- Oct 17, 2011
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The “Divine Nine,” a group of prestigious Black fraternities and sororities, is contending with hundreds of videos accusing them of idolatry or worse
When Candace Junée was a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, she walked into a dark, candlelit room and knelt on a pillow as she prepared to join Alpha Kappa Alpha, the world’s oldest Black Greek-letter sorority.
Junée didn’t think much about the ceremony until a year after she graduated, in 2015, when she joined a new church and heard members say Christians shouldn’t belong to Black sororities and fraternities like hers. Already inactive in her sorority’s activities, she told The Washington Post, she revoked her membership privately through prayer. Then last year, after some of Junée’s acquaintances told her God wanted her to leave AKA permanently, she posted videos on YouTube and TikTok calling the rituals she went through “openly demonic” and the sorority a breeding ground for “idolatry.”
She is part of a growing number of people who have publicly denounced their affiliation with a group of the largest historically Black sororities and fraternities, the National Pan-Hellenic Council or “Divine Nine.” There are hundreds of videos in the same vein as Junée’s, either condemning the groups as anti-Christian and paganist, or defending them from those accusations.
Black Greek-letter organizations formed in the 20th century as havensof sisterhood and brotherhood for college students who were generally discriminated against and barred from joining existing sororities and fraternities. The groups continue to be fixtures in Black culture, holding fundraisers, voter registration drives and stepping and strollingperformances. “Crossing” into one of the organizations through a mix of public and secretive rituals has facilitated lifelong career connections and friendships, and a sense of connection to famous Divine Nine members such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who pledged to Alpha Phi Alpha and Vice President Harris, an AKA.
The grandson of a minister and the immediate past president of Alpha Phi Alpha’s Inglewood, Calif., chapter, Ross said public denunciations have the “intellectual nutritional value of a Snicker bar.”
When Candace Junée was a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, she walked into a dark, candlelit room and knelt on a pillow as she prepared to join Alpha Kappa Alpha, the world’s oldest Black Greek-letter sorority.
Junée didn’t think much about the ceremony until a year after she graduated, in 2015, when she joined a new church and heard members say Christians shouldn’t belong to Black sororities and fraternities like hers. Already inactive in her sorority’s activities, she told The Washington Post, she revoked her membership privately through prayer. Then last year, after some of Junée’s acquaintances told her God wanted her to leave AKA permanently, she posted videos on YouTube and TikTok calling the rituals she went through “openly demonic” and the sorority a breeding ground for “idolatry.”
She is part of a growing number of people who have publicly denounced their affiliation with a group of the largest historically Black sororities and fraternities, the National Pan-Hellenic Council or “Divine Nine.” There are hundreds of videos in the same vein as Junée’s, either condemning the groups as anti-Christian and paganist, or defending them from those accusations.
Black Greek-letter organizations formed in the 20th century as havensof sisterhood and brotherhood for college students who were generally discriminated against and barred from joining existing sororities and fraternities. The groups continue to be fixtures in Black culture, holding fundraisers, voter registration drives and stepping and strollingperformances. “Crossing” into one of the organizations through a mix of public and secretive rituals has facilitated lifelong career connections and friendships, and a sense of connection to famous Divine Nine members such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who pledged to Alpha Phi Alpha and Vice President Harris, an AKA.
The grandson of a minister and the immediate past president of Alpha Phi Alpha’s Inglewood, Calif., chapter, Ross said public denunciations have the “intellectual nutritional value of a Snicker
