00:00:18 My mother always said,
00:00:20 “Jehovah did not intend for all of us to look alike.”
00:00:26 In those early days,
00:00:28 we would work every house in the county
00:00:32 —black families, white families, any color.
00:00:35 At school, there was pressure there
00:00:40 to be involved with the racial activity.
00:00:43 We would hear about the problems and the issues.
00:00:48 It would be in the news, and you would know
00:00:51 what was going on in the South.
00:00:54 Some may wonder,
00:00:56 ‘How is it that our people,
00:01:02 ‘that is, Jehovah’s Witnesses, black and white,
00:01:05 ‘could maintain such unity
00:01:10 when the world around them was falling apart?’
00:01:13 I grew up in central New York
00:01:15 —Utica, New York.
00:01:17 And I remember in the Kingdom Ministry back in 1956,
00:01:22 there were articles about serving where the need is great.
00:01:26 They needed some of the black friends to serve in the South.
00:01:32 I married my husband, Earl McGee,
00:01:34 on June 2, 1956.
00:01:37 When we were married, Brother T. J. Sullivan gave a talk
00:01:41 at the Hallandale convention on serving where the need is greater.
00:01:45 He encouraged not only families but,
00:01:49 he said, newly married couples.
00:01:51 And so we planned for it, and he wrote the branch.
00:01:54 We were assigned to Florida,
00:01:57 and then in 1962, we started in the circuit work.
00:02:00 And our first circuit was in Alabama,
00:02:02 and it was not integrated.
00:02:06 We served together, Edna and I did,
00:02:10 in the pioneer work by assignment.
00:02:13 The last assignment was the Society assigning us
00:02:18 to North Carolina and then from there to the circuit work.
00:02:21 After the first circuit, which was in the Carolinas and Georgia,
00:02:26 we were assigned to Gilead.
00:02:32 I got married on April 23, 1949.
00:02:38 I’ve been in full-time service
00:02:40 70 years with my wife.
00:02:42 I was assigned
00:02:44 to Circuit 18 in Alabama.
00:02:50 My first circuit assignment was in Mississippi.
00:02:53 It had the reputation
00:02:56 as the worst state in the Union for race relations.
00:02:59 And then after we got there, there were three civil rights workers
00:03:03 who were killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
00:03:07 That was our circuit.
00:03:10 So those were the things we had to deal with.
00:03:15 We were busy in our ministry,
00:03:18 so it didn’t bother us very much.
00:03:21 The black worked the black, and the white worked the white.
00:03:26 So we just obeyed the customary law of staying segregated.
00:03:32 Lots of movements were happening, and people were, you know, very hostile.
00:03:38 When there was a march or any tension
00:03:41 where we were serving there in Alabama,
00:03:43 we wouldn’t go to the town on Saturday afternoon
00:03:47 to do street witnessing because if there was a rally
00:03:51 or something going on, we would just stay in the neighborhood.
00:03:54 A lot were what they used to call back then Freedom Riders,
00:03:58 people getting on buses going south,
00:04:00 and people coming in to register voters.
00:04:03 The fact is, some of the civil rights organizations
00:04:06 were set up in Mississippi and going pretty strong.
00:04:09 So as a result, they would think
00:04:12 that because we were active in going door to door,
00:04:14 we could just incorporate civil rights issues
00:04:17 and things like that into our work.
00:04:19 One of our classmates in the 27th class
00:04:23 was a black brother, a fellow student,
00:04:27 and we became very close friends there.
00:04:29 After we left Gilead, we were going to our assignments
00:04:33 and we stopped at a convention in Alabama.
00:04:36 And the convention was segregated
00:04:40 —one race on one side and one race on another.
00:04:43 And it was very difficult —painful—
00:04:46 for us not to be able to closely associate with our dear friend.
00:04:50 So we had this talk show on the television.
00:04:54 The circuit overseer and I went and also a Catholic priest
00:04:58 and an Episcopal minister.
00:05:00 So the Episcopal minister, a young minister,
00:05:03 asked what were we doing about the marching.
00:05:06 So I told him that we weren’t doing anything about the marching.
00:05:10 Well, that showed a contrast.
00:05:12 I’m black, and he’s white.
00:05:15 They weren’t stopping their marching to help us preach
00:05:17 the good news of the Kingdom, so we weren’t going to stop
00:05:20 preaching the good news of the Kingdom to help them march.
00:05:24 The brothers always were interested in each other.
00:05:29 So if there was a black congregation and a white congregation,
00:05:34 we had interest and fellow feeling for both.
00:05:37 The rule was we were not to meet together, and we couldn’t meet together.
00:05:42 But we could talk to one another, and we could visit one another.
00:05:46 So I think there was great support on both sides,
00:05:49 black and white brothers, back in those days.
00:05:53 If we had a problem getting a facility, for example,
00:05:56 they’d have contacts and they could get certain things done.
00:05:59 So, basically, we worked together.
00:06:03 The congregation started integrating
00:06:05 after certain civil rights laws were passed.
00:06:10 We had a big meeting of all the elders,
00:06:14 and we worked out the territory assignments
00:06:17 and whatever else was necessary
00:06:19 to have integrated congregations.
00:06:22 Some friends would feel,
00:06:25 and maybe rightly so at the time,
00:06:28 that there would be some violence if we integrated.
00:06:32 There probably were some Kingdom Halls damaged
00:06:35 and things like that as a result.
00:06:37 But the fact is,
00:06:39 there was integration going on in other places
00:06:42 —in the schools and things like that and in the universities and colleges.
00:06:46 And so it was obvious that if they could do it, then we even more so.
00:06:50 The process of integration
00:06:53 was successful
00:06:55 because it was under Jehovah’s direction.
00:06:59 Both black and white,
00:07:01 we had the same thing in common:
00:07:04 We loved Jehovah.
00:07:06 And despite us,
00:07:09 Jehovah got it done for us and brought us together.
00:07:14 And we have been unified ever since.
00:07:19 Everyone could see that we were united.
00:07:22 One brother was working from door to door,
00:07:25 black and white, and a lady came to the door (white),
00:07:29 and she said she was happy
00:07:32 to see this unity take place.
00:07:36 She had looked forward to it for a long time.
00:07:39 We have formed, with Jehovah’s help
00:07:43 by means of his holy spirit,
00:07:46 a worldwide brotherhood.
00:07:48 Granted, they have their imperfections,
00:07:50 but it is a brotherhood
00:07:53 and something to be truly marveled at.
00:07:57 The brothers began to feel
00:08:00 what we knew was true:
00:08:02 We’re all one organization.
00:08:05 They began to feel it.
00:08:07 They began to experience it.
00:08:09 We loved Jehovah, and we loved our brothers,
00:08:13 so there you have it.
00:08:15 How could you fail to have unity
00:08:19 when Jehovah had drawn you together?
00:08:24 Satan is the prime one to divide people.
00:08:28 Jesus died for the whole world of mankind,
00:08:33 so who would that exclude?
00:08:35 No one.
