Born the eldest of three daughters of Rev. and Mrs. Richard E. Brogdon, Dr. Julia Brogdon Purnell earned a B.A. from Allen University and an M.A. from Atlanta University. She served as the sixteenth International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., from 1962 to 1966. During her presidency, she was instrumental in securing a contract with the federal government to operate the Cleveland Job Corps, a federal residential training program for women, establishing the first National Program Office in Washington, D.C., and the second international chapter in Nassau, Bahamas, and convening the first Undergraduate Leadership School in 1965. A champion of civil rights, she participated in the White House Conference of Three Hundred Women in 1963 at the invitation of President John F. Kennedy. She was also elected the seventh International President of the Links, Inc., served as a professor of education at Southern University, and received nine honorary doctorate degrees.