A method of making a fiber comprised of poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) having monomer groups grafted onto the fiber surface, the method comprising the steps of (i) providing a fiber of poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) that has been dried to remove adsorbed moisture, (ii) treating the fiber, in a non-polar solvent that will not dissolve the fiber, with a phosphazene base that exhibits a pKa in dimethylsulfoxide of at least 21 so as to generate anions at the amide sites on the surface of the poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) fiber, (iii) washing the base-activated fiber with an aprotic solvent, (iv) grafting a monomer onto the anion sites so as to introduce reactive functional groups onto the surface of the poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) fiber, and (v) washing the grafted fiber of step (iv) with a protic solvent to extract any residual base compounds and grafting agents that are unbound to the surface of the fibers.