Historical Note

People Against Racism (PAR) was an organization formed in the late 1960s to address racial discrimination and institutional racism in Detroit, Michigan. PAR evolved out of Friends of the Northern Student Movement which was formed around 1965-1966 and was essentially former white members of the Northern Student Movement (NSM). NSM, which fought discrimination in the North and supported the Southern Student Movement, began to shift their strategic focus during this time and decided to have white activists focusing on white communities, resulting in Friends of the Northern Student Movement, and Black activists working in Black communities. The formation of People Against Racism was also heavily influenced by the extreme racism and police brutality that was occurring in Detroit during this time. White activists that had been involved in civil rights were pushed further left and joined more radical organizations like PAR, which, like its predecessor Friends of NSM, continued to have primarily white membership.

Throughout the 1960s PAR had chapters on college campuses and in cities throughout the United States, including Boston. PAR had a strong position against the war in Vietnam, believing that if the group stood against racism it must also be against the war. PAR had ceased to be active as an organization by the 1970s.

Sources:

Joyce, Frank. Interviewed by William Winkel, October 17th, 2016, Detroit Historical Society, Audio/WAV.

Thompson, Heather Ann. Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City, Cornell University Press, 2001.

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