Arizona Cleaver Stemons
American social worker
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Arizona Cleaver Stemons (1898 – March 1980), born Arizona Leedonia Cleaver, was an American social worker. While she was a student at Howard University in 1920, she was one of the five founding members of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, and its first president.
Arizona Cleaver Stemons | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1898 Pike County, Missouri |
| Died | March 1980 (aged 81–82) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Early life
Arizona Leedonia Cleaver was born in Pike County, Missouri,[1] and raised in Hannibal, Missouri.[2][3]
Career
Arizona Cleaver was one of the "Five Pearls", the founding members of Zeta Phi Beta, when it began at Howard University in 1920.[4] She was the sorority's first chapter president, and its first Grand Basileus (national president).[5][6]
She organized the Philadelphia graduate chapter of Zeta, and remained active nationally as the sorority's first president emerita for several decades,[7][8][9] and was a popular speaker at Zeta events into her seventies.[10][11] "This country of ours," she said in a speech in 1952, "must oppose movements that divide the races and seek an economy that will feed, clothe, and house the nation, without regard to race, creed, or national origin."[12]
After 1933 she worked as a social worker in Philadelphia, working with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children[13] and for the city's Department of Public Welfare.[14]
Personal life and legacy
In 1928, Arizona Cleaver became the third wife of James Samuel Stemons, a writer and union organizer.[15] James Stemons died in 1959.[16] Arizona Cleaver Stemons died in March 1980, aged 81 years, in Philadelphia.[3][17]
The Philadelphia graduate chapter of Zeta took ownership of her home after her death, and continues to maintain the property. In 2015, a new monument was placed at her gravesite in Eden Cemetery near Philadelphia, by the sorority, and a historical marker about Stemons was placed near the site of her high school in Hannibal.
In 2016, a park in Hannibal was renamed the Douglass School/Arizona Cleaver Stemons Park.[18] In 2019, to mark the centennial of Zeta Phi Beta, a street in Philadelphia was renamed Arizona C. Stemons Way.[14][19][20]
The Zeta Phi Beta sorority in 2019 announced a US$100,000 scholarship named the Triumphant Founder Arizona C. Stemons Centennial Scholarship.[21] There are several other scholarships named for Stemons.[22]
