E.S.C.R.U. stands for the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity
ESCRU’s mission was to publicize long-standing problems of segregation, to promote racial unity and “harmony among peoples,” as well as to awaken the consciousness of all Episcopalians.
The Episcopal Church treated African-Americans as a problem; culturally and socially separated and inferior, but by baptism, full and equal members of the community. The Church tried to mend this breach by ministering to black Americans separately, consecrating bishops for “colored work,” funding black colleges, establishing black congregations, and operating a special office for “Negro work.”
In short, the Episcopal Church fully embraced the American “separate but equal” construct of race relations. Overcoming this legacy would require the work of both whites and blacks. In December 1959, approximately one hundred lay and ordained Episcopalians responded to a call for a meeting convened by the Reverends John Morris, Neil Tarplee, and Arthur Walmsley to form an organization committed to removing all vestiges of segregation from the life of the Church. This organization also brought attention to the inequities in Episcopal schools, churches, and institutions.
Source: www.episcopalarchives.org/Afro-Anglican_history