photo by: Lauren Fox

A dedication ceremony for the "Divine Nine" Plaza, which features monuments erected in honor of the nine historically black Greek-letter organizations in the National Pan-Hellenic Council, took place on Oct. 23, 2019. The plaza is located in the Burge Union courtyard.

A dedication ceremony Wednesday night celebrated a permanent spot on the University of Kansas campus that honors the nine historically black Greek-letter organizations.

In the Burge Union courtyard, nine monuments dedicated to the nine organizations in the National Pan-Hellenic Council have been erected. The NPHC is one of four Greek councils on campus, and four of the KU chapters of the NPHC were chartered on campus prior to 1926.

“Just having a plaque dedication is really, really dope, because even though we have little things randomly placed around the campus, we don’t have anything like this,” KU senior and president of the NPHC Kendrick Jackson said.

Jackson said the monuments were finished a couple of months ago, but the NPHC decided to have the dedication ceremony during Homecoming week so alumni could partake in the celebration.

“We wanted to do it during Homecoming so they could come back and see what we’ve done since they’ve been gone,” he said. After the ceremony, a reception took place in the Burge Union.

Efforts to create the memorial began in April 2018 via a fundraiser with a goal of $50,000. By June 2018, the goal had been exceeded by nearly $4,000. More than 200 donors contributed to the campaign.

Nikita Haynie, assistant director of sorority and fraternity life at KU and the adviser of the NPHC, said the plaza would bring increased awareness to the historic organizations.

Currently, five organizations of the NPHC have active chapters on KU’s campus: Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta sorority and Zeta Phi Beta sorority. Four of these chapters were established prior to 1926, the oldest of which, the Delta chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, was chartered at KU in 1915. The other organizations — Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, Sigma Gamma Rho sorority and Iota Phi Theta fraternity — are inactive.

Haynie hopes that the visibility of the monuments will help spur KU to one day have all “Divine Nine” chapters active on campus.

She also said the monuments celebrated and honored the impact of the black Greek-letter organizations, many of which played important roles in the civil rights movement.

“Black Greek-letter organizations are really a huge part of history,” she said. “They came to fruition in the 1900s. Around that time, that’s when black people didn’t have a lot of rights and they were fighting and advocating for that and risking their lives. And so it’s deeper than just, ‘Oh, I’m part of a Greek-letter organization.’ This is a part of history — black history.”