What a Mighty Power We Can Be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality

Harvard scholars Skocpol, Liazos and Ganz have turned what was meant to be a conference presentation into a valuable text that ""assembles the best picture to date of the rich history of African-American fraternal federations,"" unveiling how groups such as the Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons, the Order of the Eastern Star, and the dynamic Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, gave black Americans a larger, more structured presence in U.S. civil society. Set against the larger struggle to establish black freedom and identity from the late 19th century through the 1960s, the authors show how these little-considered organizations not only ""fostered mutual aid among members,"" but were instrumental in bridging African-American concerns across states and spurring change on a national level through direct community action. The same activists in these fraternal groups would eventually take their skills and ideas to the NAACP, where they fought to de-segregate schools. Heavily researched and illuminating throughout, this unique study is not necessarily a book for the masses, but for those, mostly in academia, interested in examining a little-considered dimension in the complex history of the civil rights movement, and our civil society as a whole.