Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution [Paperback]

Shawn Francis Peters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2002

Winner of the Scribes Award Given by The American Society Of Writers On Legal Subjects

Finalist, Silver Gavel Award, American Bar Association

Washington Post Book World Notable Book in Religion and Philosophy

While millions of Americans were defending liberty against the Nazis, liberty was under vicious attack at home. One of the worst outbreaks of religious persecution in U.S. history occurred during World War II when Jehovah's Witnesses were intimidated, beaten, and even imprisoned for refusing to salute the flag or serve in the armed forces.

Determined to claim their First Amendment rights, Jehovah's Witnesses waged a tenacious legal campaign that led to twenty-three Supreme Court rulings between 1938 and 1946. Now Shawn Peters has written the first complete account of the personalities, events, and institutions behind those cases, showing that they were more than vindication for unpopular beliefs--they were also a turning point in the nation's constitutional commitment to individual rights.

Peters begins with the story of Walter Gobitas, a Jehovah's Witness whose children refused to salute the flag at school. He follows this famous case to the Supreme Court where he captures the intellectual sparring between Justices Frankfurter and Stone over individual liberties; then he describes the aftermath of the Court's ruling against Gobitas when angry mobs savagely assaulted Jehovah's Witnesses in hundreds of communities across America.

Judging Jehovah's Witnesses tells how persecution--much of it directed by members of patriotic organizations like the American Legion--touched the lives of Witnesses of all ages; why the Justice Department and state officials ignored the Witnesses' pleas for relief; and how the ACLU and liberal clergymen finally stepped forward to help them. Drawing on interviews with Witnesses and extensive research in ACLU archives, Peters examines the strategies that beleaguered Witnesses used to combat discrimination and goes beyond the familiar Supreme Court rulings by analyzing more obscure lower court decisions as well.

By vigorously pursuing their cause, the Witnesses helped to inaugurate an era in which individual and minority rights emerged as matters of concern for the Supreme Court and foreshadowed events in the civil rights movement. Like the classics Gideon's Trumpet and Simple Justice, Judging Jehovah's Witnesses vividly narrates a moving human drama while reminding us of the true meaning of our Constitution and the rights it protects.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With a journalistic eye, Peters (student service coordinator, Sch. of Journalism and Mass Communications, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) presents the convergence of nationalistic paranoia, the distrust that erupted into violence, and palpable religious bigotry against the Jehovah's Witnesses during the 1930s and 1940s. Their desire to avoid idolatry in any form--including refusing to salute the flag or serve in the armed forces--was perceived by many as treason. During the war years of the 1940s this belief marked them as cowards at best, Nazi subversives at worst, and led to persecution. Ironically, while they fought a very public battle for their Constitutional rights, in their interior organization, theirs is one of the most theologically rigid and ideologically inflexible traditions. This legal history, in the vein of Harold Berman's Law and Revolution, tells us as much about the intricacies of jurisprudence as it does our own shameful past. This engrossing study depends primarily on firsthand testimony, ACLU documents, and legal briefs. Light on analysis but chock-full of primary resources, this is recommended reading for American and religious historians as well as for those interested in the history of persecution.
-Sandra Collins, Univ. of Pittsburgh
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A fast-paced study of a little-known episode in American religious history. Say Jehovahs Witnesses, and most Americans will conjure up pictures of door-to-door evangelists who want to give you tracts and pamphlets. But at mid-century the sectarian group was known for something elserefusing to salute the US flag. Jehovahs Witnesses insisted they were patriotic and meant no disrespect, but they could not saluteit was a violation, they said, of Exodus 5, which instructs believers to have no other Gods before Me. In the tense and suspicious atmosphere of WWII, however, many Americans were troubled by the Witnesses refusal to salute: was this a sign of some greater disloyalty? In sleepy towns like Richwood, West Virginia, and Litchfield, Illinois, anti-Witness violence became commonplace, with Witness houses of worship being looted and graffitied and Witnesses themselves stoned like characters from the Old Testamentby 1940 there were 236 such episodes. Workplace discrimination, Peters tells us, was especially pervasive: Witnesses were often fired or forced to resign. Daniel Morgans sons, high school students in Fort Lee, New Jersey, refused to salute the flag in 1939; Morgans boss at the Motor Vehicle Department urged Morgan to pressure his sons to capitulate, and when Morgan refused, he was fired. When he applied for a job at the Bergen County Board of Freeholders, he was told that his refusal to salute the flag disqualified [him] for a civil service position, even though he was a veteran. With the aid of the ACLU, Morgan sued, and in 1944 the state supreme court ruled in his favor. The story of Morgan v. Civil Service Commission highlights another theme of the book: the Witnesses willingness to sue when their civil liberties were abridged. Peterss attempt to position this litigation as an early manifestation of the civil rights revolution is a bit strained, however. History and religion buffs will relish this tale. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas (February 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700611827
• ISBN-13: 978-0700611829
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #576,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Other Denominations & Sects

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Remarkable Story!, June 6, 2000

By A Customer

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This review is from: Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution (Hardcover)

This book is about the legal battle Jehovah's Witnesses waged, in the 1930's and 1940's, to secure their constitutional rights to practice their beliefs in the midst of the hysteria that consumed the USA in the years leading up to and into the Second World War. The author, Shawn Francis Peters, is not one of Jehovah's Witnesses nor is he sympathetic to their beliefs. However, he does believe in their right to think, proclaim, and act in harmony with their beliefs.

If you are interested in American, legal, or religious history this book will be of interest to you. What I particularly enjoyed was the background material he gives. The Witnesses, their persecutors, the police and judges. He helps us to see what motivated each group. He takes us behind the scenes of the Supreme Court. There we see that there were not just dry legal deliberations that went on but the beliefs of the Justices caused them to become emotionally involved as well.

The book is full of many firsthand accounts. So we get a sense of what it felt like to be living during that time. We feel the anguish of the Witnesses, as they endure their trials, facing discrimination and prejudice from what may be called 'petty officials'. We see policeman, sheriff, mayor, governor, and the U.S. Justice Dept basically ignore their pleas for help against their persecutors. They finally realized that "their only recourse was the Courts".

We, also, see that there were others who could see that if the actions against Jehovah's Witnesses were allowed to stand then the rights of all minorities would be at stake. So various groups such as the ACLU, the Christian Century magazine, liberal clergymen and numerous journalists, while always making clear that they did not share the Witnesses religious beliefs nonetheless supported their rights to have and share such beliefs without being persecuted.

The author has done a good job in bringing back to public attention an episode of American life that few people are familiar with. It is a story that deserves to be remembered. As he says in his introduction: "Largely forgotten for the past fifty years, their simple but eloquent voices tell a remarkable story, one that lays bare the extremes of cowardice and courage so often found in nations engrossed by war."

58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A History Worth Remembering, April 27, 2000

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E. Jones - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution (Hardcover)

The author is not one of Jehovah's Witnesses nor is he sympathetic toward their beliefs. (Which he makes clear in various comments throughout the book.) However, he does support their legal right to have such beliefs, to proclaim them, and to act in harmony with them.

What I liked about the book was the background the author gives to the legal cases. He doesn't just give you the legal facts but he gives you the story of the Witnesses, their persecutors, the police officers, and the judges. He tries to help you see why each group acted the way they did. He shows how the persecution affected the private lives of the Witnesses. I particularly enjoyed the behind the scenes look into the Supreme Court. What the Justices thought in private and how they wrangled with one another before making their decisions.

Mr. Peters has done a good job in bringing back to public attention a momentous period in legal history that helped to shape in a significant way the legal environment of our present time. A time in which even hated minorities can look to the courts with a certain amount of confidence that their legal right to think, proclaim, and act in harmony with their beliefs will be protected.

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping stories, brilliant analysis, October 18, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution (Hardcover)

I picked up this book after learning that it had been a finalist for the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel and had won the Scribes Book Award for legal writing. I'm glad that I did because it turned about to be one of the best books on law I've ever read. (I've read a lot of them, by the way, because I teach both law and history.) The author manages to combine compelling narrative elements (stories about the people involved in the cases) with lucid scholarly analysis of why the cases matter. The result is a rare breed -- a book you could assign in a constitutional law class or recommend to a non-specialist friend. I was floored by it.