(RNS) — Soon after Vice President Kamala Harris shifted from vice presidential candidate to presidential nominee, 44,000 of her supporters dialed into a call dubbed Win With Black Women that quickly became something of a sorority rally.
“Folks were shouting out their Greek letter organizations,” recalled Tamura Lomax, associate professor of religious studies at Michigan State University and a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
The call, typically, also opened and ended with prayer.
Like no other previous campaign, the 2024 election season has illuminated the convening power of the more-than-a-century-old relationship between twin pillars of the Black community: Black churches and the “Divine Nine” fraternities and sororities that Black Americans have turned to for solidarity on campuses and beyond them for generations.
Though just a nickname, the organizations dubbed the Divine Nine have multiple overlaps with the Black church. Nonetheless, said Candice Marie Benbow, a Black theologian and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, to which Harris also belongs, “This is the first time that we’ve actually had a candidate for a major political party that is a product of both.”
Benbow added: “There’s a certain level of ownership and understanding of, like, we know her.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. annual convention during the 71st biennial Boule at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
Benbow, who has canvassed in Atlanta with other Christian women and soro …