Iota Phi Lambda Sorority, Inc.

Early in 1929, Mrs. Lola M. Parker of Chicago, Illinois, was stimulated by the need and a great vision of organization that would offset the results caused by the Great Depression. Many Negroes were left without employment, and Negro women working in white collar jobs in the business field with comparatively new skills were doubly penalized by race and sex. Mrs. Parker called together six friends to discuss a plan for establishing an organization that would add prestige to the field of business and to those women who had chosen business as a career.

Such an organization would stimulate, inspire, foster and give assistance to those persons engaged in business vocations. Taking the first step in the organization of a national business sorority, these seven women, Lola M. Parker, Ethel T. Edwards, Mildred G. Hardin, Harriet M. Robinson, Ophelia Harrison, Burdette Trigg, and Marjorie Tyndell created Alpha Chapter on June 1, 1929, in Chicago, IL. Since that time, other professions have been embraced, however, the major emphasis has remained in the broad field of the business arena.

There are now more than one hundred chapters with a membership numbering more than three thousand, in eighty-five cities, Washington, D. C., and the U. S. Virgin Islands.