[2] Ranking at #50 on the University of Pennsylvania's 2017 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report,[3] the Joint Center served as the intellectual hub for a generation of post-Civil Rights era black thinkers, including Maynard Jackson, Mary Frances Berry, William Julius Wilson, Shirley Chisholm and John Hope Franklin.

Many of these new black elected officials, or "BEOs", knew little about the ropes of their new jobs, such as political networking or even day-to-day administration.

"[4] Williams expanded the staff, increased the amount and scope of the center's publication, and organized conferences around the country to aid BEOs.

By the 1980s the Joint Center's new leadership, including Margaret Simms, who served as president from 1986 to 2007, realigned the Joint Center’ mission to serve as a full-fledged black think tank for scholarly research on social and economic issues; they believed that the civil rights movement had outgrown reliance on the charismatic leadership of a few individuals,.

[4] By the 1990s the Joint Center's research into a range of economic issues – expanding income gaps, the increased role of blacks in the U.S. economy, the condition of young black males and children, the accuracy of the U.S. Census, and the North American Free Trade Agreement – prompted the change to the group's current name.