NCCJ’s History
May 8, 2019
Category: News
Tags: Community, Community-Building, History, Inclusion, Interfaith,
NCCJ has served this community since 1937. We are North Carolina’s oldest human relations organization, and the one with the greatest depth of experience working with teens on social justice issues. NCCJ (originally short for “National Conference for Christians and Jews”) was formed in the 1920s to promote interfaith tolerance at a time of deepening divisions between religious, racial and ethnic groups. Over time, NCCJ’s focus expanded to include aspects of diversity like race, gender, and sexual orientation. We became “National Conference for Community and Justice” in the 1999s.
In 2005, the national “umbrella” NCCJ organization dissolved and Greensboro’s NCCJ (which had long been one of the strongest NCCJ chapters in the Southeast) became an independent nonprofit focused on serving teens in Guilford County. After 2012, we were the only NCCJ entity in North Carolina. Our strong reputation as a trusted convener of respectful, nonpartisan conversations led to invitations and requests for help from across the state. Between 2015 and 2020, our focus began shifting to statewide expansion. In August 2022, we changed our full name to North Carolina for Community and Justice to reflect our increasing reach beyond the Triad and across the state.
Selected Recognitions + Milestones
- 2011 – Nonprofit of the Year by the Guilford Nonprofit Consortium.
- 2020, 2021 & 2022 – Recognized Duke Energy as one of 40 North Carolina nonprofit organizations committed to social justice and racial equity and awarded a $25,000 grant
- 2021-22 – Partnered with Guilford County Schools (GCS) to provide programming to students participating in the innovative Learning Hubs project
- 2023 – We celebrated the 35thanniversary of Anytown, our flagship leadership and human relations program for high school students.
- 2023 – NCCJ, the Kellin Foundation and GCS awarded a 3-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to support students’ mental health at 6 pilot schools
- 2027 – We will celebrate NCCJ’s 90th year serving North Carolina
A Deeper Dive into Our History
NCCJ has been active in the Triad community since 1937. However, our roots go back another 10 years.
NCCJ was founded in the 1927 in response to a wave of religious intolerance sweeping the nation.
At that time, fascist movements and hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) were becoming more visible and influential. Anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic prejudice and violence were on the rise. Anti-Catholic propaganda and violence spiked when a Catholic man, Al Smith, ran for president.
To push back against religious intolerance and fascist propaganda, a diverse group of faith leaders and social activists came together to form an organization first known as “The National Conference of Christians and Jews for the Advancement of Justice, Amity and Peace.”
This name was later shortened to “The National Conference of Christians and Jews” and the group was often known simply as “NCCJ.”
Our founders included activist and reformer Jane Addams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes. They worked to counteract religious prejudice by bringing people of different faiths together to bridge their divisions and build positive interfaith relationships.
1930s
One of NCCJ’s most famous early efforts was the Tolerance Trio. The Trio was a group of three faith leaders – a minister, a rabbi, and a priest.
Beginning in 1933, the Tolerance Trio visited hundreds of audiences across the country, asking Americans to embrace interfaith understanding.
In 2018, Public Radio International interviewed a few historians about the Tolerance Trio and NCCJ’s impact on American culture during its first decades:
“[The Tolerance Trio] would travel the country, rent out halls and talk about the stereotypes of Jews being overly interested in money and Catholics wanting to overturn democracy,” says Kevin Schultz, a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “They would make jokes, and it was entertainment. People would learn how false these stereotypes were. And they would preach tolerance.”
These traveling Tolerance Trios were a novelty for those Americans who had never seen a rabbi or a priest in person, let alone three clergymen on one stage joking around with each other.
“The idea was to model for the rest of America how people of different faiths could encounter each other respectfully … and show that these were three equal religions,” [says historian] Ronit Stahl.
…
It was so popular that it spawned more of these trios, which ultimately led to the creation of a National Brotherhood Day in the 1930s, timed to coincide with George Washington’s birthday to underscore the “Americanness” of the day.
By 1936, Brotherhood Day was expanded to a week, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt named the first honorary chairman.
This method of fostering dialogue proved successful and popular. Before long, local NCCJ chapters began forming across the nation.
In 1937, a group of Greensboro leaders founded the “Greensboro Council of Protestants, Jews and Catholics” – the organization that later became NCCJ of the Piedmont Triad.
1960s
In the 60s, NCCJ of the Piedmont Triad followed the example of other NCCJ organizations across the nation and began organizing an annual event, the Brotherhood/Sisterhood Citation Award Dinner, to recognize and celebrate local leaders for their extraordinary actions to make our community a better place for everyone.
Learn more about the Citation Award Dinner and our past honorees.
1980s
In 1987, we held the Triad’s first ANYTOWN youth leadership program. First developed in the 1950s, ANYTOWN gives young people a framework for tackling issues of diversity and inclusion through the sort of honest, respectful conversations that have always been central to NCCJ’s work.
1990s
We became “the National Conference for Community and Justice,” a name change that reflected our work on a broad range of human relations issues.
2000s:
By the early 2000s, the national NCCJ office was facing financial trouble. By 2005, it had dissolved. Individual chapters either closed or became independent nonprofits, moving from a unitary structure of governance to autonomous 501(c)(3) organizations.
After the national organization closed, our local chapter of NCCJ became an independent organization – NCCJ of the Piedmont Triad.
2020s
In 2022, we changed our full legal name to “North Carolina for Community and Justice” to more accurately reflect who we are: an independent North Carolina organization serving North Carolinians. However, we are still best known simply as “NCCJ.”
Today
NCCJ has evolved over the decades to meet the challenges and opportunities of each new era. While interfaith cooperation remains a key part of our work, we’ve greatly expanded our focus significantly to encompass aspects of identity such as race, class, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability status, and more.
For more than 85 years, we have promoted understanding and respect among all people in the Piedmont Triad. As the region’s oldest human relations organization, we’ve formed close relationships with people and organizations from many different parts of our community. We have strong ties to this community’s past and we are deeply invested in its future.
NCCJ was born out of the belief that respectful dialogue between people from different backgrounds can bring about positive changes in our communities. Today, we remain committed to that core ideal.
Learn more about our programs.
