The Power We Need Right Now: Black Sororities and Black Radical Movements of the 1970s

There is a long history of sororities such as Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) and Delta Sigma Theta (Delta) participating in activism and social justice efforts-from the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s to Kamala Harris's recent political campaigns.But radical movements like Black Lives Matter have posed more challenging questions for these organizations. In The Power We Need Right Now, Aisha Upton Azzam investigates the legacies of AKA and Delta to understand the considerations that weigh on their engagement with present day Black movements.These organizations wield a significant amount of political power to mobilize in support of their causes.The response each sorority has had to movements fifty years apart is strikingly similar-even if their approaches are quite different. Using a Black feminist theoretical framework, Upton Azzam brings context and meaning to the interactions of these sororities with Black radical movements.She highlights the costs communities bear from sororities' adhere