ABSTRACT
As late as the late 1960s, with the exception of the NAACP, the Urban League, and, to a lesser extent, the SCLC and the National Council of Negro Women, there was little organized black interest group influence on the Washington policy-making process. Even the NAACP and Urban League were engaged mainly in rights-based civil rights lobbying rather than in broader, materialbased public policy concerns.1 However, since the 1970s blacks have developed a significant presence in the Washington policy-making process, one that focuses on both rights-based and broader, material-based policy interests.
