The Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation has announced a $1 million gift from the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, one of the oldest and largest predominantly Black women’s organizations in the United States.

In conjunction with its gift, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority has been named a national partner to the foundation, and the soroity's international president Elsie Cooke-Holmes and its past national president Thelma Daley have been named as ambassadors. The gift is a step toward the foundation’s $75 million fundraising goal.

“When the 22 founders of Delta Sigma Theta marched with Mary Church Terrell in the 1913 Woman Suffrage Parade, they changed history,” said Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation president and CEO Anna Laymon. “On that day, the women of Delta cemented their legacy as pioneers whose bravery would come to define Black social activism of the 20th century. It is our honor to welcome Delta Sigma Theta as a national partner and to work together to continue that legacy by uplifting all women’s stories out of the footnotes of history and into our collective memory.”

(Photo credit: E. David Luria/Washington Photo Safari)