Managing Editor
The year 2020 marks 100 years since the founding of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. Chapters of the Black sorority across New Jersey are participating in the celebration.
This week, the Gamma Omicron Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta in Essex County hosted an unveiling event for their display at the Newark Public Library. The display features history, artifacts and paraphernalia from the sorority.
“I am so excited to have the Gorgeous Gracious Optimistic Gamma Omicron Zeta Chapter kick-off Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. monumental 100 years with an incredible library display at Newark Library. It was great to see so many people attend the event and learn more about our impact,” said Centennial Chapter President Salaine Atkins-Little. “Our chapter has been serving the Essex County community since 1953, as we move forward in this next chapter we look forward to bringing even more programs and activities,” she went on to say.
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority was the nation’s third Black greek-letter organization for women founded in 1920 on the campus of Howard University, and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The sorority has more than 125,000 college-educated women with more than 850 chapters in North America, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East.
The Gamma Omicron Zeta Chapter was the first graduate chapter charted in Northern New Jersey and has served the Essex County community since 1953.
The sorority has nearly 30 graduate and undergraduate chapters in New Jersey. The sorority came to New Jersey in 1948 when the graduate chapter was chartered at Macedonia A.M.E. Church in Camden, NJ. The first undergraduate chapter was started in 1954 in the Princeton/Trenton area. The first campus-based undergraduate chapter was started in 1974 at The College of New Jersey.