With this post, NIOT begins a public blog. We hope the blog will help us communicate internally and externally.

A bit of history: Not In Our Town grew out of the meetings held during 1998 and 1999 by concerned members of the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation (UUC) of Princeton, the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church (WSPC), and Nassau Presbyterian Church (NPC) to discuss problems of racial injustice in the Princeton community. The group thought it would be helpful to enlist the support of other faith congregations in order to create an interfaith organization to work together on these problems in the Princeton community.

To this end, in the fall of 1999, a letter was sent to several faith congregations inviting them to send representatives to an organizational meeting. A number of congregations responded. Those present strongly believed that, as faith community members, they had a responsibility to take a more activist role in matters relating to racial justice and reconciliation in Princeton.

As this group coalesced, it took the name Not In Our Town after a group in Billings, Montana, that had united its community to deal with several bias crimes that had occurred there. The current congregation members of NIOT are: Unitarian-Universalist Congregation, Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church (WSPC), The Jewish Center, Trinity Episcopal Church, Princeton Friends Meeting, Nassau Christian Center, Princeton United Methodist Church, and St. Paul’s Catholic Church. In the past, there has been some participation by the Islamic Society of Central Jersey, the Aquinas Foundation, Mt. Pisgah AME, Christ Congregation, Nassau Presbyterian Church and First Baptist Church.