Today, Strong Black Lead, Netflix’s podcast featuring interviews with legendary Black people in the entertainment industry published their season finale, an interview with Debbie Allen. If you don’t know, Allen has done it all: dancer, actor, producer, director etc. Madame Noire’s Veronica Bell covers the interesting peak into Allen’s almost sorority-life:
So it makes sense that people would want to claim her. And they have. Online if you search Debbie Allen and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, you’ll see that she is listed as a member of the historically Black sorority.
During the interview, host Tracy Clayton shared that there is much debate about whether or not Allen actually pledged. She laughed before sharing what happened in her quest to become an AKA.
Tracy Clayton: Are you aware that there is a conversation on the internet about whether or not you pledged any sorority and if so, whether it was Delta or AKA. Is that something that you’re conscious of?
Debbie Allen: Laughs I’m not aware of the conversation but I’m aware of it every time I’m in the company of multiple Black women who go ooo [oop] or skee wee. And they talk to me.
So, when I was at Howard University, my sister Phylicia Rashad, whose footsteps I was following everywhere pledged AKA. So, I was going to pledge AKA. I went and I made line. Oh my interview, I just remember it. I was so sharp, they thought I was schooled or I don’t know what. They were gunning for me. They were going to really let me have it. But my mother, Vivian Ayers, said, ‘If you pledge a sorority, then I’m going to take all the money that I have saved to send you to dance school in the summer and I’m going to buy a car. Because your consciousness is not in the right place. Your focus is off. And I’m like, ‘No mom, no.’ So I dropped out of line. So I never did pledge and I went to the New London Dance Festival where I met Alvin Ailey, where I met the protégée of Katherine Dunham, I met Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham. I met the greatest icons in the dance world and momma was right. Read the full story by Veronica Wells on Madame Noire.
