New Name, Same NCCJ

New Name, Same NCCJ


July 1, 2022
Category: News
Tags: , , ,

NCCJ now stands for “North Carolina for Community and Justice.”

We’re still the same NCCJ.

The only difference is that our new full name is a more accurate reflection of who we are, where we are located, and who we serve.

NCCJ is a North Carolina-based nonprofit organization that serves people and communities in North Carolina.

To learn more about who we are and what we do, click here.

A Brief History of “NCCJ”

NCCJ has (almost) always been known as NCCJ. But that acronym has been shorthand for different things at different points in our history.

Our NCCJ (the one based in Guilford County, North Carolina) was formed in 1937 as “the Greensboro Council of Protestants, Jews and Catholics,” as a local chapter of a national organization that had been founded a decade earlier.

That national organization was originally called “The National Conference of Christians and Jews for the Advancement of Justice, Amity and Peace.” This was later shortened to “The National Conference of Christians and Jews,” often known simply as “the National Conference” or “the NCCJ.”

In the following decades interfaith friendship and cooperation remained central to our work, but the scope of our mission greatly expanded to encompass race, culture, gender, and other aspects of identity. In attempts to reflect this broader focus, our legal name changed twice in the 1990s: first to “The National Conference” and then to “The National Conference for Community and Justice.”

In 2005, the national organization dissolved and we became an independent nonprofit. At the time, we opted to keep the name that folks in our community already knew us by: “The National Conference for Community and Justice of the Piedmont Triad, Inc.”

(Read more about NCCJ’s history.)

However, the “National Conference” part of our name has been a bit confusing ever since. Any time we mentioned NCCJ to someone who’s unfamiliar with our organization, that person almost invariably asked, “What does that stand for?” Most people assumed the “NC” stood for “North Carolina” (makes sense, right?!)

New name, same NCCJ

So in June 2022, NCCJ’s Board of Directors voted to formally change our full legal name to “North Carolina for Community and Justice.”

This change is simply an adjustment to ensure that our name accurately reflects what we are already doing and indeed, what we have always done: serving people and communities in North Carolina.

It doesn’t mean that we are changing our mission or our focus.

NCCJ is still dedicated to countering bias, bigotry and racism and working to build more just and compassionate communities for all of us – not just some of us.

In other words, we’re still just NCCJ.

 

NCCJ