Did you know that Dr. Rose Butler Browne, the first Black woman to earn a doctoral degree in education from Harvard University, was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.?
Rose Butler Browne was born on March 19, 1897, in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of a brickmason and a laundry worker, and grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. She often credited her success to her great-grandmother, a woman her family called the “High Priestess,” whom she honored in her autobiography, Love My Children. Determined to get an education, Browne worked as a live-in domestic while earning her bachelor’s degree at Rhode Island State College, now the University of Rhode Island.
Browne continued her studies with remarkable resolve. She earned a master’s degree at the Rhode Island College of Education and then went on to Harvard University, where in 1939 she made history as the first Black woman to earn a doctoral degree in education. It was an extraordinary achievement for a Black woman in that era, and it opened a career devoted to educating and uplifting others…