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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ten months after Democrats took over the Capitol and the first African-American president moved into the White House, black lawmakers are in control of some of the most powerful positions in Congress -- and face new challenges to using their long-sought influence.

There have been some victories -- guaranteeing that stimulus money reaches some of the poorest parts of the country, expanding hate crimes legislation and moving to close health care disparities.

But "in some ways, our strategies haven't caught up with our own power," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, chief executive of the NAACP.

"The civil rights community is used to passing big omnibus legislative acts," he said. "We're not so accustomed to having the power to slice and dice that into 20 pieces and attach that to various other appropriations bills."

For generations, civil rights were inseparable from black politicians. That era ended with President Barack Obama, who has declined to engage in traditional black advocacy.

So any new efforts to help blacks who remain disproportionately unemployed, incarcerated, unhealthy and undereducated will most likely come from the 42 members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"The goal is closing all of these gaps," said Rep. Barbara Lee, chairwoman of the caucus and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees budgetary spending. "When you look at all these huge systemic gaps, there's still not equality and justice for all."

But due to recent advances among blacks -- Obama's election chief among them -- there is a new resistance toward efforts aimed at helping black people specifically, said University of Pennsylvania history professor Mary Frances Berry.

"We're used to being supplicants at the table," Berry said. "Now they have to be smart. If they want to do something about unemployment, they can target those who have the highest rates. If you target education, target the lowest achievement rates. Don't say, 'We're doing this for black folks'; you say, 'We want to target where the problems are.'"

That strategy has been taking shape for some time, said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who as majority whip is the third-ranking member of the House.

Clyburn cited an amendment in the economic recovery package that he worked on with Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to ensure that 10 percent of federal stimulus dollars are spent in areas where at least 20 percent of residents have lived in poverty for the last 30 years.

"If I were designing a quote-unquote affirmative action program today, that's what I would be using, the 10-20-30 formula," Clyburn said. "We are finding more and more sophisticated ways of doing this on a nonracial basis."

But some still say the fractious black caucus -- which famously split over endorsing Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 presidential primaries -- should be doing much more to bring together leaders from the private sector, education and local government to tackle problems facing black America.

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