Anna Easter Brown

Like the other young women approached by Ethel Hedgeman during the organization 
of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Anna Easter Brown was very interested in the 
idea of a sorority.  She had graduated with honors from West Orange High 
School in Orange, New Jersey, and subsequently entered the Teachers' College 
Department of Howard University.  She received her unusual middle name because 
she was born on Easter.  She was a quietly efficient and reliable individual,
but she was also known as being gentle and sweet.
        Ms. Brown attended the preliminary meetings at which the constitution, 
name, motto, and colors of the proposed sorority were discussed.  When the 
first officers were elected, she was elected treasurer.  She was also 
delegated the responsibility of writing a sorority song.  She remained in the 
sorority the following year, one of three founding members to graduate in 
1909.
        In the fall of 1909, she began teaching at Bricks School in Bricks, 
North Carolina.  She was also an advisor to the YWCA and house-mother for one
of the cottages of the school.  During her years at Bricks School, she traveled 
throughout the country and had many articles describing her travels featured 
in Opportunity, the magazine published by the National Urban League.  During 
this period, Ms. Brown developed her lifelong interest in Black history.  She 
visited the Alice Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina, and 
the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, researching material pertinent to the 
history of Black people.
        In 1926, Ms. Brown left Bricks to accept a teaching appointment at 
Booker T. Washington High School in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.  Here she 
taught social studies for more than 30 years.  As the years passed, she 
realized more and more the importance of their history to a people, particularly 
to a race separated from its originally rich cultural heritage.  She organized 
an annual Negro history exhibit for many years.  Her 25th annual exhibition 
received national publicity.
        In addition to her interest in historical research, Ms. Brown was a 
charter member of the YWCA in Rocky Mount, and was active in local affairs 
and with the American Teachers' Association.  She was a charter member of the 
Chi Omega Chapter established in Rocky Mount in 1925.
        Anna Easter Brown died in May 1957.  She is buried in Rocky Mount, 
the city where she spent most of her life.  Many of the people whom she loved, 
and whose lives were made richer for having known her, still visit and place 
flowers on her grave.  Her contribution to the history of Alpha Kappa Alpha 
was unique.  She made this statement about herself:

        "I am not a career woman, but what greater career could one wish 
        than to be an inspiration to her pupils?  I have accomplished no 
        great thing but I am steadily working toward a high moral standard 
        and refined womanhood."