The Washington Post yesterday featured an interesting look at the “cadre of young black activists…using the Internet in an attempt to eclipse traditional civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and hit the refresh button on the civil rights movement.”

Led by the bright and innovative folks at ColorofChange.org, the movement is gaining steam, influence and members every day. The movement has carved a niche for itself by rallying around traditionally overlooked issues like the Jena 6, the demolition of New Orleans public housing and even the relatively wonky concerns about a FEC commission nominee’s questionable stands on voter suppression issues.

Blogger Gina McCauley, 32, who is organizing the first conference of nonwhite bloggers this summer in Atlanta, said that what Jones and Rucker have started “can potentially become a new Niagara movement,” a reference to the small contingent of black intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois, who met near Niagara Falls in 1905 to form an organization to oppose segregation. The organization eventually became the NAACP.

Others have another name for the new efforts by black bloggers: Civil Rights 2.0. Blogger L.N. Rock said that if abolitionist Frederick Douglass, former congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin and “people like that were around today, they would have blogs.”

The organizing and policy potential of this movement is limitless. We’re already seeing real on-the-ground progress. By supporting and patronizing these sites, we can unleash another major force in the Equity Movement.