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Delta Sigma Theta

historically Black sorority

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ5254747
Source-derived summary

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (ΔΣΘ) is a historically African American sorority. The organization was founded by college-educated women dedicated to public service with an emphasis on programs that assist the African American community. Delta Sigma Theta was founded on January 13, 1913 by twenty-two women at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Membership is open to any woman, regardless of religion, race, or nationality. Women may apply to join through undergraduate chapters at a college or university or through an alumnae chapter after earning a college degree.

The sorority currently has over 350,000 members and over 1,000 chapters located in the Bahamas, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bermuda, Canada, England, Germany, Jamaica, Japan, West Africa and South Africa, South Korea, United Kingdom, and the United States. Delta Sigma Theta is also a member of the umbrella organization National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) – an organization of nine international Black Greek-letter sororities and fraternities. The current (29th) International President and CEO is Cheryl W. Turner.

The first public act of Delta Sigma Theta was some of its members marched as students of Howard University, in the collegiate section in the Women's Suffrage March in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 1913. Delta Sigma Theta has created programming to improve political, education, and social and economic conditions, particularly within black communities.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Delta Sigma Theta” as historically Black sorority. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Delta, Sigma and Theta.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1913—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Delta, Sigma and Theta providing the first useful test.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Delta Sigma Theta”, the useful work is to connect “historically Black sorority” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5254747. The first chronological checks are 1913.

Critical limits

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Delta Sigma Theta” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.