Introduction: the relevance of Black political organizations in the post-Civil Rights era / Ollie A. Johnson III and Karin L. Stanford — Will the circle be unbroken? The political involvement of Black churches since the 1960s / Allison Calhoun-Brown — The NAACP in the twenty-first century / Robert C. Smith — The National Urban League: reinventing service for the twenty-first century / Jennifer A. Wade and Brian N. Williams — A layin' on of hands: Black women's community work / Erika L. Gordon — From protest to Black conservatism: the demise of the Congress of Racial Equality / Charles E. Jones — "You're not ready for Farrakhan": the Nation of Islam and the struggle for Black political leadership, 1984-2000 / Claude A. Clegg III — The Southern Christian Leadership Conference: beyond the Civil Rights Movement / F. Carl Walton — Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition: institutionalizing economic opportunity / Karin L. Stanford — "We refused to lay down our spears": the persistence of welfare rights activism, 1966-1996 / Todd C. Shaw — Black political leadership in the Post-Civil Rights era / Akwasi B. Assensoh and Yvette Alex-Assensoh — Where do we go from here? Facing the challenges of the post-Civil Rights era / Valerie C. Johnson.