The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), commonly called the Divine Nine, is a collaborative council connecting the nine historically African American sororities and fraternities across college campuses. 

These organizations allow African American students to join a brotherhood or sisterhood, forming a network of support and developing interpersonal connections with their classmates and Tech alumni.

During Black History Month, the Technique spoke to representatives of some of the sororities and fraternity members of NPHC to better understand the challenges these organizations face as part of campus life at Tech. Representatives of the organizations told a story of a widespread lack of knowledge and understanding of what their organizations do for the community and the ideals they represent.

One concerning topic that every representative agreed upon was the number of people disrespecting the recently completed Divine Nine Plaza by sitting on one of the benches designated for a particular fraternity or sorority. 

While representing the Lambda Delta chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Justin Buckles, fourth-year ME, described an interaction he had with a member of the public who was sitting on one of the benches at the Divine Nine Plaza.

“I saw a student sitting on the [Alpha Kappa Alpha] plot and spoke to him. I explained what the plot was and why we typically don’t want people to be sitting there. [The student] said, ‘Oh, I didn’t, I didn’t know anything about that,’ and he got up to sit in a different place,” Buckles said.

Buckles said this was one of the more innocent interactions, but he had heard of other people doing a similar thing with worse results. Representatives described a Reddit post on r/gatech that questioned the bench seating.

Adaliah Dunya, fourth-year BMED, represented the Psi Alpha chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Dunya read some of the comments on the Reddit post, which included remarks such as “Blacks only…