Get and Stay Engaged

“Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.” – Barack Obama

By Nicole A. Butler

International Director of Social Action

The 44th president of the United States said it best, we are all part of one American family. As such, we must be diligent in ensuring equity in every aspect of our society. Zeta as an organization made the declaration 100 years ago, seeking to improve the human condition. Having a mission to improve communities and make our lives examples for others to follow is how we stand out among our peers.

Being a part of an organization has many merits such as sisterhood, working as a collective of like-minded people, and being a contributor to society through service projects. Being able to say that more than 20,000 women and more are fighting all injustices that they face has a greater impact than a select few. By uniting under One Zeta, we make sure our voices are heard on pertinent issues such as birth equity, domestic violence, police brutality, and human trafficking, to name a few.

We have promoted the slogan Community-Conscious, Action-Oriented for many years, we must continue to use this as our rallying cry and use it as our foundation to serve our social action efforts. We are tasked to ensure that we are utilizing all resources to make our communities better than they are and to increase our actions in doing so.

We are the only sorority that has a designated program for social action. Get Engaged is where we are intentional in addressing current issues, resolving conflict on the local level, and encouraging the blue and white family to be visible when seeking political office. Get Engaged is not just a slogan or catch phrase, but a verb that should motivate you to make change in your communities, seek support from your public officials, and demand that engagement is on-going within our organization.

As with any program, Get Engaged can always improve, yet improvement comes from being involved and having your voice heard. Serving on multiple levels of social action, it is invigorating that many Zetas are leading the way in making sure social action is being done on the local level. With over 900 active chapters, we have impacted over 75, 000 people in the last two years. Let’s strive to impact more by 2022.

Serving as the director of this program has allowed me to assess what is important to the sisterhood and how we can impact our communities through our various ZHOPE programs. It is gratifying to say to a partner that we have over 20 thousand Zetas who are ready to implement programs related to the Census, Election 2020, and supporting the families of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Soror Pheonecia Ratliff. We must continue to say their names and continue to do the work to prevent further injustices in our chartered areas of service.

I charge you all with rolling up your sleeves and getting in the trenches to make sure that we are truly being a service to our communities. Our theme for this administration: Robust Civic Engagement. We must demand to be in the room where decisions are made. We must demand that we receive funding to support our programs that will help families thrive. We must demand accountability from all who have been elected. We must demand transparency from all who pledged to serve.

In closing, I am grateful to the Zetas who blazed the path for me to walk on, who were a friend to man, and continued to lead the fight for the improvement of our communities.

The year 2020 was a year of many changes. We have experienced a pandemic, a rise in violence against women, our nation’s capitol being breeched, police brutality, virtual education, and much more. (Continued on page 10)

Zeta has embraced the many changes we faced as a country. What would have been a glorious and finer centennial celebration was abruptly cut short. Yet, we pressed on. We learned that our country was going through the ultimate test of strength when the pandemic hit. It was not just a problem in certain communities or among certain people; it was a problem across the globe. Beyond the pandemic, we were fighting for equality and justice in our communities. The fight was intensified when the unjust murders of Breonna, George, and Ahmaud happened months apart. We were already fighting for justice for Trayvon, Tamir, Sandra, Philando, and countless others who fell at the hands of the police.

When does it stop? Where does it end? Who do we speak to about this? Zetas have stepped up and started taking it to the streets. Since the inception of the Get Engaged program, Zeta was the only sorority to showcase our letters during peaceful protests. This small action shows our dedication to social change. We marched for all those who have been victimized and couldn’t speak for themselves.

This past year wasn’t any different; Zetas were on the frontlines with protests in our local areas and travelling to support our peers to demand change. We made phone calls, pubic service announcements, and hosted townhalls to show our discontent with the issues in our communities. With coronavirus at the height during the summer, it was apparent that we had to pivot our method of engagement. Yet, we did not stop nor did we waver. We used social media as our main platform to spread the message of making change at the ballot box and making change in the halls of Congress. We showed up to board meeting via zoom and we emailed our elected officials to make our voices known. Lastly, we created campaigns to bring awareness to all the ills that are plaguing our communities.

We had to adjust to a virtual society. We did it quickly and with finer finesse. As the trailblazing organization, we are making sure we are in the room to continue the fight for equity in our society.

Sorors, our work is not done! We may get weary, yet we must march on.

Now that the election is over, we must push to get our needs met.

1. Continue to create social media campaigns to bring awareness to an issue 2. Host forums to educate all on the issues 3. Organize communities to testify in front of city council, state legislature, and/or

Congress 4. Utilize our partners to maximize our reach

The summer of 2020 has taught us that the road to freedom is not easy nor is it free. Yet, we must be willing to pay the cost to see that our children do not experience what we are fighting against.