The Watchtower, “Making Adjustments Has Been Rewarding”
“AT THAT time in parts of the United States, white and black Jehovah's Witnesses had to have separate congregations, circuits, and districts. … In 1954, some Witnesses took offense when no black speakers were on the program at a number of district assemblies. We encouraged our black brothers to be patient. The following summer, I was assigned as a speaker. Thereafter, more black brothers in the South were on the programs. … In time, racial violence in the South diminished, and congregations gradually began to integrate.”
A first-person life story of a black American Witness born in 1928, told to the magazine. He entered the 20th class of Gilead in September 1952, was assigned afterwards to circuit work visiting black congregations in Alabama, and in the summer of 1953 became a district overseer serving black circuits from Virginia to Florida. A photograph caption printed as “[Picture on page 6]” reads “Traveling overseers and their wives preparing for an integrated district convention, 1966”.
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Provenance and verification note for The Watchtower, Making Adjustments Has Been Rewarding
Confidence note. Opened on the Watchtower Online Library on 19 September 2026, read in full from the document’s own HTML and re-checked independently; the page markers read 3 to 7, the printed citation line reads “w11 12/15 pp. 3-7” and the by-line reads “As told by James A. Thompson”. The 1966 date comes from the picture caption, which the document prints after the last page marker and labels as standing on page 6.
Corroborated by. src-race-w-1952-0201-qfr-segregation
Notes. The organisation’s own magazine states that its American congregations, circuits and districts were racially separate, that integration came gradually, and that “some, both blacks and whites, did not favor the new arrangement”.
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-race-w-2011-1215-thompson