In a first-ever study assessing black civic participation after the civil rights movement, Fredrick C. Harris, Valeria Sinclair-Chapman and Brian D. McKenzie demonstrate that the changes in black activism since the civil rights movement are characterized by a tug-of-war between black political power on one side and economic conditions in black communities on the other, which creates countervailing forces. The negative economic and social conditions in black communities weaken the ability of blacks to organize so that their political voices can be heard.

Fredrick C. Harris is Associate Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of African-American Politics at the University of Rochester. Previously he was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and was named a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Harris is the author of Something Within: Religion in African-American Political Activism (Oxford University Press), which won the V.O. Key Award for Best Book in Southern Politics, the Distinguished Book Award by the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, thr Best Book Award by National Conference of Black Political Scientists, and the Choice Award.

1. Introduction; 2. Good times and bad: trends in the economic, social, and political conditions of African Americans in the post-civil rights era; 3. Studying group activism: toward a macro approach to black civic participation; 4. Echoes of black civic activism: historical foundations and longitudinal considerations; 5. Shifting forces: modeling changes in post-civil rights black activism; 6. From margin to center: bringing structural forces into focus in the analysis of black activism.