In March 1900 the Watch Tower Society’s free-literature campaign asked its volunteers to report "the number of white Protestant churches in the district", restricting the distribution to white Protestant congregations.

Confidence note. Read in the 1900 Reprints volume on the Internet Archive, leaf by leaf from the item’s own djvu.xml, and re-checked independently on 19 September 2026. The leaf carrying the notice opens with the issue masthead “Vol. XXI ALLEGHENY, PA., MARCH 1, 1900 No. 5” and closes with the Reprints marker [2585]; the preceding leaf carries the running head “(62-64)” and closes with [2584], and the following leaf carries “(68-69)” and closes with [2586]. The Reprints page is therefore 2585 and its own running head reads “(64-68)”, so the notice falls within magazine pages 64-68 of that issue; the individual magazine page is not separately printed on the notice and is not asserted here. The wording is taken from the item’s OCR with plain OCR artefacts (“uveiago”, “membci-”) corrected against the surrounding text; the page images were not separately inspected.

Scan provenance. Internet Archive item “Magazines: Zion’s watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1900”, which reproduces the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1900. Each page carries a continuous Reprints number in square brackets and, where the page is not a masthead page, a running head giving the original magazine pages in parentheses.

Corroborated by. src-race-zwt-1900-0415-colored-brethren

Notes. This is the call referred to, and explained, in the issue of 15 April 1900. An earlier reading of this record gave the Reprints page as 2584; the leaf-level reading above gives 2585.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-race-zwt-1900-0301-volunteer-call

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Confidence note. Read in the 1900 Reprints volume on the Internet Archive on 19 September 2026 and re-checked leaf by leaf from the item’s djvu.xml. The whole quoted passage stands on one Reprints page, the leaf whose own running head reads “(121-122) ZION’S WATCH TOWER Allegheny, Pa.” and which closes with the marker [ 2618 ]; the marker falls inside the passage in the OCR only because the page is set in two columns. The next leaf reads “April 15, 1900 ZION’S WATCH TOWER (122-123)” and carries the rest of the article, including the exclusion of Roman Catholic congregations. This confirms the commonly cited page 122. Obvious OCR errors (“li«ts”, “w’hite”) have been repaired against the surrounding text; the page images were not separately inspected.

Scan provenance. Internet Archive item “Magazines: Zion’s watch tower and herald of Christ’s presence, 1900”, the Watch Tower Reprints volume for 1900.

Corroborated by. src-race-zwt-1900-0301-volunteer-call

Notes. Widely quoted from the phrase "colored people have less education than whites" onward. The full passage also contains the magazine’s claim to have "not the slightest of race prejudice", which critics often omit and defenders often quote alone, and the article later states that the volunteer service itself was open to "brethren and sisters, white and colored".

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-race-zwt-1900-0415-colored-brethren

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