Anna Easter Brown, a founding member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., was honored as a pioneer with a historical marker in West Orange.
It's one thing to learn about the founding members of your sorority, a requirement to join Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first sorority for African-American collegiate women.
But when that history comes alive, as at it did last week at the West Orange Public Library, Jasmine Westpoint and Kizzie Hawthorne might as well have pinched each other.
"It's surreal, seeing it in person," said Westpoint, 21, a junior majoring in sociology at Bloomfield College.
"It hits home," said Hawthorne, 21, a senior at Montclair State University. "There's no excuse for me not to be here. It's like, wow. "
The life of Anna Easter Brown can cause that kind of reaction. Not only was she one of 20 founding members of the sorority, Brown was a native daughter of West Orange and one of five graduates who completed her studies with honors in 1897 from the township's first public school.
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That feat alone makes you pause, considering that an education for women was not readily attainable back then, much less for an African-American woman.
But Brown did more than that to bowl us over-and that's what brought the township and local chapters of the sorority together on Friday. With Brown's relatives looking on, they gathered to recognize her contributions as an educator and civic leader by installing a historical marker in front of the library.
Her marker is the first the town has erected for a project it is undertaking to pay homage to notable residents for their historical impact, but the initiative also includes places in town that have equal significance.
Township historian Joseph Fagan explores overlooked and forgotten facts about West Orange, but said he wasn't familiar with Brown until Tammy M. Williams, a sorority member, approached him about a tribute that area chapters were planning to honor her during Black History Month.
"I'm almost embarrassed to not have known much about her,'' Fagan said. "It came as welcome news to find out about Anna Easter Brown."
This much we do know: Brown, the daughter of Beverly and Lawrie Brown, went to Howard University, a historically black institution in Washington, D.C. She was enrolled in the school's Teachers College, where she took classes and was the chief librarian in the evening.
On Jan. 15, 1908, Brown became part of history at Howard when she took a leading role as one of 20 women to establish the sorority.
She not only was the first treasurer, but she also composed a sorority song and helped write the final draft of the organization's constitution and bylaws. In planning meetings, Brown also documented the history of the sorority, which counts 283,000 women in its membership today.
When she graduated from Howard in 1909, Brown did graduate work at Columbia University before settling in Rocky Mount, N.C.
In this coastal plain community, Brown taught high school for 40 years, preparing generations of young people for college. She often created local black history exhibits to promote community learning.
Her civic responsibility, however, wasn't confined to teaching. Brown was a founding member of the local YWCA and a charter member of her local Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority chapter in 1925.
Just as she was remembered in West Orange, if you ever visit Rocky Mount, N.C., you'll find two historical markers there citing Brown for being a dedicated educator and civic leader.
Dorothy Buckhanan Wilson, international president of the sorority, told those gathered at the library that she saw how Brown, who died in 1957, was revered when she attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Brown's gravesite in 2000.
"She is an iconic woman in that community,'' Buckhanan Wilson said.
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She remembers listening to several of Brown's students, some of whom were 90 years old, sharing stories about their teacher. Buckhanan Wilson said they told her that Brown encouraged them and made sure they were academically at the top of their game.
She was low key and modest, a scholar who didn't want attention, Buckhanan Wilson said. Only her students mattered.
At the West Orange library, Fagan was the thoughtful historian when he brought a township tax book, dated April 17, 1879, to the ceremony. The book, created four days after Brown was born on Easter Sunday of that year, was filled with pages of cursive handwriting. Brown's name wasn't in the book, but it was something that gave the sorority members a sense of the times when she was in West Orange.
The tax book was once stored in Llewellyn Hall, a building attached to St. Mark's School, the township's public school for all grades in the late 19th century. The hall doubled as a meeting place for town officials and that's where the tax document was written.
"We are living and working in an area, and one of the founders walked these streets,'' said Anzella Nelms, a 50-year member of the sorority.
Isn't that something?
Before the ceremony ended, sorority members, proudly wearing the pink and green colors of their organization, gathered around the marker. They sang the sorority hymn, bowed their heads in prayer and welcomed home their sister -Anna Easter Brown.
Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger or nj.com/carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL
