Paul Bass Photo
Cheryl Pegues led her sisters in a victory line dance for fellow soror Kamala Harris Sunday to celebrate a milestone she could barely have imagined while growing up in the Jim Crow South.
Pegues (pictured above) joined 40 fellow members of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in the parking lot outside Wexler-Grant School to mark the historic election of the first Black woman to the vice-presidency — and to vow to keep up the activism that made the day possible.
For the assembled masked-up and pink-and-green-clad AKAs, the victory of fellow AKA Harris was their victory, too, in the quest for equity in America. Black women across the country said they felt the same.
Pegues, a 77-year-old retired Gateway Community College administrator, has engaged in that quest longer than most. She grew up in Jim Crow West Virginia; she was entering seventh grade in 1954 when the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education declared unconstitutional the doctrine of “separate but equal.” She attended West Virginia State College, then moved to New Haven with her husband. She joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority — one of New Haven’s bedrock civic organizations — 58 years ago, and hasn’t looked back.
As she lined up with her fellow AKAs for Sunday’s celebration, Pegues said she was grateful “to see this day. Today has shown us we can advance. Our country can do better and be better.” The AKAs, like members of Black sororities across the country, worked hard phone-banking in swing states to help elected the Biden-Harris ticket.
Sunday’s outdoor celebration was called to start at 12:08 p.m. to commemorate the sorority’s 1908 founding.
Shaenae Draughn (pictured), president of the AKA Theta Epsilon Omega chapter, threw the event together within hours along with regional NAACP President Dori Dumas. They decided the sunny mid-70-degrees forcecast would allow for a Covid-safe outdoor gathering.
Draughn said she shed “tears of joy” at Saturday’s announcement of Harris’s victory on the ticket with President-Elect Joe Biden. Like Pegues, she saw her own life path reflected in Harris’s ascension.
Draughn, a real estate developer who serves as senior vice-president of the Glendower Group, echoed Harris’s recent statements about being the only Black woman in rooms of power. She’s often the only woman, period, and the only Black person in rooms where real-estate decisions are made, she said. “We are always told, ‘It’s not your turn.’ This proves despite that, we can succeed in as Black women.”
Cheryl Pegues was ushered to the center of the group to lead an opening prayer.
“We thank you Father God for leading our nation to do better and to be better,” Pegues said as the sorors around her bowed their heads. She expressed thanks for the ascension of “our sorority sister of whom we are most graciously proud” and “for the opportunity that she has to embrace this country that of we truly are one nation under God, we cannot be one nation undivided under God.”
With a round of “Amen“s and hand claps, the sorors stepped into formation to perform one of the trademark choreographed AKA “strolls.”
“Are we doing ‘Set it off?’” a soror called out
“We’re doing ‘Set It Off!’” responded Dumas (pictured), who serves as the sorority’s statewide connections chair.
Then the AKAs showed what “Set It Off”” …
… looks like.
You can watch it performed in full in the above video.
After the music stopped, Shenae Draughn (standing with Dumas in front of political science professor and WNPR “Disrupted” host Khalilah Brown-Dean and her daughter Haley) delivered final marching orders.
“Our job is not done,” declared Draughn. “Yes, we have the president-elect. Yes, we have the vice-president-elect. We are in that moment. But we have to focus on the Georgia Senate race,” a reference to two run-off elections looming for that state’s two U.S. Senate seats.
Beyond that, Draughn said, members must stay active in local organizations and political work. She plans to keep track to make sure they do.
“I hope you are galvanized. Let this day be the beginning of our active engagement around policy.”
At that, the AKAs reassembled in formation. Cheryl Pegues’ daughter Elicia Pegues Spearman — a second-generation AKA and the general counsel and vice-president for human resources at Quinnipiac University — escorted her mother to the front of the line …
… where she led her sisters across the generations in one last celebratory stroll before getting back to work.