How Alpha Kappa Alpha Helped Preserve a Historic LA Home

Members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.'s Alpha Gamma Omega graduate chapter stand outside the chapter house in Los Angeles.

Saundra Bishop has many memories inside the idyllic pink, craftsman-styled Alpha Kappa Alpha house in Los Angeles. The space wasn’t just a place where her mother and other members of the Alpha Gamma Omega graduate chapter of the historically Black sorority met, it was also a community hub. “In fact, I had my sweet 16 party there,” she fondly recalled. 

Bishop’s mother joined the graduate chapter of the sorority when the family moved to the city in the 1950s. In 1960, members of the chapter purchased the home in the historic West Adams neighborhood to have a place to host their meetings and other events. 

“That was the place where people could rent and come and have their parties and nice things [if] they didn’t want to go to the hotels,” she added. “It was purchased because in Los Angeles, and other places, of course, at that time there were no meeting spaces for African Americans specifically.” 

Most Black organizations at the time were meeting at the homes of members. But the house could fit about 150 people. 

Today, the house is a historic site that has not only served Alpha Kappa Alpha members, but also served as a communal hub — hosting baby showers, bridal showers, youth programs and voter forums — and a polling place. According to members, Alpha Gamma Omega was the first of the sorority’s graduate chapters to be chartered west of the Rocky Mountains. And, they report, it remains one of the few chapters to own a home in the western United States.

In 2024, the house was one of 30 sites awarded a grant by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The fund, which was created in 2017, is designed to aid in preservation efforts for places that have had a significant impact on Black communities and help to diversify public perception of American history. 

Bishop has followed in her mother’s footsteps and has been a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha  for nearly three decades. She also works as the chairman for the chapter’s nonprofit arm, the Ivy Heritage Foundation Inc., which was created to facilitate community programming and award scholarships. The nonprofit was awarded $100,000 on behalf of the sorority chapter by the Action Fund to modernize the home, which was originally built in 1911.

Chapter members secured the down payment for the home through a capital campaign in the 1950s that was mostly supported by members and their loved ones. “At that time there were no philanthropic organizations or donors that would have donated to that,” Bishop said, noting that plaques inside the home recognize the original donors. The mortgage for the sorority house was paid off by 1974. 

Membership dues have long incorporated the cost of utilities and other maintenance needs for the home, but Bishop said these dues don’t cover more expensive projects. For example, because of the age of the home, many of its mechanical systems need to be brought up to code, she said. The sorority chapter plans to use the grant money from the Action Fund to update plumbing, install fire and life safety systems, put in an air conditioning system, and more. 

Tiffany Tolbert, senior director of preservation at the Action Fund, said the organization originally received roughly 600 to 700 grant applications for 2024. 

“We wanted to make sure that we are preserving all of those places that are synonymous to Black history and culture, and obviously our Divine 9 is a part of that,” she said. “I’m not just speaking as an AKA, but they’ve contributed to our communities and our culture, [and] to the Civil Rights Movement. They continue to be active in political activism, as we recently saw in the latest election.”

“It’s really preserving these places so that they can continue to inspire future generations, but also tell the story so people recognize the culture of African Americans,” Tolbert added.

The post How Alpha Kappa Alpha Helped Preserve a Historic LA Home appeared first on Capital B News.

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