According to a brochure published for the Fourth National Conference of Friends on Race Relations, the Conference on Race Relations was initiated in 1956 in order to stimulate individual Friends and Meetings to work directly in the field of race relations and not rely entirely on the work of the American Friends Service Committee. Conferences were held approximately every two or three years: 1956; sometime between 1956 and 1961; 1961 at Earlham College in Richmond, IN; 1963 at the Oakwood School in Poughkeepsie, NY; 1965, again at Earlham College; 1967 at Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC; and in 1970 in Washington, D.C. The first four conferences were organized by an Executive Committee that met in Philadelphia, Pa., in between sessions. At the Fourth Conference (1963), a Continuing Committee composed of members of monthly meetings from around the nation was established which met roughly every four months in rotating locations.

Victor Paschkis, Quaker professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University and founder of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science, was coordinator of the Continuation Committee ca. 1965-1967. Marian Darnell Fuson, a member of Nashville Monthly Meeting, was active in Quaker organizations and served as the chairman of the Continuation Committee charged with the preparation of the 1970 Conference. Both the National Conference of Friends on Race Relations and its successor, Friends for Human Justice, operated under the umbrella of Friends World Committee for Consultation, American Section.