Happy in a Genuine Worldwide Brotherhood

AS TOLD BY WILLIE DAVIS

In 1934 the Great Depression was gripping the world, and the United States was in the throes of economic turmoil. Outside the Prospect Relief Station in Cleveland, Ohio, there was a struggle between a policeman and an avowed Communist. The policeman shot and killed the Communist and a bystander, my grandmother, Vinnie Williams.

THE Communists tried to turn these deaths into a racial incident, since my grandmother was black and the policeman was white. They distributed newsletters with titles such as “Racist Cleveland Police” and “Avenge These Killings.” The Communists arranged and cared for my grandmother’s funeral. I have a picture of the pallbearers​—all of them white and all party members. Each has a clenched fist held high in the manner that was later adopted as the Black Power symbol.

When my grandmother died, her daughter was carrying me in her womb, and four months later I was born. I grew up with a speech impediment. I could not speak without stuttering, so my early schooling included speech therapy.

My parents separated when I was five, and my sister and I were reared by our mother. When I was ten, I began to deliver groceries after school to help with family expenses. Two years later I began working both before and after school, becoming the family’s main wage earner. When Mother was hospitalized and needed a series of operations, I quit school and started working full-time.

Introduction to a Brotherhood

In 1944 one of Jehovah’s Witnesses left the book “The Truth Shall Make You Free” with my cousin’s wife, and I got involved in the Bible study that was started with her. That same year I began attending the Theocratic Ministry School in the Eastside Congregation. The school instructor, Albert Cradock, had the same speech problem that I had, but he had learned to control it. What an encouragement he was to me!

Our neighborhood was largely Italian, Polish, Hungarian, and Jewish, and the congregation was made up of people from these and other ethnic groups. My cousin’s wife and I were among the first African Americans to associate with this otherwise white congregation, but the Witnesses never showed racial bias toward us. In fact, they regularly had me as a guest in their homes for meals.

In 1956, I moved to the southern part of the United States to serve where the need for ministers was greater. When I returned north one summer for the district convention, many of the brothers in Cleveland looked me up and expressed warm interest in my activities. Their concern taught me a vital lesson: Always keep “an eye, not in personal interest upon just your own matters, but also in personal interest upon those of the others.”​—Philippians 2:4.

Expanded Full-Time Ministry

After serving three years in the full-time preaching work as a pioneer, in November 1959, I was invited to work at Brooklyn Bethel, the world headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in New York. I was assigned to the Shipping Department. My department overseer, Klaus Jensen, and my roommate, William Hannan, both of them white, became spiritual fathers to me. Each had served nearly 40 years at Bethel by the time I arrived.

In the early 1960’s, there were about 600 members of the Bethel family, and about 20 were African Americans. By then, the United States had begun to seethe with racial strife, and race relations were strained. Nevertheless, the Bible teaches that “God is not partial,” and neither should we be. (Acts 10:34, 35) The spiritual discussions we had at the Bethel table each morning served to strengthen our determination to accept God’s view on such matters.​—Psalm 19:7.

While serving at Brooklyn Bethel I met Lois Ruffin, a pioneer from Richmond, Virginia, and we were married in 1964. Our determination was to remain in the full-time ministry, so after our wedding we returned to the southern part of the United States. First we served as special pioneers, and then in 1965, I was invited to take up the circuit work. For the next ten years, we visited congregations in the states of Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Mississippi.

A Test for Our Brotherhood

Those were years of great change. Before our moving to the South, the races had been segregated. Blacks were forbidden by law to go to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels, shop at the same stores, or even drink from the same drinking fountains as whites. But in 1964 the United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination in public places, including transportation. So there was no longer any legal basis for racial segregation.

Therefore the question was, Would our brothers and sisters in all-black and all-white congregations integrate and show love and affection for one another or would pressure from the community and deep-seated feelings from the past cause them to resist integration? It was a challenge to heed the Scriptural command: “In brotherly love have tender affection for one another. In showing honor to one another take the lead.”​—Romans 12:10.

For as long as anyone could remember, the prevailing view, particularly in the South, had been that blacks were inferior. This view had been deeply ingrained in people’s minds by practically every facet of society, including the churches. So it was not easy for some whites to view blacks as equals. Indeed, that was a time of testing for our brotherhood​—for both blacks and whites.

Happily, on the whole, there was a wonderful response to the integration of our congregations. Centuries of carefully indoctrinated views of racial superiority were not quickly erased. Yet when integration was begun, it was received very well by our brothers, most of whom rejoiced to be able to meet together.

Interestingly, even non-Witnesses often went along with the integration of our congregations. For example, in Lanett, Alabama, neighbors near the Kingdom Hall were asked if they objected to blacks coming to the meetings. An elderly white lady shook a black brother’s hand, saying: “You come here to our neighborhood and worship your God as you like!”

As I compare Jehovah’s organization with the world, my heart swells in appreciation for our genuine, worldwide brotherhood. I still remember with fondness those brothers in Cleveland, all white, who nurtured me in the truth. And as I saw our brothers in the southern United States, both whites and blacks, replace their feelings of bias with heartfelt brotherly love, my heart rejoiced.

[Picture on page 25]

With my wife, Lois