Detroit Jewish Community Unit Joins Interfaith ‘project Equality’

The Jewish Community Council here has joined three Christian groups representing the Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox communities, to form an interfaith action for the use of the purchasing power of all the religious organizations toward implementation of facial justice and equal job opportunities for all races in this city. Announcement of the joint action was made here this weekend by Dr. Samuel Krohn, president of the JCC; the Most Rev. John F. Dearden, Catholic Archbishop of Dr. Joseph L. Roberts, president of the Metropolitan Detroit Council of Churches (Protestant); and the Very Rev. Thomas Ruffin, president of the Detroit Council of Eastern Orthodox Churches.

The Project Equality program was launched several months ago by the Catholic archdioceses of St. Louis, Detroit, San Antonio and Hartford, Conn., and called on all religious groupings in the United States to join a common effort to end discriminatory employment practices and to require similar agreements from their supplies of goods and services. But Detroit is the first city where this plan has matured toward unified action.

Control of the interfaith program will be vested in a 12-man board of directors, three appointed by each faith. John H. Shephard, of the Jewish Community Council, was named legal advisor.

Dr. Krohn said that the Jewish Community Council was very pleased to join with the archdiocese as a founding member. He noted that, since its establishment almost 30 years ago, the Jewish Community Council had been “deeply committed to the effort to achieve equal rights and opportunities for all men, and to eliminate all traces of discrimination based on religion, religion, race or national origin.”