1974_WT Historical Slide Show Info - Sheet.pdf - Autorzy z kręgu WTS - WTLibrary

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES HISTORY SLIDES

During the mid-1970s, a Florida Witness and elder, who was a personal friend of the

ruling body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and who had long-time family connections with the

Watch Tower Society going back to its second president, J. F. Rutherford, took upon

himself a project to locate historical photos representing the early years and growth of the

Watch Tower Society. After spending much time and expense, he obtained photos rarely,

if ever, seen by Jehovah’s Witnesses, and put together, in chronological order, a slide-

show containing eighty-eight slides which lasted for nearly three hours.

Not sponsored or advertised by the Watch Tower, but through word of mouth, hundreds

of Witnesses and their guests came to see the slides shown, it is thought, some three

times in rented facilities in Florida and Atlanta. Those who saw the show were thrilled

with seeing photos never seen before of people and properties they had only heard about.

Soon, details of the exciting events came to the attention of the Governing Body of

Jehovah’s Witnesses at their world headquarters in Brooklyn, NY. Contacting the

producer and narrator of the slide-show, the Florida elder, Governing Body member, Leo

Greenlees, expressed interest in obtaining the slides and equipment used to show the

slides along with the script which the narrator used to describe to the audience what they

were seeing on the screen.

Wanting to please the group’s leaders, the complete slide show was donated to the

organization never to be seen again. About ten years later, in 1984, when Leo Greenlees

was dismissed from the Governing Body for wrong-doing, the entire slide-show was

found on the floor in the back of Greenlees’s closet in his former apartment at

headquarters in Brooklyn, NY.

It is understood that the slide-show is now in the archives of the Writing Department at

the Witnesses headquarters. A copy of the five page script for the slide show is found

below. Although the slides will not be available to view, the script contains little-known

information about some of the subjects shown in the slides who are of historical interest

to those who are researching the history of the early leaders of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

1974_WT Historical Slide Show Info - Sheet.pdf