Fellowship Commission.

The Fellowship Commission is the nation's oldest and largest private metropolitian human rights organization, serving the Philadelphia area since 1941. The agency fought against all forms of discrimination against minorities in areas of education, housing, politics and employment.

In 1941 through the joint efforts of the Philadelphia Anti-Defamation League (Later the Jewish Community Relations Council), Fellowship House, the Race Relations Department of the Philadelphia Federation of Churches (now the Metropolitan Christian Council), the Friends Committee on the Race Relations (of the Religious Society of Friends), the Fellowship Commission was formed.

The four original constituent agencies were joined by the Philadelphia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the International Institute (Later renamed the Nationalities Service Center) in 1942, and by the Philadelphia Branch of the National conference of Christian and Jews in 1943. The Council for Job Opportunity (CEJO) became the eighth constituent organization in 1946, followed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1952.

Agency achievements include: key participation in promoting the peaceful acceptance of Black workers into the company union during the Philadelphia Transit Company (now SEPTA) strike of 1944; the passage of an ordinance in 1948 to establish Philadelphia's Fair Employment Practices Commission; established the Pennsylvania Race Relations Commission (later renamed the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission; organized the Citizen's Council on Democratic Rights (Later to become the Philadelphia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1952); participation in the opening of Community College of Philadelphia in 1965; and helped pass the Pennsylvania Fair Educational Opportunities Law in 1961.

In recent years the Fellowship Commission's efforts to protect the rights and opportunities of individuals include such projects as the drafting and enactment of Pennsylvania "Compensation for Innocent Victims of Violent Crime Act", lobbying for stricter handgun controls, assisting Southeast Asian refugees groups in forming their own self-help orgnizations; and developing strategies to help women and children in poverty.