Trisha Nikel Quarles-Goodman, a longtime resident of the Arundel on the Bay community located in Annapolis, Maryland, stated that she is creating a feature film about the legacy of one of her relatives: Nellie May Quander. The noted educator and trailblazer who was born on February 11, 1880 and died on September 24, 1961 played a role in strengthening the rich legacy of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc., the first intercollegiate African American sorority.
“Nellie Quander, incorporator and first national president of the Greek sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha is a cousin of mine,” Trisha Quarles-Goodman said.
Photo credit: Darren Moulden
Before Quander, Lucy Diggs Slow was the first president for a semester from January to June 1908 when the sorority was founded. Ethel Hedgemon Lyle, who is often referred to as the “Guiding Light” of Alpha Kappa Alpha, was the first supreme basileus and founder of the first Black sorority at Howard University in 1908, Quarles-Goodman added.
Quander became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha at Howard University.
Quarles-Goodman referenced an interview that was conducted with Rohulamin Quander, the Quander family’s historian and author of “Nellie Quander, An Alpha Kappa Alpha Pearl; The Story of the Woman Who Saved an International Organization.”
The Quanders are members of one of the oldest and most well-documented Black families in America.
Rohulamin said, “Well first you’ve got to understand that the Quander family is a large and extended family… we are not quite at 350 years yet in terms of how long we’ve been here [in America], but we’re coming to 350 years fairly soon. So, the divergence of her Quander line and my Quander line is not exactly clear, but we do share the common Quander root going back into early, early Maryland and Virginia. It may be a couple of 100 years back, but we are still related. We are cousins but distantly.”
A letter dated February 17, 1913 from Quander to Alice Paul points to the issue of suffrage. Quander wrote to the organizer of the 1913 suffrage parade because women at Howard University wanted to participate in the suffrage procession if they did not have to deal with “discrimination on account of race affiliation.” Quander penned another letter asking for them to be “positioned “in a desirable place in the college women’s section.
“Future Washington, D.C., educator Nellie Quander graduated in June 1912 from Howard University, where she had joined Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA), the nation’s oldest Black sorority. In January 1913, she took the lead in incorporating AKA, possibly hoping to avert the withdrawal of twenty-two student members, with a greater interest in political activism, who subsequently founded Delta Sigma Theta. The Deltas marched in the 1913 parade, but it is not clear how many AKA members participated,” according to the Library of Congress.
“But organizers, acceding to racists in states that needed to ratify the 19th Amendment, sought to isolate Black women. In a letter to Paul, Quander made clear she was having none of it. On the day of the procession, “Nellie and her group refused to take a place in the back of the D.C. line,” Rohulamin Quander said. “They forcibly integrated themselves into the group of white women from D.C.”
Nellie also pursued post-graduate studies. Quarles-Goodman shared that her late grandmother, Catherine Quander Quarles, was the basalis at Bowie State University. She was another educator in the family.
“My grandmother taught at Adams Morgan, and Belvedere Elementary and retired at Tyler Heights Elementary.”
Trisha Quarles-Goodman, a resident of Los Angeles, California who graduated from Annapolis Senior High School, owns Trisha Nikel Talent Consulting. She is pursuing a master’s in Organizational Leadership and Management at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California.
“I found this school to be the perfect institution to unfold our family research because it supports and values social justice and equality for all,” Quarles-Goodman said.
Quarles-Goodman noted that she is seeking to establish a nonprofit where a production about Nellie Quander will be housed to document her legacy. Information has been extracted from the book written by Rohulamin.
“Nellie Quander, An Alpha Kappa Alpha Pearl” is the story of the woman who saved an international organization whose membership includes leading women like Vice President Kamala Harris and other well-known public figures,” Quarles-Goodman said. “The story will focus on historical moments and how our heroine preserved a membership of educated and professional Black women that are the backbones of the African American community today. The goal is to preserve the truth of a legacy, and turn the facts in the book to film and give our future young people a real Black heroine to role model.”
Email 1913Nellie@gmail.com or follow @1913NellieMovies on Instagram to follow Quarles-Goodman’s film journey.