Transforming Communities · Fulfilling Our Purpose
WHO ARE WE?
About the Links Incorporated
The Links, Incorporated is an international, not-for-profit corporation, established in 1946. The membership consists of more than 15,000 professional women of color in 288 chapters located in 42 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the United Kingdom. It is one of the nation’s oldest and largest volunteer service organizations of extraordinary women who are committed to enriching, sustaining and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and other persons of African ancestry.
Our core values are friendship, integrity, honesty, service, commitment, family relationships, courage, respect for self and others, legacy, confidentiality, responsibility, and accountability. The members of The Links, Incorporated are influential decision makers and opinion leaders. The Links, Incorporated has attracted many distinguished women who are individual achievers and have made a difference in their communities and the world. They are business and civic leaders, role models, mentors, activists and volunteers who work towards a common vision by engaging like-minded organizations and individuals for partnership. Links members contribute more than 1 million documented hours of community service annually – strengthening their communities and enhancing the nation. The organization is the recipient of awards from the UN Association of New York and the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation for its premier programs.
The outstanding programming of The Links, Incorporated has five facets which include Services to Youth, The Arts, National Trends and Services, International Trends and Services and Health and Human Services. The programs are implemented through strategies such as public information and education, economic development, and public policy campaigns.
About the Orangeburg (SC) Chapter
During the 1950’s The Links, Incorporated came to South Carolina in Charleston (1951), Columbia (1952), and Greenville (1953). In a similar vein two friends, Mary S. Moorer and Nettie P. Parler invited a group of Link enthusiasts to join them in an organizational effort to get a chapter of The Links, Incorporated installed in their city. The group became organized under the name “The Les” which was a shortened version of “The Links Enthusiasts”. The Columbia Chapter graciously agreed to sponsor “The Les” of Orangeburg. On Saturday, December 5, 1964, the culmination of the dreams of 15 ladies was realized when “The Les” of Orangeburg became the Orangeburg Chapter of The Links, Incorporated. The birth of the Orangeburg Chapter was before the Voting Rights Act and the Public Accommodations Bill in the days of segregation, however the 15 stalwart women in Orangeburg knew this community and felt that their organization could make a difference through its diverse projects.
Chapter President
