Book description
On December 4, 1906, on Cornell University's campus, seven black men
founded one of the greatest and most enduring organizations in American
history. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. has brought together and shaped
such esteemed men as Martin Luther King Jr., Cornel West, Thurgood
Marshall, Wes Moore, W. E. B. DuBois, Roland Martin, and Paul Robeson.
“Born in the shadow of slavery and on the lap of disenfranchisement,”
Alpha Phi Alpha-like other black Greek-letter organizations-was founded
to instill a spirit of high academic achievement and intellectualism,
foster meaningful and lifelong ties, and racially uplift those brothers
who would be initiated into its ranks. In Alpha Phi Alpha, Gregory S.
Parks, Stefan M. Bradley, and other contributing authors analyze the
fraternity and its members' fidelity to the founding precepts set forth
in 1906. They discuss the identity established by the fraternity at its
inception, the challenges of protecting the image and brand, and how the
organization can identify and train future Alpha men to uphold the
standards of an outstanding African American fraternity. Drawing on
organizational identity theory and a diverse array of methodologies, the
authors raise and answer questions that are relevant not only to Alpha
Phi Alpha but to all black Greek-letter organizations. Gregory S.
Parks, assistant professor of law at Wake Forest University School of
Law, is coeditor of African American Fraternities and Sororities: The
Legacy and the Vision and editor of Black Greek-Letter Organizations in
the Twenty-First Century: Our Fight Has Just Begun. Stefan M. Bradley,
associate professor of history and African American studies at Saint
Louis University, is the author of Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black
Student Power in the Late 1960s. He lives in Alton, Illinois.
