The gallery in Phi Kappa Hall is quiet except for one voice. Sporting a mane of dark curls spilling out over her shoulders, Sister Henry’s usual high pitch is replaced with a harsher tone that lays bare pain. The language of her spoken word poetry is less a vivid reflection than an arsenal of serrated edged knives ready to dissect the raw feelings of some pressing moment of her past. A first-time visitor might conclude that this isn’t her first time. He would be right. Informally sometimes called Mama Kris, the lectern has been her performance space for close to four years and she’s in the middle of one of her last active performances.
At the end of a long night of elections last fall, Sister Henry’s name appeared for the first time at the top of the list of elected candidates, managing to break a nearly two hundred year precedent. Sister Henry had become the first black woman to preside over the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
“There aren’t even really words to describe that on my part. Naturally, I feel great about that, but I want to believe I symbolize something but more than anything it makes me proud about how far the society has come even since I joined. Not only am I a black women who is president, but we have so many different faces that are from so many different places at this point that we can’t say the society is all one thing or another thing,” Sister Henry said.
An unabashed feminist and activist, Sister Henry, presides in the highest seat on the rostrum overlooking the Upper Chamber, a room decorated with portraits of distinguished alumni, nearly all white men inducted before integration in 1961. For her sponsor Brother Woodard, her tenure has signaled a paradigm shift.
“When I think of Kris, I think of Thurgood Marshall and his work with the US Justice System and the transformation he created from within and she reminds me of embodying the ideals that people profess and putting them into action,” Brother Woodard said.
Despite the historic nature of her tenure, her goal was simple – keep the society together. As a member under four different generations of Phi Kappans, she noticed the tendency for siblings to grow apart when membership grew. Teaching traditions to newer members was, to her, an important aspect of presiding.
She also broke tradition. In contrast to previous presidents who gave addresses from the chair, she gave hers from the lectern in an attempt to relate more closely with siblings.
Still, Sister Henry said she experienced her share of challenges, adjusting to being conscious of everyone in a room or dealing with pesky problems of sibling punctuality and decorum. Making decisions on behalf of the half of the society, however, is what she found to be her most difficult and important responsibility. One such decision was weighing stringent enforcement of penalties with decorum violations and providing leeway for siblings. A decision she made in March to little pushback, but it is those type of decisions she felt need to be considered societal level and not a personal one.
“Things can go awry if you don’t put a lot of reflection into the weight of that,” she said.
Four year journey in the Hall
Her time in Phi Kappa began under less tremendous circumstances. Almost four years ago, she received a personal invitation from Sister Jess Melear who had observed her love of discussion in her English class. In that time, she said membership was largely homogenous, but she felt a connection that she wanted to embrace with long-term commitment. Of what she can remember of her petitioning days, the feeling of anxiety was the most common up until the night of her initiation.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself because you don’t know what goes on deliberations and you don’t know what goes on in closed meetings and you have to wonder what kind of mistakes you’ve made or did I not talk to this person enough. But then I got in and it was really gratifying experience,” she said.
Remarking on her early tics, Sister Henry described her first attempts at debate as less deliberate. In one of her earliest debates, she said she nervously took the floor, flailing her hands high in the air and banging on the lectern while reciting points she scribbled in a small notebook.
But she looks back on her time in the Hall as one of self-improvement. According to Brother Woodard, her improvement is evidence of the transformative power of Phi Kappa. Specifically, he noted her speech at the 2015 Inter-Society Debate as a proud moment as both a sponsor and a sibling.
Phi Kappa’s win that night holds particular resonance for Sister Henry who witnessed three consecutive losses. In her final year, she said the victory was a nice end note to her career compared to a time three years earlier when she racked up $300 in library fines for books on ocean privatization to help the ISD team and only to watch them lose. It also represented the end of a tradition that she hopes new members never have to experience.
“That probably made me happier than anything that the freshmen saw a win. So they don’t feel like they have this huge burden on them to break the cycle. They’ve watched us work hard and do that for them and so I think the thing that was gratifying to me was that this was inspirational to younger members,” Sister Henry said.
From an active to an alumna
Known for outspokenness on the floor, her last speech as an active struck a tone of resignation as she paced about the lectern, occasionally at a loss for words. She urged newer siblings to realize their future responsibility and their voice because the society is in transition.
With her graduation two weeks away, the end of her active Phi Kappa career has occupied her mind lately. In describing her presidency, she framed it as an important stepping stone stating that she provided a more unorthodox model of leadership that she felt was important for siblings to see. The thought of her active membership coming to end, however, was more difficult to process.
“I feel like I’m trying to keep myself in denial because this has been four years of my life that I devoted very intensely. It’s an exciting time and somber time for me,” Sister Henry said.
It has also been historic.
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