Surprise visit from founders Margaret Hawkins and Sarah Scott

Links Western Area Leadership Summit participants received a treat at the closing ceremony when two members dressed as the organization's founders shared historical tidbits and reflected on the future of organization. 

The two concluded that today's members are quite different from the original women who wore minks, gloves and pearls to chapter meetings. 

The women's organization began on the evening of November 9, 1946, when Margaret Hawkins and Sarah Scott, two young Philadelphia matrons, invited seven of their friends to join them in organizing a new type of inter-city club. This organizing meeting of The Links was not a spontaneous action. In 1945, Link Hawkins had conceived the idea of a group of clubs composed of friends along the eastern seaboard and had spent many hours with Link Scott in thinking, planning and discussing the possibilities of such an endeavor.

The two women envisioned an organization that would respond to the needs and aspirations of Black women in ways that existing clubs did not. It was their intent the club would have a threefold aim--civic, educational, and cultural. Based on these aims, the club would implement programs, which its founders hoped would foster cultural appreciation through the arts; develop richer inter-group relations; and help women who participated to understand and accept their social and civic responsibilities.

Excerpt from National Website: http://www.linksinc.org/original_members.shtml

,