Black Skin

 

When Charles Russell founded the religion now known as Jehovah’s witnesses it was at a time in American history when black people were looked down upon by white people. Jehovah’s witnesses reflected this view as did similar religions such as the Mormons. Early Witnesses considered black skin a curse on Ham and that the skin colour of black people would have to change once they entered the earthly paradise. This certainly arose from the prevailing American attitude at the time and not from the bible.

 

The early prejudice towards black people can be seen in the following quotes:

 

The Bible versus Evolution p.30

 “(God) has specially blessed and favored certain branches of the Aryan race in Europe and America. But the fact, that the white race has been more abundantly blessed with the light of the Gospel than others, is not to be understood to signify that when members of other races heard and appreciated the Gospel, they were repulsed or rejected by the Lord. … While the elect Church will probably be composed chiefly of the highly favored white race, nevertheless, it will probably have in it representatives out of “every kindred, people and tongue””

 

The feeling was so strong against black skin that the Watchtower documented cases of black skin turning white and used this to indicate that in the earthly Paradise black people will all return to being white.

 

Watch Tower 1904 February 15  pp.52-53 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin?”

“What the Ethiopian cannot do for himself God could readily do for him. The difference between the races of men and the differences between their languages have long been arguments against the solidarity of the human family. The doctrine of restitution has also raised the question. How could all men be brought to perfection and which color of skin was the original? The answer is now provided. God can change the Ethiopian's skin in his own due time. Prof. H. A. Edwards, Supt. of Schools in Slater, Mo., has written for the public press an elaborate description of how Julius Jackson, of New Frankfurt, Mo., a negro boy of nine years, began to grow white in September, 1901, and is now fully nine-tenths white. He assures us that this is no whitish skin disease; but that the new white skin is as healthy as that of any white boy, and that the changed boy has never been sick and never has taken medicines”

 

Quite coincidentally Michael Jackson, raised as a Jehovah’s witness is also said to suffer from the same skin condition. The reason for the Watchtower claim that black skin needed to be changed to white in the Paradise is that:

 

Watch Tower 1898 August 1 p.230

“...The negro race is supposed to be descended from Ham, whose special degradation is mentioned in Gen. 9:22, 25”

 

Watch Tower 1902 July 15 The Negro Not A Beast pp.215-216

 “While it is true that the white race exhibits some qualities of superiority over any other, we are to remember that there are wide differences in the same Caucasian (Semitic and Aryan) family; and also we should remember that some of the qualities which have given this branch of the human family its preeminence in the world are not such as can be pointed to as in all respects admirable....The secret of the greater intelligence and aptitude of the Caucasian undoubtedly in great measure is to be attributed to the commingling of blood amongst its various branches; and this was evidently forced in large measure by circumstances under divine control….

 

“Noah declared, prophetically, that Ham's characteristics which had led him to unseemly conduct disrespectful to his father, would be found cropping out later, inherited by his son, and prophetically he foretold that this degeneracy would mark the posterity of Canaan, degrading him, making him servile. We are not able to determine to a certainty that the sons of Ham and Canaan are the negroes; but we consider that general view as probable as any other.”

 

Segregation was practiced during the days of Russell and Rutherford.

 

Watch Tower 1914 April 1 p.105

“Recognizing that it meant either the success or the failure of the enterprise of the [Photo] Drama as respects the whites, we have been compelled to assign the colored friends to the gallery, which, however, is just as good for seeing and hearing as any other part of The Temple. Some were offended at this arrangement.”

 

The view was that Black and Hispanic people had lesser interest, education and intelligence. Blacks were not permitted to participate in the "pioneer" work.

 

Watchtower 1900 April 15 p.122

“There are probably as many as a hundred colored brethren on the Watch Tower lists, some of them very clear in the truth, and very earnest in its service, financially and otherwise. We have received letters from several of these, who had intended engaging in the volunteer work, expressing surprise that in the call for volunteers in the March 1st issue we restricted the inquiry to white Protestant churches. They rightly realized that we have not the slightest of race prejudice, and that we love the colored brethren with just the same warmth of heart that we love the white, and they queried therefore why such a distinction should be made in the call. The reason is that so far as we are able to judge, colored people have less education than whites - many of them quite insufficient to permit them to profit by such reading as we have to give forth. Our conclusion therefore is based upon the supposition that reading matter distributed to a colored congregation would more than half of it be utterly wasted, and a very small percentage indeed likely to yield good results.”

 

In more recent years the Watchtower has condemned the Catholics for their views about blacks. Yet these were the same views the Witnesses held in that time period. It even seems that the Catholics changed their teaching earlier then Jehovah’s witnesses.

 

Awake 1977 October 8 p.29

“Even up to a hundred years ago the Catholic Church held the view that blacks were cursed by God. Maxwell explains that this view "apparently survived until 1873 when Pope Pius IX attached an indulgence to a prayer for the `wretched Ethiopians in Central Africa that almighty God may at length remove the curse of Cham [Ham] from their hearts."

 

Awake 1982 February 8 pp.14-15 The Races—What Is Their Origin?

“Have the churches of Christendom always treated “everyone on the same basis”? Consider how the Catholic and Lutheran Churches supported Hitler’s scheme to produce a “master race.” And for centuries the Catholic Church taught that Negroes were a cursed race. John F. Maxwell states in his book Slavery and the Catholic Church that this view “apparently survived until 1873.”

 

Other American religious organisations held the same views that the Bible Students had. Bill Broadway, Washington Post Staff Writer explains;

 

“Like other denominations, Mormonism -- organized in 1830 -- once taught that blacks were descendants of Cain, Adam and Eve's son who was banished after murdering his brother Abel, and of Ham, Noah's son who broke a taboo when he looked at the nude body of his drunken father. In what became known as the "curse of Ham," Noah condemned to slavery the descendants of Ham's son Canaan. … Powell said that the church, which has about 48,000 Washington area members, rejected its earlier teachings on race two decades ago, when leaders proclaimed that "all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color. …Since the 1978 revelation granting the priesthood to all worthy males, millions of people of all races have embraced the restored gospel of Jesus Christ."

 

The light is getting brighter for Mormons as well. Both religions started with formal discriminatory teachings that were later revoked.

 

Jehovah’s witnesses teach that only 144,000 humans will go to heaven and these people will be kings over the rest of mankind who will reside forever on earth. An interesting result of the Watchtower doctrine is that it implies that there are going to be almost no Black or Asian people in heaven. Christianity was predominantly a Jewish and European religion until 1,900 and the Witnesses started as an American religion. The first group of ‘true’ Christians in the 1^st century were mostly Jewish. The majority of the 144,000 chosen ones through the dark ages would have to come from Christian countries, so were mostly white European stock. We are told that the final lot were picked prior to 1935 from Russell’s Bible Students, so the majority of these were also from white countries. This meant that virtually all of those who are going to be rulers in heaven must be white, not Black or Asian. This is hard to believe, since the majority of the world is populated by Black and Asian people. This does not appear to have been of concern to Russell, as the quotes show the early Bible Students believed black were not favoured by God.

 

Other Christian groups have been open to all races for decades. These religions have benefited by having more expressive attitudes than an organisation run by a Governing Body consisting of older white men. In fact, the Governing Body has consisted solely of Caucasians for the majority of the Witness history. It is only recently that Samuel Herd became the first and only black person on the Governing Body and as of 2005 there are still no Asians.

Imagine the different feel of the Witness Organisation if the Governing Body had consisted of both black and white men during the 20^th century. You can hope to see shifts over time now that Samuel Herd and people of other nationalities become more involved in the approval of new policy.