Yahoo! News - Black Congress Caucus Refocusing Mission:

"When Democrats all but conceded President Bush would get the additional $87 billion he wanted for Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congressional Black Caucus decided to oppose the bill anyway even though four of its members voted for it.

This was not a civil rights question or a matter of racial inequity — the issues that led to the caucus' creation more than three decades ago.
But these are changing times. Largely due to redistricting, some blacks are now elected from majority-white suburbs, Southern farmlands or thriving business hubs, forcing the caucus to refocus its mission. The agenda is still shaped by the liberal causes of urban black American, but no longer is limited to them.
'It just calls for the caucus to send a message out there that we have sent out in the past but maybe not as clearly: We not only represent African-Americans. We represent the vast majority of Americans,' said the group's chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md . . .

. . . Vanderbilt University law professor Carol Swain, who wrote a book about blacks in Congress, said black Democrats are wise to broaden their vision beyond race."