
United Nations accreditation followed the lobbying work of founder Norma Boyd, who was named an official observer for non-governmental organizations.
Q 29Honorary Alpha Kappa Alpha member Constance Baker Motley wrote the original complaint in which landmark court case?
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education began with a complaint Motley drafted in 1950 as the Legal Defense Fund's first female attorney. She later became the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge.
Q 30Which president signed the 1964 act creating the Job Corps, the jobs program Alpha Kappa Alpha later helped run?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act on August 20, 1964, as part of his War on Poverty. By that October the sorority was negotiating to operate a training center for women.