At the turn of the twentieth century, black fraternities and sororities, also known as black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs), were an integral part of what W.E.B. Du Bois called the “talented tenth.” This was the top ten percent of the black community that would serve as a cadre of educated, upper-class, motivated individuals who acquired the professional credentials, skills, and capital to assist the race to attain socio-economic parity. Today, however, BGLOs struggle to find their place and direction in a world drastically different from the one that witnessed their genesis. In recent yea ... More

At the turn of the twentieth century, black fraternities and sororities, also known as black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs), were an integral part of what W.E.B. Du Bois called the “talented tenth.” This was the top ten percent of the black community that would serve as a cadre of educated, upper-class, motivated individuals who acquired the professional credentials, skills, and capital to assist the race to attain socio-economic parity. Today, however, BGLOs struggle to find their place and direction in a world drastically different from the one that witnessed their genesis. In recent years, there has been a growing body of scholarship on BGLOs. This book seeks to push those who think about BGLOs to engage in more critically and empirically based analysis. It also seeks to move BGLO members and those who work with them beyond conclusions based on hunches, conventional wisdom, intuition, and personal experience. In addition to a rich range of scholars, the book includes a kind of call and response feature between scholars and prominent members of the BGLO community.