When the lights went down, the sororities and fraternities howled deep-throated dog calls to one another in the darkness.

All over Pennsylvania, Greek organizations celebrated Statewide, which is a weekend devoted to celebrating Greek life on college campuses.

One of the events of Statewide, the Step Show, attracted Greek organizations from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York universities to Shippensburg University. Fraternities and sororities unleashed a flurry of synchronized arm waves, leg slaps and foot stomps as they released their Greek pride in Memorial Auditorium Saturday night.

Members of Iota Phi Theta, hailing from Virginia State University, wore brown suspenders and yellow and brown striped ties. They played the role of gang-banging poker players who were strategizing how to kill the step show, which they did by winning first place.

When the music began to blare the lyrics to “Suit and Tie,” the audience started clapping along to the stomping and dancing of Iota Phi Theta.

There was only one sorority that competed, but the ladies of Delta Sigma Theta travelled from New York City and held their own at SU. They called themselves the Crimson Inferno, and danced with the fiery passion of their name with their red-sleeved arms waving and leg-slapping in unison.

Greek life plays an important role in education as well as African-American life, Marvin Worthy, three-time SU graduate and member of Kappa Alpha PSI, said.

The letters everyone wears all represent the same core elements of compassion and dedication, and the step show is a reminder of those things, Worthy said.

“It’s me wanting to share a piece of culture with you,” said Diane Jefferson, director of the Multicultural Student Affairs (MSA), explaining how the step show provides something for people of all races. The step show was organized by the MSA and the African-American Organization at SU.

There are even differences between races, and events like this help people to learn about each other by experiencing each other’s culture, Jefferson said.

It is not enough to talk the talk of diversity, Jefferson said. People need to act on it.

The first fraternity to perform centered its theme on social justice. The Mighty Psi Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha began its performance with news clips of Ferguson and Trayvon Martin and other social injustices against African-Americans. The first member to begin the performance wore a white shirt stained with the words, “don’t shoot” as he sang a mournful song that gained energy as each of his fraternity brothers joined him on stage.

Terrance Griffin, step show host and SU alumnus, ended the show with poetry he wrote that paralleled the similarities between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his former girlfriend, whose name has the same initials.

“MLK would choose the love because the hate is too great a burden to bear,” Griffin told the audience. “So I choose the love.” 

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