Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity has a tremendous legacy, born of its own work as an organization as well as that of its sons. While Alpha Phi Alpha has generally chronicled this history in Dr. Charles Harris Wesley and Dr. Robert L. Harris’ histories of the Fraternity, to date there has been no work that has provided a comprehensive narrative about the Fraternity’s racial uplift work. This book intends to fill that gap. Uplifting the Race is an effort to synthesize the Wesley and Harris histories as well as almost 100 years of The Sphinx back issues, Civil Rights cases litigated by Alpha lawyers, General Convention reports, and biographies of Alpha luminaries. Even still, there is just as much information left on the proverbial cutting‐room floor as has made the final version of this book.

Indeed, the story is deep, long, and vast. In short, contrary to the common narrative, Alpha Phi Alpha’s racial uplift work was not simply the work of its members. Rather, this narrative is one of meaningful organizational engagement for a time and similarly sustained work on the part of individual Fraternity members. In addition, the story is not a linear one. The Fraternity’s early years reflect a deep commitment to racial uplift, embedded in the very fabric of the Fraternity’s founding ideals and identity. However, it would take many years for the Fraternity to discern what that commitment would mean in tangible terms. Some of that had to do with the issues of the day as well as the tools for social change the Jewels and early national leaders within the Fraternity found at their disposal. Societal factors shaped the ebb and flow of this work, ultimately moving Alpha Phi Alpha from a Fraternity that employed a range of approaches in its work to an organization, by the 197os, that focused largely on community service and philanthropy to the relative neglect of social action and public policy work. Even more, internal dynamics that have long‐bedeviled the Fraternity—e.g., hazing, liability issues, retention, reclamation, engagement, chapter stability—and broader, societal factors that bear down on the Fraternity—e.g., changing higher education landscape, shifting workforce dynamics—all, likely, have significantly impacted Alpha Phi Alpha’s ability to do its most sacred work. Accordingly, it is my hope that this book will provide some context for how to think about where the Fraternity has been, is, and is heading.