Photo from NPR 2013 article "Sleepy, Southern And Segregated: What D.C. Was Like In '63" by Brian Naylor
Written by Tom Adams, Date Published February 11th, 2025
Writing a book is full of surprises – some that are delightful and others that are what you might call challenging growth opportunities. Beginning with this post, I will share some of what I have learned. By far, the greatest joy is the many people I have met and their generosity in sharing their experiences and wisdom. Each of them enriched my life and I hope to add depth and light to the book, A Marriage That Changed The World, for readers. (Now available on Amazon.)
Given it’s February and Black History Month, I’d like to start with another marriage that changed the world in A.A.’s early days and a present-day contributor to carrying the message about African Americans in recovery.
Jim S., or Jim Scott as he is known since his death, and his wife Vi, are among the many couples who became friends with Bill and Lois Wilson as Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) and Al-Anon Family Groups were being founded. Jim and Vi were the first African Americans to start an A.A. group open to African Americans in segregated Washington D.C. in 1945. A.A. had come to Washington D.C. in 1939 through the efforts of Fitz Mayo, the son of a Protestant minister from Maryland who traveled to New York and found sobriety in meetings with Bill and Lois Wilson in New York.
Jim’s father was a country doctor in Virginia. Jim tells about his drinking problem, becoming an alcoholic and finding recovery through A.A. in the “story section” of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, (Jim’s Story, 232, 4th edition).
He writes about growing up in rural Virginia with a mother who he describes as a “religious fanatic” and overly protective. He attended college and medical school at Howard University in Washington D.C. and successfully became a doctor and surgeon.
The Depression and Prohibition slowed down the arrival of his drinking problem. Times were hard and money was tight; he didn’t start drinking until 1935. Within five years, in 1940, his drinking progressed to where he realized he had written a prescription for a patient while he was in an alcoholic black-out and didn’t remember writing the prescription. That scared him into giving up his medical practice, never to return to it. But he was unable to stop drinking, resulting in long absences from home to “find work” and to drink.
In 1945, Jim was introduced by Ella Gant, an African-American woman he knew from an electrical repair store to Charlie G. who became Jim’s friend and A.A. sponsor. Charlie guided Jim in his journey of getting sober, reuniting with his wife Vi, and rebuilding trust and their relationship. Jim and Vi started the first A.A. meeting for African-Americans in Washington D.C and one of the first in the United States.
My recently published book, co-authored with Joy Jones, A Marriage that Changed the World: Lois and Bill Wilson and the Addiction Recovery Movement provides more details on the difficult path Jim and Vi Scott traveled in starting A.A. in segregated Washington D.C. It was against the law for African-Americans and white people to be together in public places like restaurants. They met in homes because churches turned them down as they sought a meeting place. They eventually rented space from the YMCA and began holding regular meetings there.
On November 10, 1954, Jim and Vi Scott met with Bill and Lois Wilson at the Bedford Hotel in Bedford, New York. Their talks that day were recorded, Bill interviewing Jim and Lois interviewing Vi. Jim and Bill discussed their drinking, strained relations with their wives, and their recovery. Lois and Vi discussed their awakening to the fact that practicing the Twelve Steps was just as important for them as for their husbands. They saw they had to change and let go of the painful past in order to move forward in their marriage.
Lois asked Vi how many men with drinking problems she had provided a place to stay in her home and she replied about a hundred!
Jim Scott became the first African-American to speak at an A.A. International Conference when he spoke at the 1955 St. Louis convention.
The details of Jim and Vi’s role are part of this story because of the research and generosity of a man I met for the first time in attending the anniversary of the Cosmopolitan Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, the meeting that evolved from the one Jim and Charlie started almost 80 years earlier. Mr. Lee M. is the archivist for the Cosmopolitan Group. Never before having met me, he generously offered me his entire notebook of research about Jim and Vi Scott and the growth of the Cosmopolitan Group.
Before I started work on this book, I knew nothing of Jim and Vi Scott, the Cosmopolitan Group, and had never met Mr. Lee M. My life is enriched through learning this and many other stories. I am reminded of the many marriages and friendships that I have and are changing the world.
Source: https://thadams.com/recovery-growth/how-african-americans-joined-alcoholics-anonymous/