Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc., C. Calvin Smith Book Award This volume highlights the little-known story ofRobert R. Church Jr., the most prominent black Republican of the 1920s and1930s. Tracing Church's lifelong crusade to make race an important part of thenational political conversation, Darius Young reveals how Church was criticalto the formative years of the civil rights struggle. A member of the black elite in Memphis, Tennessee, Church was a banker, political mobilizer, and civil rights advocatewho worked to create opportunities for the black community despite thenotorious Democrat E. H. "Boss" Crump's hold over Memphis politics. Spurred bythe belief that the vote was the most pragmatic path to full citizenship in theUnited States, Church founded the Lincoln League of America, which advocatedfor the interests of black voters in over thirty states. He was instrumental inestablishing the NAACP throughout the South as it investigated variousincidents of racial violence in the Mississippi Delta. At the height of hisinfluence, Church served as an advisor for Presidents Harding and Coolidge, generating greater participation of and recognition for African Americans inthe Republican Party. Church's life and career offer a window into theincremental, behind-the-scenes victories of black voters and leaders during theJim Crow era that set the foundation for the more nationally visible civilrights movement to follow. Publication of the paperback edition madepossible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grantfrom the National Endowment for the Humanities.