This is NEJA

A Legacy of Groundbreaking Action

    Since its founding in 1981, NATIONAL EQUAL JUSTICE ASSOCIATION (NEJA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, has provided timely and strategically critical aid to groupings of people isolated sometimes by geography, but worse by deeply ingrained public and social policies that perpetuate poverty and injustice. NEJA, itself an all-volunteer organization, was formed to aid locally based efforts fighting to end patterns of injustice, particularly those encountered by the most poorly paid workforces of our nation. NEJA works with those who are carving out a definition of equal justice through positive example.

    Since many of those bravely mounting demands for change are minorities and female single heads of households, their efforts are often met with by official or behind-the-scenes backlash from “the old boys network.”
    NEJA’s co-founder, the late Rev. Arthur Elcombe, saw a need for an independent national organization that could reach grassroots groupings in pursuit of justice: helping them sustain self-help efforts, helping them avert being broken by battering harassment or due to a lack of accessible expertise.

Building a Bridge to and Between Communities in Action

    Clergy, attorneys and community activists combined their experiences with others on the frontlines to build NEJA as a bridge to and between grassroots efforts across the country. NEJA offers targeted, timely assistance in ways that have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in often precedent-setting fights for equal justice.
    NEJA operates from a core principle that in order for immediate change to transform into a long-lasting characteristic of our society, those directly affected by the injustices must take a lead role in defining the solutions and effecting that change. NEJA has seen that those creating the longest-lasting impact usually have considered the many facets of the problem – whether economic, legal, political or a combination of social barriers – before arriving at their strategy for change.
    NEJA provides financial grants, advice, publicity and organizer training, as well as responding to specific requests for professional assistance. NEJA acts as a bridge that carries invaluable lessons, steeped in first-hand experiences, from one grouping to another facing similar circumstances. We seek to break the cycle of splintered, isolated efforts needlessly “reinventing the wheel.”