During the four decades separating the presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama, the meaning of civil rights has become increasingly complex. Civil rights leaders made great strides in breaking down once-impermeable racial barriers, but they also suffered many political setbacks in their attempts to remedy centuries of discrimination and oppression as race and the ascendancy of conservatism in America became inextricably intertwined.

This pioneering collection of essays chronicles the ways in which presidential politics have shaped black experiences in the aftermath of the civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s, from the experimental and transitional nature of Richard Nixon's policies and the transformative aspect of Ronald Reagan's presidency to the constraints that Reagan's legacy placed on Bill Clinton and the continued efforts to disenfranchise black and poor people in the twenty-first century.