Simkins discusses the changing nature of leadership in the NAACP during the late 1940s, leading up to the legal assault on school segregation. According to Simkins, the new generation of leadership within the NAACP had grown weary of the lack of real change resulting from their efforts. As a result, they began to adopt a more direct plan of action. One byproduct of this change was their growing tendency to challenge and criticize the clergy for what Simkins describes as their general sense of apathy towards the civil rights movement. Her comments here are particularly revealing for their challenge to evidence that clergy often did take an active role in the movement. Nevertheless, Simkins argues that at least in Columbia, South Carolina, this was not the case and she expresses her growing disillusionment with organized religion as a result.