As part of their 107th anniversary convention, members of Alpha Phi Alpha from around the world conducted a community service project called the “Leadership Development Institute” (LDI). This service project paired youth from the Austin metropolitan area with fraternity members who worked with them on developing leadership skills, team building, and how good leadership yields success from the classroom to the boardroom.

While we continue to be outraged over the verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder case, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity must focus less on the disappointing decision and more on being a key part of the solution. The dynamics of this case are less about its legal aspects but rather a current social environment that would tolerate this unfortunate tragedy to ever take place. The system has spoken, and we must honor that decision. However, an opportunity exists to contribute to the fixing of that system to ensure that young Mr. Martin did not die in vain.

Alpha men are currently engaged at the policy level to change some of the contributing factors in this case: racial profiling, proliferation of guns, and legislation allowing increased use of force without accountability. However, we are calling on ALL Alpha men to make the greatest long-term impact at the grassroots level, by putting our arms around the young men in our community who face adversity.

One way to engage around issues of racial justice is to make good on our commitment to the ten thousand African-American boys who are currently on the Big Brothers Big Sisters waiting list around this country. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity would make a loud statement to America if we help eradicate that waiting list. Trayvon had a loving father in his life, but the majority of young boys on the Big Brothers Big Sisters waiting list do not and therefore are at high risk of falling victim to a legal system that continues to be institutionally stacked against them.

Alpha Phi Alpha developed a partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters in 1991, yet we have not responded in mass to the boys who need us most. We can no longer procrastinate, to “think about it” and make excuses for not engaging. Our young boys must be instructed on how to navigate the current social landscape and pass that knowledge on to their kids. Now is the time to deliberately and effectively motivate, encourage, enrich and mentor our own kids.

Sign up today by:

1. Contacting your local Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliate and completing an application to become a mentor; or
2. Go to MentoringBrothers.org, and click “volunteer.” Read the material including, “Sign me up.” Go to the very last line that says, “The decision is yours…” Click the last sentence. Enter your ZIP code and complete the requested information.
3. We recommend school-based mentoring for college students. Community-based, family, and couples mentoring are also available in some markets to alumni brothers. There is also a need for women to serve as Big Sisters.
4. If there is no Big Brothers Big Sisters agency in your area, then implement/enhance your chapter’s group mentoring effort: Go to High School, Go to College and Project Alpha. Download the curriculum guides here, and scroll to the National Program Documents section.
5. If you indeed cannot commit the time to being a mentor, than help support the efforts of your brothers and chapters who do by making a financial investment in the Big Brothers Big Sisters agency closest to you.
6. Should you have questions, you may contact the Alpha Phi Alpha/Big Brothers Big Sisters of America National Partnership chairman, Brother Dale Long at bbbs@apa1906.net.
7. And finally, show us how you are currently making a difference with our youth by sending photos and stories to be featured in the Alpha News Update and the Sphinx Magazine. Please e-mail completed stories and high-quality photos to NEWS@APA1906.NET.

There are those who choose to watch history and those who have the courage to make it. This is one of those times where the very essence of what it means to be an Alpha man is being challenged. We were called to this organization to be men of action and invest in our communitiess. That is our pedigree. As Brother Charles H. Wesley so eloquently stated, “Where leadership was required in these past years, an Alpha man could be found to furnish it. Where ideas were needed to call out the best within the group, Alpha Phi Alpha has been equal to the emergency. Our march has been ever onward and upward toward the better life.”

Brothers, our leadership is desperately required. Our boys are counting on us to make them men. Your participation in this partnership might help prevent another tragedy from happening.

The success of our effort to uplift the African-American male is the civil rights issue of this generation and has nothing to do with anyone else but us, for it is our job. Mothers, grandmothers, teachers, caretakers, incarcerated parents, and even the boys themselves have reached out to Alpha men for help that only takes two to four visits a month. In order to be men, our boys must see men. Alpha men!