Michigan Roundtable for Just Communities was originally founded in 1941 as the Detroit Council of Catholics, Jews and Protestants, a local chapter of National Conference of Christians and Jews for the Advancement of Justice, Amity and Peace (NCCJ), a national social justice organization formed to mediate religious and racial intolerance sweeping the nation in the 1920s. NCCJ founders, including Jane Addams, US Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, and Samuel Parkes Cadman, worked to counteract religious prejudice by bringing people together to bridge their divisions and build positive interfaith relationships.¹ NCCJ’s origins can be traced back to the convention for the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in 1924 where a committee of goodwill between Christians and Jews formed in response to the Ku Klux Klan’s growing power.² The NCCJ later expanded its purview to all social justice issues and eventually changed its name to the National Conference for Community and Justice.^{2, 3}

Locally, the Detroit Council changed its name to the Detroit Roundtable for Catholics, Jews and Protestants.⁴ The Roundtable’s founding members, including Rabbi Dr. Leo M. Franklin,⁵ Rev. Henry Hitt Crane,⁶ and Judge Charles Rubiner,⁷ carried out its aim to foster religious and racial brotherhood by conducting and sponsoring seminars, workshops, lectures, dinners, and annual Brotherhood Week observances.^{8, 4} Before long, the for Just Communities became known as a leader in promoting harmony among differing racial, religious, and cultural groups and youth leadership development.^{4, 9}

Today, we proudly serve as a social and racial justice organization whose purpose is eradicate racism, discrimination, and systemic inequities by cultivating multigenerational just communities across Michigan. Collectively, we aspire to eradicate racism, discrimination, and systemic inequities to create a just and equitable Michigan. We believe that collaborative solutions must be pursued to dismantle unequal systems and create equitable opportunity for all, especially the most vulnerable in our society, who are part of the global majority. In these collaborations, we bring together diverse communities to build collectively held multigenerational spaces for understanding lived experiences of inequity and injustice while taking action towards achieving equity and justice through intergenerational leadership development and neighborhood, community, and youth organizing.