The records have been arranged into the following series: Scrapbooks; Program files; Women's Division of the Greater Detroit Round Table; Photographs; Board of Directors; Different People…Common Ground workshop; and Miscellaneous. Although the records date from approximately 1941 to 2011, the individual series do not cover this span and thus a full record of the organization's history is missing.
The National Conference of Christians and Jews was founded in 1928 "to promote justice, amity, understanding and cooperation among Protestants, Catholics and Jews .... with a view to the establishment of a social order in which the religious ideals of brotherhood and justice shall become the standards of human relationships."
The Detroit Council of Catholics, Jews and Protestants was organized early in 1940 with its name soon changed to the Detroit Round Table of Catholics, Jews and Protestants. Members of the Council's organization committee included Henry Hitt Crane and Leo M. Franklin. Impetus for the organization in this pre-war period was the growth of totalitarianism abroad and divisions within the Detroit community inflamed by such preachers/politicians as Gerald L.K. Smith and Father Coughlin. The aim of the Round Table was to foster religious and racial brotherhood and to counter those who would divide the community on religious or racial lines. Programs of the organization included seminars, workshops, lectures, dinners, and such events as the annual Brotherhood Week observances.
The organization has undergone several name changes in its history reflecting changes in scope and objectives. At present, the records do not make clear the precise dates of these changes. The organization was first the Detroit Round Table. It later became the Greater Detroit Round Table of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, then the Greater Detroit Interfaith Round Table, the National Conference for Community and Justice of Michigan, and then in 2006, the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.
