January 25, 2011 is a date that will forever be imprinted on the memory of all Egyptians. For the Muslim Brotherhood, however, the nation’s largest and best-organized social movement, it is a date that serves as a mark of its shrewd political calculations. For it was not until three days later, on January 28, that its leadership decided to join the popular protests raging from Tahrir Square across the entire Egyptian landscape. In the year since the revolt in Egypt, much of the public discourse has focused on the Muslim Brotherhood’s emergence as the leading political party in a democratically elected government. What is often ignored, however, is that the organization did not necessarily derive its legitimacy from actions related to the revolution itself. Rather, to compensate for its failure to play a leading role in the events that precipitated the overthrow of the Mubarak regime, it has attempted to seize upon its legacy of anti-state resistance and network of social services to solidify its gains in a post-authoritarian Egypt. This paper seeks to examine what role the Muslim Brotherhood played in the recent Egyptian revolution. It employs a historical approach, attempting to place the group’s actions within the context of its long and complex relationship with political authority in Egypt. It particularly singles out the generation that came of age during the 1970s, which had to contend with the legacy of the movement’s prior eras of opposition, while forging a new path of accommodation and inclusion into the political system. The paper then traces how the period immediately leading up to and during the 2011 revolution affected the decisions of several leading figures within the Muslim Brotherhood, some of whom became more deeply entrenched within its leadership hierarchy and emerging political party, while others were cast out of the organization altogether, left to pursue their activist mission independently for the first time in their lives. That the revolution has had a transformative effect on all facets of Egyptian society, including the Muslim Brotherhood, comes as no surprise. However, by utilizing the social movement theory concept of “political opportunity structures,” this paper provides the necessary tools with which to comprehend these changes and the future developments within the Egyptian public square. This study relies on newspaper archives, as well as interviews with key figures, and historical works examining the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian society.