Our History
In 1969, four congregations in downtown Durham, NC, organized the Center City Church Council to address together needs for transportation and visitation for the elderly, and soon also started programs for children and youth. We incorporated in 1972 and, during the next six years, membership grew to 12 congregations. In 1976, the group’s name changed to Durham Congregations In Action, and its membership continued to grow over the years to include dozens of congregations of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others cooperating together in service.
Pictured: We have some long-time and co-founding members Bishop Elroy Lewis, Rabbi John Friedman, and Rev. Mel Williams. On the right is Rev. Dr. Warren Herndon, a long time board member and DCIA supporter.
For decades, DCIA congregations have learned from the best information available about community needs and challenges. And during those decades, DCIA has built a history of initiating cooperative programs among people of faith to address those issues. Programs serving the Durham community that were launched or cosponsored at their start by DCIA have included: Meals On Wheels, Host Homes, Families First, Urban Ministries of Durham, DSS Emergency Energy Fund, Genesis Home, Interfaith Hospitality Network, Interfaith AIDS Alliance, Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham, Capital Restorative Justice Project, Durham Economic Resource Center, Bull City Fair Trade, Partners for Youth Opportunity, Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA), Youth Summer Service Week, Strong Fathers, REAL Durham and MANY other shorter-term projects over the years.
From the beginning, DCIA has created space and opportunity for people of different traditions and ethnicities to share and to grow from each other’s strengths and experience, putting shared values to work. The shape of DCIA’s services over the years has changed, but it has continued to build bridges among its members and to the most vulnerable and forgotten in our community, planting seeds in new initiatives to change lives in Durham.