Fellowship of Reconciliation (U.S.)

United States Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR USA) was founded in 1915 by sixty-eight pacifists, including A. J. Muste, Jane Addams and Bishop Paul Jones, and claims to be the "largest, oldest interfaith peace and justice organization in the United States."[1] Norman Thomas, at first skeptical of its program, joined in 1916 and would become the group's president. Its programs and projects involve domestic as well as international issues, and generally emphasize nonviolent alternatives to conflict and the rights of conscience. Unlike the U.K. movements, it is an interfaith body, though its historic roots are in Christianity. Both the FOR in the United States and similarly-named organizations in other countries are affiliated with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. FOR in the USA was formed initially in opposition to the entry of the United States into World War I. The American Civil Liberties Union developed out of FOR's conscientious objectors program and the Emergency Committee for Civil Liberties.

In 1918, FOR and the American Federation of Labor formed Brookwood Labor College, which lasted until 1937. Also in January 1918, FOR began publication of The World Tomorrow, with Norman Thomas as its first editor. In 1947, FOR and the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, which had been founded by FOR staffers James Farmer and George Houser along with Bernice Fisher, sponsored the Journey of Reconciliation, the first Freedom Ride against southern segregation in the wake of the Supreme Court's 1946 Irene Morgan decision.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation was established in December of 1914, during a meeting at Cambridge, England. Its members believed that Christians were forbidden to wage war, and that instead they should work positively to establish a new world order of peace and justice. The F.O.R. had its office in London. It produced and distributed literature, including its monthly magazine Reconciliation; worked with youth; fostered groups of members throughout the country; and supported the work of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. It is still in existence today.