honoring our founders

HISTORY

Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated is an international women’s organization that has established itself as the foremost network of socially and politically conscious activists working to empower disenfranchised communities.

Shortly after World War One, during a time when women were still fighting for the right to vote, during the worst and longest economic recession to ever hit the United States, and on the very day the Volstead Act became effective, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated was birthed.

On January 16, 1920, five trailblazers at Howard University in Washington D.C.; Arizona Cleaver Stemons, Pearl Anna Neal, Myrtle Tyler Faithful, Viola Tyler Goings and Fannie Pettie Watts, sought to depart from established organizations and founded a new sisterhood predicated on the precepts of Scholarship, Service, Sisterhood and Finer Womanhood.

Only Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated has been and continues to be the “Sorority of Firsts” creating best-in-class educational programming models like Stork’s Nest and Z-HOPE (Zeta Helping Other People Excel) and a family of youth and adult auxiliary groups to advance our local communities.

With more than 120,000 members initiated, Zeta has become one of the world’s foremost movements for social justice and civic change. Members of Zeta are called to a higher purpose of Finer Womanhood. Zeta women are achievers and leaders in every field in more than 800 communities across the United States, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Europe.