Alums Honor Black Women Trailblazers with On-Campus Plaques

Advancing Healthcare Equity: Dr. Dorothy Ferebee, Class of 1920

Though Dr. Dorothy Ferebee (née Boulding) was nationally recognized during her lifetime, Elie and Jones realized that many Simmons/AKA affiliates did not know who she was. Ferebee secured her legacy as an obstetrician, physician, and civil rights activist who remained dedicated to accessible healthcare and women’s rights. While a medical student at Tufts, she joined the Epsilon Chapter of AKA in 1924, and later served as the sorority’s tenth president.

Ferebee worked for the Mississippi Health Care Project (MHP), a government-sponsored endeavor in which Ferebee and a team of volunteer nurses traveled to the Deep South to set up impromptu clinics for underserved Black communities during the 1930s and 1940s.

“[That project] became the genesis of our modern-day community health centers,” Jones says. “Dr. Ferebee was committed to bringing healthcare to poor Black communities and children And with Simmons being at the forefront of women’s education and social equity, she embodied that through all her work.”

Moreover, Jones notes that Ferebee endured personal hardships, including a husband who resented her success. “At a personal loss, Ferebee continued her work on behalf of [serving indigent populations] and then continued to work to improve healthcare access.”

Elie adds, “As Simmons women, we are trained to be advocates and activists, and that’s exactly what Ferebee did in her time.”

In 1959, Ferebee received the University’s inaugural Alumnae/i Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1962 she delivered the Commencement address.

Civil Rights: Bertha Wormley, Class of 1927

“Even though Bertha Wormley was not as ‘famous’ [as Ferebee], we felt that her historical significance merited recognition,” says Jones.

Wormley was a friend and mentor to Coretta Scott King, as noted in King’s memoir, My Life with Dr. King. 

As Jones explains, “During that time, if a Black family had a relative coming up North, according to the custom, they would either acquire the name of a pastor at a church, or somebody who was there [in the neighborhood/area] to receive them.” When Coretta Scott boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on her way to Boston, she had Wormley’s name. “That’s how their relationship began, and it lasted a lifetime,” Jones says.

As one of the seven women who began the Epsilon Chapter, Wormley was a Charter member of the organization. “Gia and I would not be members of the AKA if it were not for Wormley and the other Simmons women who started the chapter,” Jones notes.

Wormley was also one of the first Black women to work for the Civil Services Department of Massachusetts. “Right out of college, Wormley got the job as a civil clerk — what we call the proverbial ‘good job’ — and stayed there,” says Jones.

“When you are a ‘first,’ you can be a gatekeeper or a door opener. Gatekeepers tend to enjoy the status and not let too many people come behind them because there is a certain allure that they enjoy. Bertha Wormley was a door opener. She helped other Black people study for the civil service exam,’ says Jones. “So that’s part of her legacy.”

In concert with Jones’s reflections, Coretta Scott King wrote about Wormley’s generosity and inclusive leadership: “Mrs. Wormley was a special person, yet she shared the spirit of many [Black individuals] of that day — and this — who have achieved some degree of success and who form a sort of chain to help the younger people of their race. Think of how complicated that chain was that led me to her — yet how strong.”

Celebrating Women’s History: Sylvia McDowell ’56, ’57MS

As co-founder of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail (BWHT), McDowell helped recognize exemplary women from the city’s history. The trail commemorates numerous historical figures, including Phyllis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, Amelia Earhart, and prominent suffragists. McDowell also co-authored a companion volume for the Trail.

“The Trail essentially encompasses the area around the State House and Public Gardens in Boston … These were women who had voices in the cry for freedom, the abolitionist movement, and the women’s suffrage movement,” Jones says.

After studying library science at Simmons, McDowell became a librarian at Radcliffe. There she founded the Black Women’s Oral History Project, an archive comprising 72 historic Black women who were interviewed from 1976 to 1981. Ferebee is among the interviewees, and her oral history is available in audio and transcribed forms.

Through AKA, Jones had the opportunity to meet McDowell. “Sylvia served as my advisor when I was an undergraduate member of AKA … She was soft spoken and very sweet, but she was firm with us. In this way, she reminded me of the Catholic nuns who taught me earlier in my education,” Jones recalls. “She was a very dignified and elegant being.”

To honor McDowell, former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino created Sylvia McDowell Day on March 6 in 2010.

Sisterhood for Life: AKA 

Jones found out about AKA through the Baptist church she attended before coming to Simmons. When she was a high school senior, she met with the pastor and assistant pastor, per the tradition of this particular church. 

During the meeting, Jones conveyed that she would be attending Simmons College. “Then the assistant pastor asked me if I was pledging, but I did not know what that meant. He said, ‘If you are going to Simmons College, I want you to look up AKA’ … So, it [pledging and joining the sorority] was just serendipity,” she recalls.

Through AKA’s Epsilon Chapter, Jones befriended several women at Simmons and in the greater Boston area with whom she socialized, enjoyed cultural events, and performed acts of community service. “Even if you are new to a city, if you are in AKA or the Divine Nine [a group of preeminent Black sororities and fraternities], you are never a stranger,” says Jones, who considers these women her “sisters for life.”

As a first-generation student whose immediate family is overseas, Elie joined AKA to cultivate local resources and networks of support. Since one of her aunts is an AKA soror, she had some early exposure to the organization’s commitment to service. Elie occasionally accompanied her aunt to reunions in Martha’s Vineyard and other AKA-related events in New York (where her aunt resides). “We performed acts of service, including volunteering at soup kitchens and shelters for individuals experiencing homelessness,” recalls Elie. “And that is the mission of our sorority, to provide service to all humankind.”

Jones accentuates the organization’s relationship to service. “AKA is about sisterhood and the impact we make in service.” She notes that many extraordinary Black women were members of AKA, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, civil rights leader Rosa Parks, poet Maya Angelou, Black Power poet Sonia Sanchez, actresses Loretta Devine and Phylicia Rashad, and ophthalmologist Dr. Patricia Bath.

“Anytime I find out about an extraordinary Black woman, chances are she is an AKA woman,” Jones remarks. “It’s just the way we are trained and it’s the way we continue to live out our founders’ legacy.”

Elie values the fellowship of AKA, as well as that of the larger “Divine Nine” network, constituting the historic five fraternities and four sororities of the Black community. “It’s all interconnected … and once we find that connection, you are automatically family,” she explains. “My [blood] sister recently joined Alpha Kappa Alpha, and she is now my ‘little legacy,’ which is a full circle moment for me.”

At Simmons’ 125th Anniversary Reunion, Elie and Jones reconnected. Elie also gave attendees a tour of the Black alumnae/i plaques. As Jones remarks, “we want people to know the legacy of AKA’s and Simmons’ outstanding women.”