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Listen to the audio version of this essay here.

Four years ago, I was living my best life as a touring a cappella singer. The sum of my ambition was to make great and meaningful art and create the first a cappella group to play the Superbowl halftime show. For years, a photo of the colorfully lit MetLife stadium was my lock screen as a gentle and constant reminder of that goal. Today, I have just finished my first year of graduate school studying Black liberation theology in hopes to create a more complete and enriching Mormon theology that validates marginalized folks and, by extension, creates a space that is more in line with the integrated and diversified New Testament church that Christ intended. As much as I love the restored gospel and the Church, this is the last place I saw myself.

I used to clown returned missionaries who couldn’t seem to let go of their missions. They would continue to dress like missionaries weeks after their return, talk endlessly about their missions, and pursue academic tracks that led to working in Church education. In retrospect, I see that loving the Church, the gospel, and the scriptures so much that you want that to be your vocation isn’t the worst thing, but, at the time, it read like fanaticism to me. I loved the scriptures and the gospel too, but I felt my ministry lay in a different academic path and aggressively acted accordingly.

Time would tell me, however, that my ministry wasn’t in the academy at all—at least for this season of my life. I wasn’t a great student, and school stressed me out. As I prepared for graduation, I got rejected by every program I had hoped would improve my odds of advancing my academic and professional career, including the only grad school to which I applied. When Teach For America rejected me a second time, my ego had had enough and I forsook academia for the arts with no intention to return.

In the decade since I made that decision, a lot has happened that ultimately reoriented me back to the academy and to theological studies in particular. First, the job I took after graduating from Brigham Young University took me to Boston, Massachusetts. I immediately noticed a refreshing difference between the congregations I attended in Utah and congregations in Boston. These were the most educated people I had ever worshiped with in my adult life, and it was the safest I had ever felt being my authentic self at church. Some of the Saints had also organized local events to have Latter-day Saint scholars, thinkers, influencers, and leaders share their expertise, experience, and testimonies. The first event I attended like this featured a discussion on womanist theology by a Harvard- and Howard-educated Black Latter-day Saint scholar. I could not have gotten that anywhere else in the world.

Second, the murders of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown happened. They weren’t the first unarmed Black men to be gunned down by the police or white vigilantes, but they were the first high-profile cases in the age of social media. They were for millennials what Rodney King was for Gen Xers. Their deaths were catalysts to what would become the rallying affirmation and organization #BlackLivesMatter, in addition to other civil rights organizations. Everyone had an opinion. The most troubling ones to me were, regrettably, from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—people I had considered friends, people I’ve prayed and preached the gospel with. The callous response to Black pain—my pain, my family’s pain, my community’s pain—was inexcusable for any of the Saints. To make matters worse, going to church was not the balm of Gilead it should’ve been for Black members. Most of the time our pain was ignored, and if it was mentioned at all, it was straight up minimized. There was no mourning with those who mourn or comforting those who stand in need of comfort. When I went to interfaith vigils to mourn properly, I was almost always the only Latter-day Saint present. I would not accept that this was the best the Church could do in the face of racism and Black pain—not the restored Church of the same Christ who was literally lynched by the state for threatening corrupt political systems that oppressed the marginalized.

Third, the exclusion policy of November 2015 happened. For many of the Saints, including myself, this was something of a crisis. Somewhere at the intersection of my close associations with queer people, my inability to theologically and rationally justify such a policy, and my disdain for bullying and discriminatory behavior, I had to confront queer pain and my faith and figure out how to reconcile the two. Ultimately, the question wasn’t how to reconcile my faith and queer pain—our theology already validated queer life when I honestly looked at it. What I needed to come to terms with was what that knowledge requires of me as a person of faith. Peace would not come if I didn’t hold our institutions accountable to the Christ we read about in the scriptures, and that meant challenging policy that denied the imago dei in our queer siblings, that denied all were alike unto God, and that denied God was no respecter of persons. Anything less would be cowardice and dishonesty on my part. I wasn’t alone in my feelings, and this would become palpable in the coming years.

Fourth, in 2019, during the second annual Black LDS Legacy Conference, I felt prompted to create a space to keep conversations going similar to those at the conference. Black folk were able to talk about the gospel in a way that centered Blackness—a way that honored our pain while seeing our strength and, wherever possible, using the restored gospel as a tool to do as much. The conference was a liberating experience. As a Black Latter-day Saint, I’m used to at least one of those identities constantly being scrutinized anywhere I go. But at that event, my body is able to release much of the tension it holds. I don’t have to explain my existence to anyone in that space. I am not a guest. I am home. I wanted to create something close to that for myself and others who struggle to fit in because they look different, love differently, think differently, or otherwise have different needs. They too deserve to be in a space where they feel home.

This desire ultimately gave birth to what is now Beyond the Block, a podcast I’ve been running for a few years with the goal of centering the marginalized in Mormonism. The podcast discusses the Come, Follow Me lesson each week while prioritizing a reading for the marginalized. My co-host, Derek Knox, a queer theologian and friend, seemed the perfect conversation partner as pretty much every time we got together, our conversations would turn into a Beyond the Block episode. The show has a modest but loyal following. As of this writing, there hasn’t been a congregation I’ve visited in the United States where there wasn’t someone familiar with the show. The day after my records were transferred to my ward in New York, I was tapped to substitute teach seminary because of the work I had done on Beyond the Block. It is validating to know that something that heals my soul also helps others too, gives them voice, empowers them to affirm the least of these, and helps them be more enriched by our faith.

The show’s popularity gave me opportunity to speak at several events and to several publications. People thought our ideas were equal parts life-giving and provocative, though we didn’t feel we were saying anything particularly radical in terms of the scope of our sacred texts. That was the point, though. We already have the tools to affirm people on the margins and we don’t have to read too closely or too much to find them. All we need is a different lens, and that can be difficult to find when our institution is overwhelmingly white and we’re all taught the same scriptures the same ways by the same presumably straight cis white dudes born in the Jim Crow era.

Bear in mind: though I knew I was doing important work, it’s work I was doing on the side. I had and still have no professional ambitions where theology and religion are concerned. But the Church and the United States’ political climate demands more of the Church. People my age and younger were becoming increasingly disaffected with it, feeling it had nothing relevant to contribute to our lives or to the most urgent and important matters we faced. The Church was troublingly silent on issues of race, despite having a rich theology from which to create solutions, and it still refuses to engage any real interrogation of policies that alienate queer people or keep women, who represent close to three times the active membership of men, relegated to marginal positions of power and leadership. I believe all of this is a stumbling block to our retention and missionary efforts among the least of these, those with the most to teach us about Christ, and that frustrated me. Side hustle or not, I wanted to put myself in the best position I could to address these problems. With my new influence and opportunities, it quickly occurred to me that I’m still a relative amateur in the world of theology, yet when people want to talk race, theology, and Mormonism, I’m one of the folks consistently getting called and, frankly, I feel underqualified. I regularly studied and prepared as thoroughly as I could for every engagement I did, but I felt keenly that something was missing from my learning experiences.

As a final point, a week after the same 2019 Black LDS Legacy Conference that inspired the podcast, I was invited to give a talk on racism at church (now published in the Fall 2019 issue of Dialogue). Perhaps because I sourced the scriptures liberally, multiple members of the congregation suggested looking at divinity schools. I received the compliment but heartily laughed at the suggestion. I had a job. I hated school. I didn’t think I was suited for the academy (and still don’t). And what was a degree in theology going to do for me professionally? It was bad enough my undergrad degree was pretty useless; I didn’t want an advanced degree that was also useless. As time went on, however, the need for better theological education, especially in our church, became more apparent. With rising racial tensions in the United States, I was getting busier. At church and on my own, I didn’t feel I was gaining the tools needed to study scriptures more intelligently and imaginatively, nor did I feel I was gaining the tools to more critically engage my faith in the public square. My education likely wouldn’t progress if I didn’t intentionally create more time for it and use the best tools available, including academic institutions.

By summer 2020, I was at least open enough to the idea of divinity school that I decided to apply to some just to see what would happen. Around that same time, my elders quorum president led me through a discernment process that helped clarify my goals and the role the divine had in them. The November night I sent off my first three applications, I knew I was getting in, and I felt good about that. Sure enough, I got my first acceptance letters a few months later and was not just relieved but energized. The news felt good, and it felt right. Whatever I was to do with my future, the Spirit seemed to confirm that divinity school was going to better prepare me for it.

I applied to another institution primarily for its prestige. I didn’t feel anything pushing me toward the school, but it was a stone’s throw from my home, somewhat familiar, I potentially had a connection there, and it is pretty popular for Latter-day Saints who do venture into theological studies. It also housed Cornel West, one of the most provocative and brilliant thinkers in philosophy, politics, and theology, and I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to work with such an influential Black figure. I even gave him a whole paragraph in one of my application essays. I was rejected. In a twist of fate, though, he had a very public falling-out with the university and was taking his talents to Union Theological Seminary, the school where he had begun his teaching career. At this point, I hadn’t yet considered Union, but it actually made perfect sense. The most frequently referenced school in the biographies of the theologians I read was Union. My theological idol and the creator of Black liberation theology, James Cone, had spent most of his career there, and one of his most notable students, The Very Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, one of the founders of womanist theology known for her trailblazing work addressing sexuality and homophobia in the Black church, is a professor and dean there. Further, social justice isn’t just an elective subject there but baked into the school’s culture and curriculum itself. In short, Union Theological Seminary seemed to be the institutional expression of my Black Christian prophetic identity. Gaining access to all the resources of Columbia’s various schools as well as getting to live in New York wasn’t a bad benefit either. I accepted their scholarship offer the following month. Serendipitously, Dr. West isn’t just my teacher but my advisor as well.

Since being here, my faith hasn’t come up much—at least not as something to be scrutinized. In my first meeting with Dr. West, he told me of one of his first encounters with Mormonism was being part of the first expanded crop of Black Harvard recruits in 1970. The relatively new dean of admissions who facilitated the influx was Chase N. Peterson, a Latter-day Saint. In that light, the idea that I wanted to create a more inclusive and liberating theology didn’t seem all that foreign to him. The other Black seminarians have been curious about my membership as I’m the only Black Mormon most of them know, but they seem to care less about my religious affiliation and more about how that affiliation moves me to show up for others. How does our theology liberate Black people? What does it offer those without an address? What does it say to us about our responsibility to the poor and the exploited? How does it help us break generational curses? How committed is it to the resistance of oppression? These are all great questions that I hope to refine our answers to during my time here.

I’m the only Latter-day Saint at this school and, to my knowledge, the only one ever to pursue a degree from here. That’s not an accident. Besides Latter-day Saint leaders not being required to obtain a theological education, places like Union that prioritize affirming theologies (Black liberation theology, queer theology, womanist theology, et al.) don’t attract members of a church that doesn’t do the same. We’re not really conditioned to, and that’s tragic. The Church’s decision to adopt American standards of respectability has moved us away from our radical, groundbreaking, and affirming roots. Specifically, the infections of white supremacy and patriarchy have compromised our movement and blurred the lens through which we view our text and our theology. It’s not a coincidence that the majority of our significant revelations came in the early days of the Church and that we haven’t had one since the lifting of the priesthood and temple restrictions in 1978. It’s not an accident that we’re consistently one of the later churches to condemn racism nor is it an accident that Black, queer, and other marginalized groups are consistently underrepresented in Latter-day Saint congregations, let alone Church leadership. I live in Harlem, a famously Black neighborhood, yet it’s not an accident that the Harlem congregation is only about 20 percent Black on its best Sundays. Only hours ago, I returned home from a Sunday School lesson in my mother’s ward on Official Declaration 2 with no Black people present but my mother and me. In my estimation, these realities are unacceptable for the restored Church of the same Christ who lived and operated in the margins.

If I am to help change these realities, I have to know what I’m talking about and what I’m doing. I have to know the scriptures and our history better than those who would use the same to discriminate or cause harm. I also have to venture outside of Sunday School, elders quorum, the Church Educational System, and other Mormon-centric spaces to learn other ways to read sacred text and perhaps, most importantly, to understand the role of theology in the world today and how to practically implement that in justice efforts in and out of the Church.

There will be and already has been resistance to these efforts. Ever since Beyond the Block gained steam, many have taken offense that I would suggest bigotry exists in the Church, that some of our policies are scripturally unjustifiable, or that the brethren don’t know everything and can act in ways that do active harm. I was slated to be the creator of the Church’s first anti-racist online course via their publishing company. My public criticism of a living Church leader’s prejudice, however, kept them from publishing it, even though my course, they said, was likely to be the most popular one they ran. The irony of being hired to teach others to fight prejudice and then being fired for calling out prejudice was not lost on me. I’ve made peace with the idea that operating strictly within the Church’s institutional parameters—an institution where there is no real way for members to seek redress for policies that harm others and where there is punishment for simply being critical of leaders—is likely not going to be the way the necessary changes come about.

However, something I’m still making peace with is the fact that I even need to be here. This work is primarily a labor of love; I’m grateful to be in a position to do it, and I feel closer to the divine than I’ve ever been when I use God’s words to affirm the least of these, even when there is a social and emotional cost to it. There is, however, a tinge of resentment at being in this position. Activism, let alone theologically informed activism, was not my Plan A. I don’t believe it’s anyone’s. I had a whole career that brought me immense joy prior to entering grad school. This is exhausting work. I don’t feel the academy suits me, and learning disability, processing disorders, inexperience, and neurodivergence aggravate this experience. I don’t particularly enjoy the study of theology, though I recognize its importance and how life-giving it can be. What I resent is that I feel that my entire existence in this space—a space that I neither love nor feel equipped to be in—is a response to bigoted idolatry within my faith community, who should know better as disciples of Christ. I should not be here. No one should be. No one should spend any part of their existence defending it because of their race, gender, orientation, ability, socioeconomic status, or other identities. I’d like to believe, however, that that resentment is an appropriate tribute to and evidence of my love for and commitment to the marginalized. I’m still learning to navigate this tension with love. At the end of the day, all I want to be is a sharper instrument of the Lord’s peace, and I have come to the conclusion that I can’t do that if all my education comes from the same people teaching the same things, none of which seem to be adequate to address many of the world’s and my own most urgent and important issues. One of the reasons I started Beyond the Block was to create a space to facilitate the discussions I feel we need to have as a church but aren’t having. With a graduate education in theological studies, I’m hoping to be better at that work so that others in and out of the Church may see what those like me see in our theology and, eventually, build and mobilize a culture that shifts us more in line with the New Testament church of Christ and away from the idols of patriarchy and white supremacy. Further, if I actually manage to create a new field of study, I’ll be able to help ensure that this work, which stands on the shoulders of the great Black individuals like Cathy Stokes, Darius Gray, and many others, will be further legitimized, grow, and continue long after I’m gone. My decision to go to school, in short, is simply my best effort to help build Zion.

[post_title] => How a Mormon Ended Up at Union Theological Seminary: A Step Toward Racial Justice and a Better Church [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 56.1 (Spring 2023): 7–50
In the decade since I made that decision, a lot has happened that ultimately reoriented me back to the academy and to theological studies in particular. First, the job I took after graduating from Brigham Young University took me to Boston, Massachusetts. I immediately noticed a refreshing difference between the congregations I attended in Utah and congregations in Boston. These were the most educated people I had ever worshiped with in my adult life, and it was the safest I had ever felt being my authentic self at church. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => how-a-mormon-ended-up-at-union-theological-seminary-a-step-toward-racial-justice-and-a-better-church [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-18 14:26:09 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-18 14:26:09 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=32229 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 30736 [post_author] => 3647 [post_date] => 2022-11-11 22:34:07 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-11-11 22:34:07 [post_content] =>

Listen to the Out Loud Interview about this article here.

In 1963, Joseph Henderson, a non-Mormon from New York, wrote a pointed letter to LDS Church apostle Joseph Fielding Smith asking him about the racial teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.^[1] The letter triggered a sharp response from Smith, who informed his interrogator that he was “getting a little fed up on the idea that so many people think I am responsible for the Negro not holding the priesthood.”^[2] It is easy to see why Henderson held Smith responsible for the Mormon priesthood ban, which also restricted Black people from temple access. The apostle had authored several books defending the ban and he was the Church’s most aggressive leader condemning Mormon intellectuals who criticized it. Smith saw himself as the guardian of Mormon orthodoxy, not just on matters of race and lineage but also on issues like evolution and doctrinal exegesis.^[3] Yet over the course of Smith’s long ministry, and especially during the last decade of his life, he began to envision a more inclusive LDS Church for persons of African ancestry. He took dramatic steps to both convert and retain Black Latter-day Saints. It was less a change in how Smith read scripture and more about the turbulent times in which he lived. The civil rights movement—and more critically Smith’s own awareness of how the priesthood and temple ban affected Black members—convinced him to reimagine a place for them within the Church.

***

Born in 1876 in what was then the Utah Territory, Joseph Fielding Smith came from royal Mormon stock. He was the grandnephew of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, grandson of high-ranking Church leader Hyrum Smith, son of apostle and Church president Joseph F. Smith, and cousin, brother, or relative to several other apostles, including leaders in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (today the Community of Christ). He was unique in that he spent virtually all of his adult life in the highest councils of the LDS Church. Though he lacked formal training in higher education, Joseph Fielding Smith was one of the Church’s most prolific writers in the twentieth century, authoring scores of books and articles that, as two recent writers explained, “helped educate generations of Latter-day Saints about the history and doctrine of the Church.”^[4]

Called as an apostle in 1910 at the age of thirty-four, Smith served in a number of capacities in the Church, including Assistant Church Historian, Church Historian, president of the Genealogical Society, president of the Salt Lake Temple, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, First Presidency counselor, and Church president.^[5] Like many Latter-day Saints, Smith received a patriarchal blessing—a special bestowment by an LDS Church patriarch—that guided his life and shaped his ministry.^[6] He received the blessing in 1913 at the age of thirty-seven, three years after he was ordained to the Council of the Twelve Apostles, the second-highest governing body in the LDS Church next to the First Presidency. The patriarch promised him that he would “always be in possession of the spirit of revelation” and that his “counsels will be considered conservative and wise.”^[7] The blessing proved prophetic, for Smith’s vigorous defense of the priesthood and temple ban during his sixty-two years as a Church officer marked both his commitment to conservative Mormon teachings and his willingness to defend the ban as revelatory and divine.

Although Smith first discussed the ban in a 1924 article published in the Church’s magazine, the Improvement Era, his most spirited defense of it occurred in 1931 when he published The Way to Perfection.^[8] It was one of his most successful publishing ventures, second only to his Essentials in Church History (1922) and perhaps the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (1938).^[9] The Way to Perfection went through eighteen reprint editions and sold tens of thousands of copies, amassing royalties even after his death in 1972. Published in English, German, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Danish, Finish, and Japanese, it did not go out of print until Church authorities removed the hard copy from publication in 1990 and the Amazon Kindle edition in 2018.^[10] The book served as the manual for a Sunday School course in genealogy, reflective of Smith’s close association with the Genealogical Society of Utah. The First Presidency approved it, and the book quickly became an authoritative statement on LDS racial teachings.^[11]

Smith published The Way to Perfection at a time when Mormon racial teachings were unsettled and when Americans in general struggled to define race.^[12] Although Smith and early Church leaders had taught for years that Black people bore the mark of a divine curse—that they merited a black skin for their sinful conduct in a premortal life—these teachings raised more questions than answers. Since the Church’s founding in 1830, leaders offered a variety of conflicting statements about Black people, undoubtedly influenced by the culture of slavery in which they lived. As recent scholarship attests, early LDS leaders could not determine to what degree Black people should be able to participate in the Church’s rituals.^[13] Mormon founder Joseph Smith produced three books of scripture that, along with the Bible, later became canonized as the standard works, yet these scriptures were largely silent on the spiritual destiny of African descendants. Correspondingly, the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants—two essential books of Mormon scripture (the other the Pearl of Great Price)—had much to say about Lamanites or American Indians, privileging them for “redemption and whiteness.”^[14] By contrast, the Bible—specifically Genesis chapter 4—discussed a “mark” God had placed on Cain, which LDS apostles equated with dark skin, designating Black people unfit to hold the priesthood. The other proof text was Abraham chapter 3 from the Pearl of Great Price, which the Church hierarchy interpreted to mean that Black members were disqualified from the Church’s sacred rituals because they had committed some alleged misdeed or sin before they were born.^[15]

Church leaders arrived at these conclusions gradually over the course of the nineteenth century. There is no evidence that Joseph Smith restricted Black people from the priesthood or disqualified them from the Church’s temple rituals. In fact, early records indicate that at least a handful of Black men had been ordained to the LDS priesthood during Smith’s tenure as founding prophet.^[16] Some even received their patriarchal blessings, which pronounced their lineage and provided a roadmap to their eternal salvation, and some participated in important temple rituals, served church missions, and presided over church congregations. Black Latter-day Saint women enjoyed special privileges too. They received patriarchal blessings and participated in some temple rituals.^[17]

However, the status of Black Latter-day Saints changed dramatically after Joseph Smith’s death in 1844. In the ensuing years, Smith’s successors developed a theology of race that marginalized Black people. In 1845, apostle Orson Hyde was the first Mormon leader to link black skin with moral impurity, declaring that Black people had been neutral in a premortal “war in heaven,” which prompted God to place them “in the accursed lineage of Canaan; and hence the negro or African race.” In 1847, apostle Parley P. Pratt advanced the argument further, insisting that their cursed lineage had disqualified them from the priesthood.^[18] In 1852, after Latter-day Saints migrated west to the Great Basin, territorial governor and Mormon prophet Brigham Young reversed Black priesthood ordination and instituted a ban barring Black people from full access to temple rituals. Young announced a “one-drop” rule to determine African heritage, but he provided no guidelines on how to do it.^[19]

This rudderless policy left Young’s successors in a lurch, for he never specified how Church leaders could detect one drop of African blood. At the time, there were no ways to detect bloodlines or reliable ways to discern lineage. Light-skinned and biracial people with African ancestry were the most difficult to identify. Their mixed-race status presented additional challenges for LDS Church leaders as they grappled with the uncertainty of not knowing who had Black ancestry.^[20]

The “one-drop” rule, moreover, posed another significant challenge for leaders: It negated years of African, European, and Native American cohabitation in colonial North America. These multiracial peoples had shared the continent for hundreds of years, mixing and marrying, which complicated racial policing and made it all but certain that no one truly had a “pure race.” From the convergence of these free and unfree peoples on the North American continent arose new racial identities resulting in “mulattoes,” “mestizos,” “mustees,” and other “mixed bloods.”^[21] Determining a cursed lineage was therefore difficult to discern because mixed-race peoples were ubiquitous in early America.

***

Given the inadequate tools to police racial boundaries, LDS Church leaders like Joseph Fielding Smith struggled to define precisely where Black and light-skinned Latter-day Saints fit into the Church’s conception of soteriology. In 1907, as the Assistant Church Historian, Smith called the rationales of the ban “tradition” and “the opinion” of earlier leaders.^[22] Here he echoed the view of Church president Lorenzo Snow, who noted in 1900 that he did not know whether the curse of Cain teaching originated with Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. He could not determine if this teaching was the product of revelation or whether Young “was giving his own personal views of what had been told to him by the Prophet Joseph.” Likewise, in 1912, Church president Joseph F. Smith and his counselors Anthon H. Lund and Charles W. Penrose confessed that they did not know of any “revelation, ancient or modern” supporting the teaching that “negroes” were “neutral in heaven,” which was clearly at odds with apostle Orson Hyde’s teachings some sixty years earlier.^[23]

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Church leaders continued to express unease over how the Church had justified its teachings about race. In 1918, apostle Orson F. Whitney wrote that “Ham’s sin, which brought the curse upon Canaan . . . may not be fully known; but even if it were,” he cautioned, “there would still remain the unsolved problem of the punishment of a whole race for an offense committed by one of its ancestors.” In contrast, while Whitney found the Church’s teachings about the premortal existence “unsolved,” apostle Melvin J. Ballard sermonized in 1922 that “it is alleged that the Prophet Joseph said—and I have no reason to dispute it—that it is because of some act committed by them before they came into this life.”^[24]

In any event, Joseph Fielding Smith’s labeling Mormon racial teachings “the opinion” of earlier leaders was hardly reassuring to Latter-day Saints who wanted definitive answers about why Black members were barred from the priesthood and temple. When he published The Way to Perfection in 1931, he knew that Mormon racial teachings were in flux, functioning more as speculative theology than as revealed doctrine. At the same time, Smith also knew that the Church lacked a clear-cut revelation affirming the ban, which prompted apostle Ballard to assert that “it is alleged” that it began with Joseph Smith. Joseph Fielding Smith’s father, acting in his capacity as Church president, was even more frank in admitting that “there is no written revelation” to “show why the negroes are ineligible to hold the priesthood.” Nevertheless, he opined that it began with “the Prophet Joseph Smith.”^[25]

The uncertainty about the ban’s origins troubled Joseph Fielding Smith throughout his ministry, particularly questions dealing with the fate of Cain and Abel’s posterity. In a letter to a concerned Latter-day Saint, Smith noted that “Abel was cut-off without posterity but according to the doctrine of the Church, he will have posterity in eternity because he is worthy of all the blessings.” Smith further claimed that “until he does, the seed of Cain are barred from holding the priesthood.” When the interrogator expressed skepticism about Smith’s answer, the apostle exasperatingly noted that this issue “comes back to me constantly as a plague.”^[26] In another revealing letter, a concerned Church member asked Smith to explain “why the negro has a black skin and why he cannot hold the priesthood. I have heard many different reasons but I would like to know where I can find the true one.” Smith could not answer the question satisfactorily and admitted in the reply letter that the “information we have regarding the Negro is limited.”^[27]

Particularly challenging were questions Smith entertained when he visited LDS Church missions. When a missionary in Brazil asked him point-blank, “Where is the revelation denying the Priesthood to the seed of Cain?” Smith stumbled.^[28] He couldn’t answer the missionary because neither he nor his colleagues had ever found one. These questions presented a challenge for other Church leaders, too. In 1921, then-apostle David O. McKay embarked on a mission tour to the South Pacific and encountered a “worthy man” with a cursed lineage. McKay promptly wrote Church president Heber J. Grant asking if he could ordain the man to the priesthood, but the Church president said no. “David, I am as sympathetic as you are, but until the Lord gives us a revelation regarding the matter, we shall have to maintain the policy of the church.”^[29] Other apostles experienced similar challenges, as did lower-level Mormon leaders. In the early 1970s, Lester Bush, a Latter-day Saint medical doctor, compiled an exhaustive documentary record on Mormon racial teachings, which included dozens of letters from local LDS leaders in which they asked the First Presidency difficult doctrinal questions about Black members, lineage, and the priesthood and temple restriction. Many of them date to the 1910s and 1920s as the Church expanded in the United States and abroad.^[30]

This uncertainty and ambiguity prompted Smith to write The Way to Perfection. He sought to quell doubts about the origins of the ban but, more importantly, he wanted to create a theological framework for Black priesthood denial. Among Smith’s most controversial chapters include 15 (“The Seed of Cain”) and 16 (“The Seed of Cain After the Flood”). There the apostle outlined a hierarchy of race based on his interpretation of Mormon scripture, his study of the racial theories of early LDS Church leaders, and his embrace of two secular theories—British Israelism and eugenics—prominent during his lifetime.^[31]

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, Mormon leaders were immersed in British Israelism ideology—a Protestant teaching that privileged Anglo-Saxons as God’s “favored lineage.” For Latter-day Saints, these “lost tribes of Israel” had “believing blood,” meaning they were more likely to convert to the LDS Church than groups or races outside of the house of Israel. Mormon Sunday School manuals and other Church publications echoed these views. Such theories reflected similar concepts expressed by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young half a century earlier.^[32] Church publications, moreover, informed Latter-day Saints of their chosen status. Unlike persons of African lineage, who were deemed cursed and therefore excluded from the Abrahamic covenant, white people derived their ancestry from Anglo-Saxons and were considered the “covenant race.” To that end, many Latter-day Saints believed that because of their chosen lineage, they had to preserve and protect their “racial purity” lest miscegenation taint their bloodlines.^[33]

Smith and his fellow apostles imbibed these ideas, but they also looked to eugenics to privilege hierarchies of race. In the early twentieth century, Latter-day Saints, like many Americans, embraced eugenics—the faddish (and erroneous) idea that science could improve the human race by breeding, good hygiene, and good morals.^[34] “A very great deal is expected of this movement,” General Authority B. H. Roberts stated in 1916.^[35] Mormon leaders opined that Latter-day Saints were uniquely qualified to improve the human race. As polygamists and virtuous Christians, Mormons would preserve their status as God’s covenant people through child-rearing and righteous living. This required them to shun birth control and embrace proper parenting and child-rearing practices consistent with Latter-day Saint teachings about families. If Latter-day Saints failed in this sacred obligation, Joseph Fielding Smith reasoned, the “more worthy race” would be overwhelmed by “lower classes” of European immigrants then flocking into the United States following the American Civil War. The failure of the “covenant race” to reproduce would lead to “race suicide” putting “themselves and their kind out of this mortal existence.”^[36]

All of these ideas culminated in The Way to Perfection, which affirmed Smith’s belief that God privileged racial hierarchies. He insisted that because God had placed a curse upon “negroes,” they were a “less favored lineage,” which barred them from the “holy priesthood.” Furthermore, he argued that because of their “less valiance” in a premortal life, the blessings of the house of Israel did not apply to them like it did the descendants of Ephraim and other “favored lineages.” Only “choice spirits” from a “better grade of nations” could enjoy the full privileges of the Church’s liturgical rites. But Smith did not stop there: He claimed that Black people were an “inferior race,” forever doomed as eternal servants to God’s covenant people. Less dramatic but no less significant, Smith posited that the priesthood restriction began with Joseph Smith, despite the absence of a definitive revelation and despite the fact that Black men had been ordained to the priesthood during his great uncle’s tenure as founding prophet.^[37]

The Way to Perfection proved a seminal work. It was the first time that an LDS leader had ever systemized Mormon racial teachings. Several of Smith’s colleagues, impressed by his thoroughness and clear, conversational writing style, recommended chapters 15 and 16 of The Way to Perfection when Latter-day Saints asked about the priesthood ban; Smith himself recommended the same chapters when he fielded similar queries. In addition, the book was cited in LDS Church manuals, in the publications of Mormon prophets and apostles, and in sermons at the faith’s semiannual general conference in Salt Lake City.^[38] Most notably, the essential teachings of The Way to Perfection were incorporated into an adult Sunday School manual in 1935. Accompanying the manual was a fifty-three-page “Topical Outline,” which included a section called “Study Thoughts.” These study questions asked students to ponder a number of passages about Black people—in specific, “How do we know the negro is descended from Cain through Ham?” “Name any great leaders this race has produced.” And most dramatic, “Discuss the truth of the statement in the text, p. 101, that Cain ‘became the father of an inferior race.’”^[39]

Perhaps most importantly, however, The Way to Perfection became the basis for a First Presidency statement in 1949, in which the Church hierarchy enshrined into doctrine the divine curse and the premortal existence hypothesis. The First Presidency cleared up any ambiguity about the provenance of the ban when they declared unequivocally that it was a “direct commandment from the Lord on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization.”^[40] The First Presidency’s bold statement, however, ignored the fact that Black Mormon men were ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s tenure as founding prophet and that at least one of them participated in limited temple rituals and presided over a Mormon congregation.

Smith followed up The Way to Perfection with additional books that defined and reaffirmed Mormon racial teachings as essential Church doctrine. Along with The Way to Perfection, Smith’s Doctrines of Salvation (1954–1956) and Answers to Gospel Questions (1957–1966) established him as the Church’s foremost authority on the priesthood and temple ban.^[41] Because of these definitive works, his fellow Church leaders turned to him to settle difficult questions involving race and lineage. In 1951, for example, Stephen L. Richards and J. Reuben Clark, Smith’s colleagues in the Church hierarchy, wanted to know if Smith could determine if “the inhabitants of the Melanesian and Micronesian Islands” were of “the seed of Cain.” After thoroughly researching the matter in the Encyclopedia of Britannica, Smith claimed he did not know.^[42] Similarly, Brigham Young University president Ernest Wilkinson looked to Smith for guidance on whether a prospective student with “one-eighth negroid” ancestry could enroll at the Church-owned school. “What is your advice to me?” Wilkinson asked. “Should we try to discourage him from coming to Provo?” Just as importantly, when LDS Church patriarchs had questions about how to pronounce lineage for Black and biracial Latter-day Saints, they looked to Smith for guidance. He informed them that they had to declare the lineage of Cain.^[43]

As Smith’s hardline views on race circulated throughout the Church, some teachers within the LDS Church Educational System challenged him. Lowell Bennion, a highly-regarded Mormon religion instructor at the University of Utah Institute of Religion, criticized him, as did others within the Church Educational System. During one memorable moment in 1954, Bennion “openly questioned” Smith’s racial teachings at a training session attended by dozens of Church seminary and institute teachers at Brigham Young University. Smith took offense at such criticisms, deciding that Bennion was not sufficiently orthodox and had to go. In 1962, Bennion and his colleague T. Edgar Lyon, another critic of the ban, were ousted in a well-publicized purge at the University of Utah Institute of Religion.^[44] Smith, who had clashed with Church religion teachers and Mormon intellectuals repeatedly over the years, recorded the experience in his diary: “I received a number of letters of protest because of the release of Drs. Bennion and Lyon who have been at the Institute for a number of years. I have also interviewed some students who were taught by them and reached the conclusion that the change and release was in order.”^[45]

Other Mormon intellectuals likewise incurred Smith’s wrath. Sterling McMurrin, a liberal Mormon philosopher at the University of Utah, emerged as Smith’s most vocal critic. The two had clashed since the 1950s, culminating in Church president David O. McKay’s vow to protect McMurrin from Smith, who wanted to excommunicate the outspoken philosopher.^[46] Smith’s ire toward McMurrin reached an inflection point when, in 1968, McMurrin delivered a forceful speech to the Salt Lake City chapter of the NAACP in which he condemned LDS racial teachings as “crude,” “superstitious,” and “harmful to the church.” He chided LDS leaders like Smith for maintaining a racist policy and predicted that if the Church did not lift the ban, members would leave. The speech received extended media coverage throughout the United States, causing embarrassment for the Church, already under fire for the priesthood and temple ban.^[47] After reading McMurrin’s address, an agitated Smith vowed to excommunicate him again.^[48] He failed because of McMurrin’s strong support from within the Mormon intellectual community. Not only was he a one-time United States Commissioner of Education in the John F. Kennedy administration, the grandson of high-ranking LDS Church leader Joseph W. McMurrin, and author of two critically acclaimed books on Mormon theology, but he was close friends with then–Church president David O. McKay and his counselor Hugh B. Brown.^[49]

More critically, Smith’s passionate defense of the priesthood and temple ban affected his relationship with counselor Brown, who denounced the “curse of Cain” ideology as “a bunch of gobbley gook.”^[50] The two had clashed for years over the ban. Not only did Smith keep Brown out of the Quorum of the Twelve when Church president Heber J. Grant first proposed his name for ordination in 1931, but he vigorously protested Brown’s repeated attempts to lift the ban. The first attempt occurred in 1961 just after McKay appointed Brown as a counselor in the First Presidency. Brown, deeply affected by letters coming into Church headquarters questioning the ban, supported granting Nigerians the Aaronic Priesthood when Church leaders proposed a mission there in the early 1960s. Smith and other hardliners scuttled the move, fearing that ordaining Black men to the lesser priesthood would prompt them to want the Melchizedek Priesthood, the so-called “higher priesthood.”^[51]

Establishing the Church in Black Africa prompted heated discussions within the Quorum of the Twelve about ordaining Black men to the priesthood.^[52] In 1962, Brown confided to a concerned Church member that the priesthood ban “is having [more] constant and serious attention by the First Presidency and the Twelve than at any time, I think, in the history of Church.”^[53] Also that year, Brown informed Lowell Bennion that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve had been discussing the issue intently. “Almost to a man,” Brown explained, the apostles agreed that “a change would have to take place. President McKay said a change must come, but he didn’t know when.” McKay further reiterated that the “Negro question was the greatest issue the church had faced since plural marriage.”^[54]

The following year, Brown escalated the tension between himself and Smith when he violated an unspoken quorum rule by reaching out to the media to disclose sensitive deliberations the apostles had been having about lifting the priesthood ban. “We are in the midst of a survey [now] looking toward the possibility of admitting Negroes,” Brown explained to New York Times reporter Wallace Turner. The counselor’s frank admission prompted Turner to write that “The top leadership of the Mormon church is seriously considering the abandonment of its historic policy of discrimination against Negroes.”^[55] Senior apostles, stunned by Brown’s private conversations with Turner, confronted him, demanding an explanation. Embarrassed, Brown said he had been “misquoted,” but a Church public relations employee who heard the interview confirmed the accuracy of Brown’s statement, as did Wallace Turner, who noted that the “quotes that appeared in the story were precisely the words spoken by Mr. Brown.”^[56]

Blindsided by the New York Times story, Smith countered Brown. In a public interview, published in October 1963, just a few months after Brown’s interview with the Times, the senior apostle bluntly declared that “The Negro cannot achieve the Priesthood in the Mormon Church.” This was consistent with Smith’s position of the previous year when he claimed that “No consideration is being given now to changing the doctrine of the Church to permit him to attain that status.”^[57]

***

Meanwhile, as Smith tussled with First Presidency member Brown over the priesthood and temple ban, Smith also encountered pushback from some of his fellow apostles in the Quorum of the Twelve. The post–World War II years exposing racial injustices with the brutal murder of Emmett Till, the arrest of activist Rosa Parks, and the nonviolent marches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his supporters brought civil rights issues in the United States under a laser-like focus.^[58] Smith’s racial teachings, which were promoted unabashedly within the Mormon community in the 1930s and 1940s, were now spoken of in hushed whispers in the 1950s and 1960s as more Americans, including Latter-day Saints, became attuned to the injustices of Jim Crow America. In the mid-1960s, for instance, the First Presidency dropped chapters 15 and 16 from The Way to Perfection when they published the Portuguese edition of the controversial book.^[59] At the same time, they denied permission for BYU religion professor James R. Clark to publish the 1949 First Presidency statement on race and priesthood in a multivolume edition of The Messages of the First Presidency, and they refused to print a controversial address dealing with race and lineage by Church patriarch Eldred G. Smith “because of the present turmoil over the Negro question.” And finally, they instructed Church leaders to refrain from speaking about Black people as cursed or less valiant in public expressions to the media. Our teachings about “negroes,” the First Presidency declared in 1968, must be “clear, positive, and brief.”^[60]

Smith was certainly not immune to the changes swirling around him, the Church, or the broader American society. During the turbulent civil rights years, he began to rethink the status of Black people and their place within the Church. When dozens of Latter-day Saints petitioned him asking if the scriptures justified denying Black people civil rights, Smith experienced a change of heart.^[61] Sensitive to public criticism about The Way to Perfection, the aging apostle denied in the LDS Church News and in Answers to Gospel Questions that he ever taught that Black people were an “inferior race.” More instructively, he began to champion a qualified version of racial equality for persons of African lineage—this despite Mark E. Petersen, Ezra Taft Benson, and other apostles opposing civil rights at the time.^[62] In Answers to Gospel Questions, Smith stated unequivocally that Black people should have equal access “to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’” adding that they “should be equal in the matter of education” and that they “should be free to choose any kind of employment, to go into business in any field they may choose and to make their lives happy as it is possible without interference from white men, labor unions or from any other source.”^[63] Furthermore, Smith did not object to Hugh B. Brown’s landmark 1963 statement in the LDS Church general conference when he proclaimed that “there is in this Church no doctrine, belief, or practice that is intended to deny the enjoyment of full civil rights by any person regardless of race, color, or creed.”^[64]

Even so, racial equality had limits for Smith, as it did for many of his colleagues in Church leadership. He shared the fears of miscegenation common in the rest of the nation and he still referred to Black people as the “seed of Cain” in his sermons and writings and even called them “Darkies” during a well-publicized interview.^[65] Just as troubling, he did not support specific civil rights bills, although he accepted civil rights as a general concept. When Catholics along with two of the South’s oldest and most prominent regional churches—the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—supported integration and called for protections in jobs and housing, Smith remained conspicuously silent.^[66] All the while, he was mindful of how housing and employment bills to prevent racial discrimination could complicate the Church’s anti-miscegenation teachings. He feared that if Black and white people lived and worked among each other, it could potentially lead to dating and ultimately marriage. To an inquisitive Church member, the apostle said forcefully that “It would be a serious error for a white person to marry a Negro, for the Lord forbade it.”^[67]

But Smith’s issues with Black people extended well beyond theology; Black music vexed him. He cautioned BYU president Ernest Wilkinson not to permit the “negro twist” at school-sanctioned dances, fearing that this popular dance, which involved a series of gyrations and stomps, would sully the morals of the predominantly white student body. He also demanded loyalty from BYU faculty on LDS racial teachings. He supported a survey, for example, asking two unorthodox religion professors a series of questions about fundamental LDS teachings. One question asked: “Is the Church wrong for not giving the priesthood to the Negro?”^[68] Furthermore, Smith expressed ambivalence about proselytizing among persons of African descent. Determining who had “negro blood” was a challenging and serious problem, especially as the Church accelerated its missionary efforts following the Second World War. Proselytizing in racially-mixed countries like Brazil and South Africa posed considerable challenges for Smith and his fellow apostles because missionaries could not determine who had “a cursed lineage.” To avoid controversy, Smith instructed missionaries that “whenever possible” they should avoid teaching persons of African ancestry “in view of the problems which generally arise.”^[69]

Smith fumbled on questions regarding Black priesthood ordination as well. When a well-intentioned Latter-day Saint asked him about Elijah Abel, an early Black Latter-day Saint priesthood holder, Smith noted that the “story that Joseph Smith [had] ordained a Negro and sent him on a mission is not true.” On another occasion, he informed a concerned Church member that there were actually two Elijah Abels in Nauvoo in the 1840s—one Black and one white. The white Elijah Abel held the priesthood, he stubbornly insisted. Assistant Church Historian Andrew Jenson stoked the controversy when he published a four-volume book entitled Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, in which he acknowledged that early Church leaders had conferred priesthood ordination on Abel. Smith claimed, without evidence, that Jenson was mistaken, and the apostle huffed that admitting Abel’s ordination had done “the Church a disservice that has turned out to plague us.”^[70] To BYU and Church Educational System educators, however, Smith acknowledged Abel’s ordination, even conceding that “perhaps more than one negro” was ordained during the early days of the Church. But he quickly added that “when it came to the attention of the Prophet Joseph Smith, he said it was wrong.”^[71]

Why did Smith offer conflicting accounts of Abel’s ordination? Simply put, he could not reconcile Black priesthood ordination with the narrative he created in The Way to Perfection.

Nevertheless, Smith insisted that Black people had a place in the Church. In The Way to Perfection, he commented that “these unfortunate people” could be baptized into the Church but that was the extent of their involvement. In Doctrines of Salvation and Answers to Gospel Questions, he offered more details, outlining the basic functions of the Church in which Black members could participate. They could be baptized, have their children blessed, participate in the sacrament, receive their patriarchal blessings, and even qualify for the “celestial kingdom” if they “remained faithful and true to the teachings of the church.”^[72] In that context, Smith declared that “the Church does and can do more for the Negro pertaining to his salvation than any other Church in existence.”^[73]

In 1955, at about the same time that Church leaders began to de-emphasize The Way to Perfection, Smith showed another side of himself when, as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he proposed a program to the First Presidency to better meet the needs of Black Latter-day Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. He recommended that “all the Negro members in the [Salt Lake] area be organized into a unit and made a part of one of the stakes of Zion.” He envisioned that it would act as “an independent unit which would function somewhat the same as the Deaf Branch or the Spanish-American Branch.” Of the “144 Negroes in this area,” Smith explained, “very few of them are active, undoubtedly because the church has not met their needs.”^[74] The following year, he instructed apostle Mark E. Petersen to hold “Cottage Meetings in Negro homes for the purpose of finding out why so few Negroes belonged to the Mormon Church.” On instructions from Smith, his file leader, Petersen promised Black Latter-day Saints that the Church “would build them a chapel of their own where they could worship themselves” if they remained loyal to the Church.^[75]

Smith’s proposal did not come to fruition at the time. The First Presidency rejected the proposal because they feared that a segregated unit within the Church would bring unwanted national publicity, especially during the turbulent civil rights years when civil rights activists condemned Protestant churches for segregating their pews.^[76] The public, in other words, would assume that the Church wanted to segregate Black and white church attendees when this was not Smith’s intent. He wanted to reactivate Black Latter-day Saints, create a community for them, and provide a hospitable place for them to worship. Years later, his efforts culminated in the founding of the Genesis Group, the LDS Church’s first Black support group.^[77]

During the later years of his ministry, Smith also dampened expectations for Latter-day Saints who expressed anguish over Mormon racial teachings. When he was president of the Quorum of the Twelve, he met with a concerned Church member who agonized over the notion that Black people were “less valiant” in a premortal life. As the two searched the scriptures together during one intensely revealing meeting, Smith assured the troubled Latter-day Saint that he did not have to believe in the Church’s racial teachings to stay in its good graces. As the man recounted years later: “President Smith patiently went through the sources with me, particularly the Pearl of Great Price, and then he said something quite remarkable: ‘No, you do not have to believe that Negroes are denied the priesthood because of the pre-existence.’” Smith told his interrogator that he had not received a “revelation on the matter.” The Church member, a liberal BYU professor named Eugene England, was overjoyed at Smith’s frankness and his willingness to make himself vulnerable on a subject that seemed so firm and so entrenched in his sermons and writings.^[78]

***

In addition to advocating for civil rights and stand-alone worship services for Black people, Smith began to internalize the consequences of the priesthood and temple ban when Latter-day Saints discovered they had a cursed lineage. He was aware, for example, of the pain that such disclosures caused Latter-day Saint families, for he had interviewed dozens of Latter-day Saints of African lineage. He knew of examples in the Church when branch presidents and bishops discovered their African ancestry, only to be released from their church callings amid embarrassing and painful humiliation. He also knew of instances in heavily-populated Mormon communities when white members refused to patronize businesses after learning that the store owners, many of whom were faithful Latter-day Saints, had “negro blood.”^[79]

After hearing about these troubling episodes, and indeed lamenting over them, Smith became more sensitive to Mormon racial teachings toward the end of his life. In the early 1960s, for instance, when Smith was the presiding authority at a Church priesthood meeting, a teacher in the LDS Church Educational System informed him about a young man with a cursed lineage. The young man had been active in the Church, served a church mission, and was scheduled to be married in an LDS temple. His family was also active. His brothers had served in several positions within the priesthood: an older brother served as a stake president, another as a high councilor, and the other in a bishopric. And now the problem: despite having “blond hair and blue eyes,” the young man discovered that he was “128th negro.” His “great-grandfather had apparently gone to the West Indies and married a native woman who was half Negro and half Indian.”^[80]

As Smith listened to the story, he was at first impervious to the young man’s plight. Without hesitation, he told the religion teacher that he should instruct the young man to tell his fiancée about his cursed lineage, which meant, of course, that there would be no temple wedding. “Our doctrine is very clear on that,” Smith intoned. But as he pondered the situation further, Smith had a change of heart. At the close of the meeting, he whispered to the religion teacher to see him in private. There, the aging Mormon leader—the man who once said that Black people were inferior—did something dramatic and uncharacteristic for this dogmatic and seemingly unyielding man: He told the religion teacher to tell the boy to keep the matter to himself. Smith explained that if the boy disclosed his ancestry, it would harm himself and his brothers. “All of these [men] have been married in the temple and have participated in Church ordinances,” Smith noted. This disclosure “would ruin their lives.” Smith further instructed the religion teacher to inform the boy not to explain his circumstance to either his fiancée or his bishop. “This is something between him and the Lord, and if the Lord ratifies the sealing in the Temple, who are we to question it?”^[81]

Such episodes revealed the increasing difficulty that LDS Church leaders encountered in policing racial boundaries. Indeed, the “one-drop” rule meant that the man noted above could pass as white even though his Church leaders had deemed him Black after learning of his African ancestry. LDS apostles, keenly aware of this reality, lamented that it was “impossible” to determine “those who have Negro blood and those who have not.”^[82] During Smith’s lifetime, there were no scientific means to test bloodlines or reliable ways to trace lineage. Thus, Smith and his colleagues knew that they were baptizing and conferring priesthood ordination on persons of African descent, yet they felt powerless to stop it because racial identification had eluded them, much as it did Americans in general throughout the twentieth century.^[83] When asked about the “practical problems” of dealing with members who have “one-eighth Negro blood or something of that kind,” Smith’s colleague N. Eldon Tanner candidly stated, “We just deal with them as they come.”^[84]

It is impossible to determine how many Latter-day Saints of African lineage flouted the Church’s racial marker and crossed the color line. Scholars are only now beginning to uncover the extent to which these individuals passed as white.^[85] Nevertheless, as questions of race and lineage vexed the Church hierarchy, Smith’s belief that the Church should do more to help Mormons of African descent was reinforced. During his brief tenure as Church president, Smith authorized his counselors, Harold B. Lee and N. Eldon Tanner, to form the Genesis Group, the Church’s first Black support group.^[86] Formed in 1971, a year after Smith became the Church president, the First Presidency instructed the Genesis Group to hold monthly sacrament services for families, weekly Relief Society meetings for women, and weekly Primary meetings for children. Following Smith’s instructions to the First Presidency in 1955, Genesis members were tasked with reactivating some 250 Black members in the Salt Lake Valley who had drifted away from church activity. At the same time, the elderly Mormon leader wanted to create a spiritual home for Black Latter-day Saints where they could “identify with each other,” as Genesis member James Sinquefield remembered.^[87] Today, the Genesis Group spans congregations in nearly a dozen cities in the United States, comprised of hundreds of Black Latter-day Saints who serve in a variety of leadership positions within the Church.^[88] Smith’s official biography is silent on this aspect of his Church ministry, yet it marks an important episode in his maturing views toward persons of African lineage.^[89]

***

Joseph Fielding Smith, Mormonism’s most important theologian of race in the twentieth century, died in 1972 after having taught for nearly six decades that Black people were cursed. But as his support for the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy suggests and as he became more attuned to the racial injustices faced by Black people, another side of him emerged that was nearly lost on the Church body. His views about Black people had evolved. He was no longer the hard-crusted, doctrinaire theologian as he appeared in The Way to Perfection. Times had changed—and Smith had too. True enough, he still defended the priesthood and temple ban as divine, but he also recognized that persons of African lineage had suffered because of it.

In 1978, Smith’s teachings on race and lineage became moot when LDS Church president Spencer W. Kimball lifted the 126-year-old priesthood and temple ban, some six years after Smith’s death.^[90] Kimball’s revelation announcing the end of the ban led to new racial doctrine, for it prompted Mormon apostles to challenge Smith’s most fundamental claims in The Way to Perfection. None other than Smith’s son-in-law, apostle Bruce R. McConkie, himself a controversial figure within the Mormon community, played a critical role in this endeavor—this despite his own anti-Black teachings in his seminal book Mormon Doctrine.^[91]

In an important memo to President Kimball, just weeks before the priesthood revelation, McConkie collapsed the theological scaffolding for Black priesthood denial when he insisted that Black people could be “adopted” into the house of Israel by virtue of their priesthood ordination. He averred that “Negro blood” would be purged from their bodies when they converted to Mormonism, thereby making them heirs of the Abrahamic covenant.^[92] Following the priesthood revelation, McConkie continued to finesse his late father-in-law’s teachings. He proclaimed that God favored all groups and lineages equally, doing so in a prominent address called “All Are Alike Unto God.” McConkie likewise asserted that God had lifted “the ancient curse” on Black people, making their past misdeeds in a premortal life both obsolete and irrelevant.^[93]

As the twenty-first century approached, Church authorities continued to slice away at Smith’s racial theology. In 1978, less than two months after the priesthood revelation, Spencer W. Kimball asked the apostles not to teach that Black people lacked moral impurity in a premortal life. Neither did he want them to sermonize on the “curse of Cain,” which further distanced the Church from Smith’s embattled teachings. “We just don’t know what the reason was” for the priesthood and temple ban, Kimball concluded.^[94]

In 2013, the Mormon hierarchy eclipsed the last vestiges of Smith’s racial teachings when it publicly repudiated them. In an important document entitled “Race and the Priesthood,” posted on the LDS Church website, high Church leaders condemned “the theories . . . that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse” and the notion that the priesthood and temple restriction reflected the “unrighteous actions [of Black people] in a premortal life.” At the same time, the essay acknowledges that Black men held the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s tenure as founding prophet and, just as importantly, that Brigham Young had implemented the ban. And finally, the Church hierarchy denounced the idea that Black people “or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else,” unambiguously repudiating Smith’s most controversial claim.^[95] In these stunning admissions, the Church hierarchy demonstrated just how far it was willing to go to confront and condemn Smith’s racial teachings. What is most remarkable, though, is that the “Race and the Priesthood” essay places Latter-day Saints among the ranks of the penitent: Latter-day Saints had now joined Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, and Pentecostals in expressing regret for their anti-Black teachings.^[96]

---

The author wishes to thank W. Paul Reeve, Matthew Bowman, Newell G. Bringhurst, Armand L. Mauss, Becky Roesler, Taylor G. Petrey, and Stirling Adams for their warm encouragement. Each reviewed a draft of the article and provided constructive feedback.

^[1] This article uses Latter-day Saint, LDS, and Mormon interchangeably. All denote members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

^[2] Smith to Henderson, Apr. 10, 1963, Matthew Harris files. We can glean the contents of Henderson’s letter from Smith’s response.

^[3] For more on Smith condemning Mormon intellectuals for expressing unorthodox views, see Thomas Simpson, American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism, 1867–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016), 115–17; Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of Latter-day Saints in American Religion, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 136–41, 156–57, 170; and Richard Sherlock and Jeffrey E. Keller, “The B. H. Roberts, Joseph Fielding Smith, and James E. Talmage Affair,” in The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism, edited by Gene A. Sessions and Craig J. Oberg (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), chap. 6. Smith’s most important book advancing his position on science and religion, particularly as it relates to evolution, is Man, His Origin and Destiny (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954).

^[4] Reid L. Neilson and Scott D. Marianno, “True and Faithful: Joseph Fielding Smith as Mormon Historian and Theologian,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 1 (Winter 2018): 7. See also “New Volume of ‘Answers’” in the Church News, published in the Deseret News, Nov. 26, 1966, in which the editor stated that Joseph Fielding Smith “is known Church-wide as an authority on Church doctrine. It has been said of him: ‘In the Church he is a scriptorian without peer. . . It would be difficult to find a subject of Church doctrine or history that President Smith has not written extensively upon in magazine articles, pamphlets and books.” Matthew Bowman notes that Smith was one of “Mormonism’s most respected religious thinker[s]” in the decades after World War II. In Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of An American Faith (New York: Random House, 2012), 200.

^[5] For three hagiographic accounts of Smith, see Joseph F. McConkie, True and Faithful: The Life Story of Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971); Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. and John J. Stewart, The Life of Joseph Fielding Smith, Tenth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972); and Francis M. Gibbons, Joseph Fielding Smith: Gospel Scholar, Prophet of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992).

^[6] An LDS Church patriarch is an ordained position within the LDS lay priesthood. Patriarchs give special blessings to the Mormon faithful, providing them with comfort, guidance, and caution. Patriarchs also declare lineage in these blessings. For more on LDS patriarchal blessings, see Irene M. Bates, “Patriarchal Blessings and the Routinization of Charisma,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 11–29; Matthew L. Harris, “Mormons and Lineage: The Complicated History of Blacks and Patriarchal Blessings, 1830–2018,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 51, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 83–129; and Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018).

^[7] Blessing of Joseph Fielding Smith by Patriarch Joseph D. Smith of Fillmore, Utah, May 11, 1913, box 3, folder 9, Irene Bates Papers, Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter JWML).

^[8] Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Negro and the Priesthood,” Improvement Era 27 (Apr. 1924): 564–65; Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection: Short Discourses on Gospel Themes, 5th ed. (1931; repr., Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1945).

^[9] Joseph Fielding Smith, Essentials in Church History (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1922); Joseph Fielding Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith: Taken from His Sermons and Writings as They Are Found in the Documentary History and Other Publications of the Church and Written or Published in the Days of the Prophet’s Ministry (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1938). Mormon rare books dealer Curt Bench estimates that these two books were among the most influential Mormon books ever published. See Curt Bench, “Fifty Important Mormon Books,” Sunstone 14 (Oct. 1990): 55–57; and Neilson and Marianno, “True and Faithful,” 9–10. Gregory A. Prince, Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016), 185, notes that Essentials of Church History “sold about ten thousand copies a year.”

^[10] For the popularity of The Way to Perfection, see Gibbons, Joseph Fielding Smith, 311, 370; and Smith Jr. and Stewart, Life of Joseph Fielding Smith, 210–11. For the publishing history of The Way to Perfection, see Stirling Adams’s video, “Race, Lineage, and the 1920s–1940s Genealogical Society of Utah,” DialogueJournal.com, Mar. 27, 2019.

^[11] Topical Outlines to the Way to Perfection (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1936), 1.

^[12] In the early twentieth century, laws defining racial groups varied from state to state. Some states defined “negroes” as anyone with one-eighth African ancestry, some with one-sixteenth, while others “one drop” or one-quarter. The best studies of the construction of race in the United States include Ariela J. Gross, What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008); Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Peter Wallenstein, Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry: Loving v. Virginia (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014).

^[13] W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Max Perry Mueller, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); and Jonathan A. Stapley, The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

^[14] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 56. For Native Americans’ privileged standing in Mormon theology, see Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 97–99; Matthew Garrett, Making Lamanites: Mormons, Native Americans, and the Indian Student Placement Program, 1947–2000 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016); and Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball, Working Draft (Salt Lake City: Benchmark Books, 2009), chap. 30.

^[15] Genesis, 4:15; Abraham, 3:22–28; see also 1:27. For context to race and lineage in the Pearl of Great Price, see Terryl Givens and Brian M. Hauglid, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 134–37.

^[16] Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), 36–38, 90–98; Reeve, Religion of a Different Color; 107–14, 128–34; Mueller, Race and the Making of the Mormon People, 87–89, 95, 97–98, 106–08, 146–49; Russell W. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830–2013 (Salt Lake City: Kofford Books, 2014), 10, 13–15; Lester E. Bush Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68; Connell O’Donovan, “The Mormon Priesthood Ban and Elder Q. Walker Lewis: ‘An Example for His More Whiter Brethren to Follow,’” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 26 (2006): 48–100; Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), chaps. 2–3.

^[17] Quincy D. Newell, Your Sister in the Gospel: The Life of Jane Manning James, A Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 105–06; Tonya Reiter, “Black Saviors on Mount Zion: Proxy Baptisms and Latter-day Saints of African Descent,” Journal of Mormon History 43, no. 4 (Oct. 2017): 100–23; Harris, “Mormons and Lineage,” 87–93.

^[18] Orson Hyde, Speech of Elder Orson Hyde delivered before the High Priests Quorum in Nauvoo, April 27, 1845 . . . (Liverpool: James and Woodburn, 1845), 30; Pratt, sermon transcript, General Meeting Minutes, Apr. 25, 1847, in Selected Collections from the Archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, edited by Richard E. Turley, 2 vols., DVD, 1:18, LDS Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter CHL).

^[19] Brigham Young, quoted in Wilford Woodruff journal, Jan. 16, 1852, Wilford Woodruff Journals and Papers, CHL. According to Joseph F. Smith, Brigham Young also applied the “one-drop” rule to whites or “Ephraimites”—meaning that they couldn’t have any “negro blood” in them to be considered “pure whites.” In Council of Twelve Minutes, Jan. 2, 1902, Minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency, 1900–1909, 3:181. See also Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 145; John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 226. The “one-drop” rule was a racial definition designed by white Southerners to prevent Black men from having intimate relationships with white women. For this point, see Martha Hodes, White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), 157, 199–200. In 1930, the US Census Bureau adopted the “one-drop” rule to classify all persons with mixed-race ancestry “negroes.” The Bureau established this rule despite some state laws designating racial distinctions that conflicted with the “one-drop” rule. See Michael Wayne, Imagining Black America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2014), chap. 4.

^[20] Not until the 1980s did scientists discover new tools to trace race and lineage. See David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past (New York: Pantheon, 2018); and Bryan Sykes, DNA USA: A Genetic Portrait of America (New York: Liveright, 2012).

^[21] A. B. Wilkinson, Blurring the Lines of Race and Freedom: Mulattoes and Mixed Bloods in English Colonial America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020); Colin G. Calloway, New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); Ramón A. Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991).

^[22] Joseph Fielding Smith to Alfred M. Nelson, Jan. 31, 1907, MS 14591, reel 1, CHL.

^[23] Council of the Twelve minutes, Mar. 11, 1900, in Minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency, 1900–1909, 3:35; First Presidency (Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, Charles W. Penrose) to Milton H. Knudson, Jan. 13, 1912, in Minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency, 1910–1951, 4:107.

^[24] Whitney, “Saturday Night Thoughts” (1918–1919), reprinted in Cowley and Whitney on Doctrine, compiled by Forace Green (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1963), 224–25; Melvin J. Ballard, “Three Degrees of Glory,” a discourse delivered in the Ogden Tabernacle, Sept. 22, 1922, 22, CHL. For different perspectives among LDS leaders on the “war in heaven,” see Boyd Jay Petersen, “‘One Soul Shall Not Be Lost’: The War in Heaven in Mormon Thought,” Journal of Mormon History 38, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 1–50.

^[25] First Presidency (Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, Charles W. Penrose) to Milton H. Knudson, Jan. 13, 1912.

^[26] Alfred J. Burdett to Smith, June 27, 1956, and Smith’s reply, Jan. 28, 1957, both in box 39, folder 9, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL.

^[27] Mrs. R. E. Smith to Joseph Fielding Smith, Oct. 24, 1951, and Smith’s reply, Oct. 29, 1951, both in box 28, folder 1, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL.

^[28] Brazilian Mission president William Grant Bangerter recorded this question in his diary, recounting a question a missionary asked Joseph Fielding Smith when he visited the mission. See Nov. 3, 1960 entry, William Grant Bangerter diary, 1958–1963, CHL. For questions to Smith about Mormon racial teachings, see box 23, folder 8, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers; and Smith, “Negro and the Priesthood,” 564.

^[29] “Minutes of Special Meeting by President McKay,” McKay diary, Jan. 17, 1954, box 32, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, JWML. For a recent account of McKay’s visit to the South Pacific, see Reid L. Neilson and Carson V. Teuscher, eds., Pacific Apostle: The 1920–21 Diary of David O. McKay in the Latter-day Saint Island Missions (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020).

^[30] A copy of Lester Bush’s “Compilation of the Negro” is located at the LDS Church History Library, the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU, and the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

^[31] Smith’s influence on British Israelism is best explained in Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 29–31; Armand L. Mauss, “In Search of Ephraim: Traditional Mormon Conceptions of Lineage and Race,” Journal of Mormon History 25, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 131–73; and Arnold H. Green, “Gathering and Election: Israelite Descent and Universalism in Mormon Discourse,” Journal of Mormon History 25, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 195–228.

^[32] “Our Lineage,” lessons 1 to 10 of the Course for First Year Senior Genealogical Classes (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1934); “Children of the Covenant,” A Lesson Book for Second Year Junior Genealogical Classes (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1937); “Youth and its Culture,” Manual for the Gleaner Department of the Y.W.M.I.A. (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1938); and “Birthright Blessings: Genealogical Training Class,” Sunday School Lessons for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Board, 1942). For Joseph Smith and Brigham Young’s views on race and lineage, see Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, chap. 4; and Turner, Brigham Young, chap. 8.

^[33] James H. Anderson, God’s Covenant Race: From Patriarchal Times to the Present (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1946), 93 (my thanks to Stirling Adams for alerting me to this book).

^[34] The literature on eugenics is vast. See Christine Rosen, Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Adam Cohen, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck (New York: Penguin, 2016); and Daniel Okrent, The Guarded Gate: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law That Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other European Immigrants Out of America (New York: Scribner, 2019).

^[35] B. H. Roberts, “A Great Responsibility,” Young Women’s Journal 27 (Sept. 1916): 524–26 (quotation at 524). See also John A. Widtsoe, “Our Interest in Eugenics,” Young Women’s Journal 24 (Feb. 1913): 81–83; and Amy B. Eaton, “Eugenics and Parenthood,” Young Women’s Journal 24 (Jan. 1913): 13–17.

^[36] Joseph Fielding Smith, “Birth Control,” Relief Society Magazine 3 (July 1916): 368; Okrent, Guarded Gate, 85–86, 95 (“race suicide”), 114, 168. For deeper context to Mormon eugenics, see Joseph R. Stuart, “‘Our Religion Is Not Hostile to Real Science’: Evolution, Eugenics, and Race/Religion-Making in Mormonism’s First Century” and Cassandra L. Clark, “‘No True Religion without True Science’: Science and the Construction of Mormon Whiteness,” both in Journal of Mormon History 42, no. 1 (Jan. 2016): 1–43 and 44–72; and Miranda Wilcox, “Sacralizing the Secular in Latter-day Saint Salvation Histories (1890–1930),” Journal of Mormon History 46, no. 3 (July 2020): 23–59 (esp. 47–52).

^[37] Smith, Way to Perfection, 42–48, 101, 103–07, 109–11.

^[38] Smith recommended these chapters in a number of letters. See, for example, letters to J. Reuben Clark, Apr. 3, 1939, box 17, folder 7, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL; to Ida E. Holmes, Feb. 9, 1949, box 27, folder 3, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL; letter to Eulis E. Hubbs, Mar. 5, 1958, box 9, folder 7, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL; Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 2:188; Smith to Sidney B. Sperry, Dec. 26, 1951, box 3, folder 3, William E. Berrett Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (hereafter HBLL). Smith’s colleagues in the Church hierarchy also referred to chapters 15 and 16 of his work when asked about racial questions. See George Albert Smith, J. box 78, folder 7, George Albert Smith Papers, JWML; Spencer W. Kimball’s notes, box 64, folder 5, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL; J. Reuben Clark’s “Negro and the Church” folder, box 210, J. Reuben Clark Papers, HBLL; Boyd K. Packer, “The Curse Upon Cain and Descendants,” Jan. 3, 1951, box 63, folder 11, Leonard J. Arrington Papers, Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan, Utah (hereafter MCL); Joseph F. Merrill to J.W. Monroe, Jan. 26, 1951, box 20, folder 2, Joseph F. Merrill Papers, HBLL; and Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958), 477.

^[39] Topical Outlines to the Way to Perfection, 15.

^[40] Apostle John A. Widtsoe wrote at the top of his copy of the First Presidency statement of August 17, 1949: “Church Doctrine Regarding Negroes.” In box 6, folder 5, John A. Widtsoe Papers, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah (hereafter USHS); see also box 64, folder 6, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL. For context to this statement, see Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 64–66.

^[41] Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, compiled by Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954–1956); Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957–1966).

^[42] Stephen L. Richards and J. Reuben Clark to Joseph Fielding Smith, May 29, 1951 and Smith’s response, June 8, 1951, box 17, folder 13, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL. See also J. Reuben Clark diary, June 1, 1948, in which he noted that Latter-day Saints submitted questions about LDS doctrine in “the question and answer column in the Church News,” at which point they “were all submitted to Bro. Joseph Fielding Smith.” In box 15, folder 1, J. Reuben Clark Papers, HBLL.

^[43] Wilkinson to Smith, Aug. 15, 1952, box 3, folder 3, William E. Berrett Papers, HBLL. For Smith’s views on lineage and patriarchal blessings, see Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:168; Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3:172; and “Digest of the minutes of the meeting of patriarchs of the Church with the General Authorities held in Barratt Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 11, 1958, at 8:00 a.m. with President Joseph Fielding Smith, President of the Quorum of the Twelve,” box 64, folder 4, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL. Harris, “Mormons and Lineage,” provides a richer context for Church leaders’ ambivalence about declaring lineage for persons of African lineage.

^[44] T. Edgar Lyon Jr., T. Edgar Lyon: A Teacher in Zion (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), 188, 242, 253–57 (quote at 242); Mary Lythgoe Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian (Salt Lake City: Dialogue Foundation, 1995), 132–33, 154–75. For the publicity surrounding the change in leadership, see “New Director Named for the U. of U. Institute of Religion,” Deseret News, Aug. 11, 1962. Bennion expressed his views about Mormon racial teachings in at least two public venues. See his debate with BYU professor Chauncey Riddle titled “The Liberal and Conservative View of Mormonism,” 1962, transcript in box 30, folder 12, John W. Fitzgerald Papers, MCL; and “The Church and Negroes,” in Religious Situation, edited by Donald Cutler (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 547–54.

^[45] Joseph Fielding Smith diary, Aug. 2, 1962, box 4, folder 1, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL. LDS religion instructor George Boyd, who also came into Smith’s crosshairs, recalled that “Brother Joseph Fielding Smith seemed to be the most exercised over the liberal attitude of the Institute faculty on the Negro issue.” In David Whittaker interview with George Boyd, July 28, 1984, box 27, folder 19, George T. Boyd Papers, HBLL. For Smith clashing with liberal religion instructors and Mormon intellectuals, see Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 154; Simpson, American Universities, 115–16; Sterling M. McMurrin and L. Jackson Newell, eds., Matters of Conscience: Conversations with Sterling M. McMurrin on Philosophy, Education, and Religion (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), 191–99; Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 96–97.

^[46] McKay told McMurrin: “All I will say is that if they put you on trial for excommunication, I will be there as the first witness in your behalf.” In McMurrin and Newell, Matters of Conscience, 199–200. See also Gregory A. Prince and William Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 55–56.

^[47] Sterling McMurrin, “Negroes Among the Mormons,” June 21, 1968, box 289, folder 2, Sterling M. McMurrin Papers, JWML. For media coverage of McMurrin’s 1968 speech, see “Expert Says Racism Hurts Mormon Church,” Bridgeport Post (Conn.), June 23, 1968; “Mormon Negro Policies Called Harmful to Church,” Middletown Journal (Ohio), June 23, 1968; “Bias Will Drive Out Members, Mormon Warns,” Miami Herald, June 23, 1968; “Mormon Says Church to Lose ‘Thousands’ over Negro Stand,” Palo Alto Times, June 22, 1968; “Mormon Race Practices Criticized,” Phoenix Gazette, June 22, 1968.

^[48] Smith’s copy of the “Negroes Among the Mormons” is in box 14, folder 30, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL. The First Presidency minutes of July 16, 1968, state: “President Smith indicated that this man [McMurrin] should be excommunicated from the Church.” In box 68, folder 1, David O. McKay Papers, JWML.

^[49] For background and context to McMurrin’s life and writings, see L. Jackson Newell, “The Essential McMurrin: Formation of Character and Courage,” Brian D. Birch, “The ‘Old Orthodoxy’: Sterling McMurrin and the Development of Mormon Thought,” and J. Boyer Jarvis, “Fertile Ground, Fruitful Harvests: Sterling McMurrin in Arizona and Washington, D.C.,” in Conscience and Community: Sterling M. McMurrin, Obert C. Tanner, and Lowell L. Bennion, edited by Robert Alan Goldberg, L. Jackson Newell, and Linda King Newell (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2018), chaps. 3–5. McMurrin’s most prominent publications include The Philosophical Foundations of Mormon Theology (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1959) and The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1965).

^[50] Paul Dunn, oral history interview with Gregory A. Prince, June 5, 1995, Matthew Harris files (courtesy of Gregory A. Prince). See also McMurrin and Newell, Matters of Conscience, 200.

^[51] Heber J. Grant diary, May 21, 1931, Oct. 4, 1933, CHL (courtesy of Smith-Pettit Foundation). Edwin B. Firmage, oral history interview with Gregory A. Prince, Oct. 10, 1996, Matthew Harris files (courtesy of Gregory A. Prince). Also, Matthew Harris telephone conversation with Edwin B. Firmage, Jan. 27, 2016. Council of the Twelve minutes, Nov. 4, 1965, box 64, folder 8, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL; First Presidency minutes, Jan. 9, 1962, box 49, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, JWML.

^[52] Prince and Wright, David O. McKay, 81–87; Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 75. See also Dima Hurlbut, “The LDS Church and the Problem of Race: Mormonism in Nigeria, 1946–1978,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 51, no. 1 (2018): 1–16.

^[53] Hugh B. Brown to John W. Fitzgerald, Mar. 13, 1962, box 4, folder 10, John W. Fitzgerald Papers, MCL.

^[54] Bennion recounted his conversation with Pres. McKay to his colleague T. Edgar Lyon. See Lyon’s notes, Feb. 12, 1962, box 26, folder 1, T. Edgar Lyon Papers, CHL.

^[55] Wallace Turner, “Mormons Weigh Stand on Negro,” New York Times, June 7, 1963; this story was also published as “Negro Issue is Considered by Mormons: Church May Abandon Its Discrimination” in the Chicago Tribune, July 9, 1963.

^[56] For McKay’s meeting with Brown over the statement he made “on the holding of the Priesthood by the Negro,” see First Presidency minutes, June 7, 1963, box 53, folder 5, David O. McKay Papers, JWML. Turner confirms that Brown had been quoted accurately in a letter to Stephen Holbrook, July 9, 1963, box 1, folder 23, Stephen Holbrook Papers, USHS. Brown also claimed he was “misquoted” in a letter to Stuart Udall, July 22, 1963, box 209, folder 3, Stewart L. Udall Papers, Special Collections, Hayden Library, University of Arizona and in an oral history interview with Richard Poll and Eugene Campbell that also included Edwin Firmage and Vera Hutchison (Brown’s secretary), Jan. 26, 1973, box 51, folder 23, Richard D. Poll Papers, JWML.

^[57] Joseph Fielding Smith, quoted in Jeff Nye, “Memo from a Mormon,” Look (October 22, 1963): 78, in box 9, folder 6, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL. Look managing editor William B. Arthur interviewed Joseph Fielding Smith and recorded Smith’s views on the ban. Smith also reaffirmed the ban in a Church publication the preceding year. See “President Smith discusses vital issue,” Church News, July 14, 1962.

^[58] Among the most insightful treatments of racial injustices in postwar America include David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: Perennial, 1986); Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006); and Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008).

^[59] I am grateful to retired BYU librarian Mark Grover, a specialist in Latin American studies, for this insight. I am also grateful to Stirling Adams for checking several Portuguese editions of The Way to Perfection at the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, HBLL.

^[60] Smith instructed Clark not to publish the 1949 First Presidency statement in a “Memorandum on a trip to see President Joseph Fielding Smith,” June 29, 1964, box 7, folder 9, James R. Clark Papers, HBLL. See James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–1975). David O. McKay, as Church president, refused to publish a controversial address by Eldred Smith in which he explained to BYU students that Black people would be servants to white people in the Resurrection. See McKay diary, Nov. 13, 1966, box 63, folder 7, David O. McKay Papers, JWML; and Ernest Wilkinson to Eldred Smith, Nov. 25, 1966, box 378, folder 3, Ernest L. Wilkinson Presidential Papers, HBLL. For Smith’s controversial address, see “A Patriarchal Blessing Defined,” Nov. 8, 1966, CHL; also in box 211, folder 6, Ernest L. Wilkinson Papers, HBLL. For the First Presidency’s instructions to tone down LDS racial teachings, see First Presidency minutes, Mar. 1, 1968, box 67, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, JWML.

^[61] Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 2:184–85, discusses “the flood of correspondence from all parts of the Church” asking about civil rights and LDS racial teachings. For a sampling of this correspondence, see box 23, folder 8, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL.

^[62] For Smith denying that he described Black people “as belonging to an ‘inferior race,’” see “President Smith discusses vital issue,” Church News, in Deseret News, July 14, 1962, and Smith Answers to Gospel Questions, 4:170. For the apostle’s conflicted views about civil rights, see Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 67–71, 76–79; and Matthew L. Harris, “Martin Luther King, Civil Rights, and Perceptions of a ‘Communist Conspiracy,’” chap. 5 in Thunder from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019).

^[63] Joseph Fielding Smith, “NON-SEGREGATION,” 1962, box 9, folder 7, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL. See also box 64, folder 8, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL; and Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 2:184–85. Smith also approved an article by a librarian at the University of Utah in which the author stated: “There is actually official doctrine in favor of earthly rights for the Negro.” In L. H. Kirkpatrick, “The Negro and the L.D.S. Church,” Pen Magazine (Winter 1954): 12–13, 29. See also Sterling McMurrin to Lowry Nelson, Aug. 2, 1952, box 20, folder 5, Lowry Nelson Papers, JWML, who confirmed that Smith (and J. Reuben Clark) conveyed to Kirkpatrick their support for civil rights. McMurrin wrote that “Each insisted that the negro should have full civil rights” (ibid.).

^[64] Hugh B. Brown, Conference Report of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Oct. 1963, 91.

^[65] For LDS leaders’ views on miscegenation, see Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 109–11; for background and context to miscegenation in Utah, see Patrick Q. Mason, “The Prohibition of Interracial Marriage in Utah, 1888–1963,” Utah Historical Quarterly 76, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 108–31; and Pascoe, What Comes Naturally, 85, 93, 118, 240–41. For miscegenation in general after World War II, see Renee C. Romano, Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003). For Smith’s “darkies” comment, see William B. Arthur, interview with Smith, July 14, 1962, in Nye, “Memo from a Mormon,” 78.

^[66] David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 107–08; Mark A. Noll, God and Race in American Politics: A Short History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008), 130–32; John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 147–49.

^[67] Joseph Fielding Smith to Morris L. Reynolds, May 9, 1966, Matthew Harris files. See also Smith, “NON-SEGREGATION.”

^[68] Smith to Wilkinson, Sept. 10, 1963, box 269, folder 16, Ernest L. Wilkinson Presidential Papers, HBLL. For Smith demanding orthodoxy on LDS racial teachings, and the survey, see Ernest Wilkinson to Smith, Apr. 12, 1963, ibid.

^[69] As Smith explained to missionaries in Brazil, Oct. 25, 1960, in William Grant Bangerter diary, 1958–1963, CHL. Smith, of course, was not the only LDS leader to discourage proselytizing among Black members. In 1947, the First Presidency (George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark Jr., and David O. McKay) wrote to a mission president and commented that “No special effort has ever been made to proselytize among the Negro race, and social intercourse between the Whites and the Negroes should certainly not be encouraged because of leading to intermarriage, which the Lord has forbidden.” First Presidency to Francis W. Brown (president of the Central States Mission), Jan. 13, 1947, Matthew Harris files (courtesy of Mark Grover of BYU).

^[70] Smith to Eulis E. Hubbs, Mar. 5, 1958, box 9, folder 7, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL; Smith to Floren S. Preece, Jan. 18, 1955, box 24, folder 28, S. George Ellsworth Papers, MCL. Andrew Jenson, ed., Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1901–36), 3:577. When Jenson published the account acknowledging Abel’s priesthood ordination, it prompted a flurry of letters from the grassroots to LDS Church headquarters. Some LDS officials acknowledged Abel’s ordination, though they called it “exceptional” (Joseph Anderson [Secretary to First Presidency] to Dorothy Woods, Oct. 24, 1947, box 49, folder 19, Richard D. Poll Papers, JWML), while others asserted that when the ordination was discovered, it “was declared null and void by the Prophet himself and . . . by the next three presidents who succeeded the Prophet Joseph” (Harold B. Lee, “Doing the Right Things for the Right Reasons,” BYU devotional address, Apr. 19, 1961, BYU Speeches of the Year [Provo, Utah: BYU Extension Services, 1961], 7). First Presidency counselor J. Reuben Clark acknowledged that “[t]here was one and possible two colored men upon whom the priesthood was confirmed in the very early days of the Church before the Brethren understood the scriptures on the subject” (Clark, untitled general conference address, “Draft #3, Sept. 13, 1954, box 210, “Negro and the Church” folder, J. Reuben Clark Papers, HBLL). Likewise, LDS Church president David O. McKay noted that “in the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith one of Negro blood received the Priesthood. Another in the days of Brigham Young received it and went through the Temple. These are authenticated facts but exceptions” (David O. McKay diary, Jan. 17, 1954, box 32, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, JWML).

^[71] Joseph Fielding Smith, “Discussion After Talk on Racial Prejudice,” Oct. 7, 1954, 34, box 4, folder 7, William E. Berrett Papers, HBLL.

^[72] Smith, The Way to Perfection, 111; Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 4:170–72 (quote at 171); and Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:55.

^[73] Joseph Fielding Smith diary, Feb. 22, 1962, box 4, folder 1, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, CHL.

^[74] Joseph Fielding Smith to First Presidency, Mar. 30, 1955, box 64, folder 6, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL.

^[75] Mark E. Petersen, as quoted in David H. Oliver, A Negro on Mormonism (Salt Lake City: self-pub., 1963), 12. Oliver held a cottage meeting in his home with apostle Petersen.

^[76] J. Reuben Clark, “Negro” statement, n.d., box 64, folder 6, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL; First Presidency minutes, Jan. 14, 1964, box 56, folder 1, David O. McKay Papers, JWML. Martin Luther King often said that “the church is the most segregated major institution in America.” In Martin Luther King Jr., “The Case Against ‘Tokenism’” (1962), in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James M. Washington (New York: HarperOne, 1986), 107; and Martin Luther King Jr., “An Address Before the National Press Club” (1962), in A Testament of Hope, 101. For biblical justifications of segregation, see Chappell, A Stone of Hope, 112–21; and Fay Botham, Almighty God Created the Races: Christianity, Interracial Marriage, and American Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 97–98.

^[77] For discussion of the Genesis Group, see below.

^[78] Eugene England, “Are All Alike unto God?: Prejudice against Blacks and Women in Popular Mormon Theology,” Sunstone 14, no. 2 (Apr. 1990): 20. For a scholarly appraisal of England’s influence within the Mormon intellectual community, see Terryl L. Givens, Stretching the Heavens: The Life of Eugene England and the Crisis of Modern Mormonism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021); and Kristine L. Haglund, Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021).

^[79] Joseph Fielding Smith’s diaries (at the LDS Church History Library) and David O. McKay’s diaries (at the University of Utah) make it abundantly clear that Smith was a part of these discussions. For details about Smith and other General Authorities’ familiarity with mixed-race lineages in the Church, including bishops and mission presidents, see Jeremy Talmage and Clinton D. Christensen, “Black, White, or Brown?: Racial Perceptions and Priesthood Policy in Latin America,” Journal of Mormon History 44, no. 1 (Jan. 2018): 119–45; Robert Greenwell, “One Devout Mormon Family’s Struggle with Racism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 51, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 155–80; Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion, 165; and Lowell L. Bennion, oral history interview with Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Mar. 9, 1985, James H. Moyle Oral History Program, CHL.

^[80] LDS religion instructor T. Edgar Lyon recounted this story to Church historian Leonard Arrington, in Leonard J. Arrington diary, July 17, 1962, box 57, folder 6, Leonard J. Arrington Papers, MCL. See also T. Edgar Lyon, “Negro Problem,” box 26, folder 1, T. Edgar Lyon Papers, CHL.

^[81] Leonard J. Arrington diary, July 17, 1962; Lyon, “Negro Problem.”

^[82] J. Reuben Clark, as quoted in “Manuscripts of Council of the Twelve Minutes and First Presidency statements on the Negro,” Jan. 25, 1940, box 64, folder 5, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL. See also Church leader David O. McKay, who explained to a mission president in Brazil that determining African ancestry in South America “is not an easy problem to handle.” David O. McKay to Rulon S. Howells, June 29, 1935, Dorothy H. Ipsen Collection of Rulon S. Howells Missionary Papers, 1934–1949, CHL.

^[83] There is a growing body of literature on “racial passing” in the United States. See Allyson Hobbs, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014); Gayle Wald, Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000); Scott L. Malcomson, One Drop of Blood: The American Misadventure of Race (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000).

^[84] N. Eldon Tanner, oral history interview with Davis Bitton, Nov. 10, 1972, 50, James H. Moyle Oral History Program, CHL.

^[85] W. Paul Reeve and his colleagues at the Century of Black Mormons digital history database have done painstaking work identifying mixed-race Latter-day Saints who passed as white. This ongoing project is the most definitive and comprehensive account to date detailing the lives and lived experiences of persons of African lineage within the LDS Church. The project focuses on the first century of the Church, from 1830 to 1930. For examples of mixed-race Latter-day Saints passing as white, see the entries for Nelson Holder Richie, Olive Ellen Ritchie Cleverly, Elsie Virginia Ritchie Olson Langston, Johanna Dorothea Louisa Langeveld Provis, and Norma Rachel Ables Dana, in Century of Black Mormons. My thanks to Paul Reeve for these references.

^[86] For background and context to the creation of the Genesis Group, see Harris and Bringhurst, Blacks and Mormons, 84–85; Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of Latter-day Saints (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 323; and Peggy Olsen, “Ruffin Bridgeforth: Leader and Father to Mormon Blacks,” This People (Winter 1980): 11–17.

^[87] In 1971, Eugene Orr, a charter member of the Genesis Group, noted that there were “about 250 baptized members of the Church who are Black” and that “of these 40 are active.” Orr further noted that one of the primary purposes of the Genesis Group was to reactivate Black Latter-day Saints. In Eugene Orr interview with Michael Marquardt, Nov. 7, 1971, box 6, folder 3, H. Michael Marquardt Papers, JWML. See also Wallace Turner, “Mormons Operating a Special Meeting Unit for Blacks,” New York Times, Apr. 6, 1972. James Sinquefield, oral history interview with Alan Cherry, Mar. 30, 1985, 12, LDS Afro-American Oral History Project, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, HBLL.

^[88] For Genesis Group congregations throughout the United States, see Jessie L. Embry, “Separate but Equal? Black Branches, Genesis Groups, or Integrated Wards?,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23, no. 1 (1990): 11–36; and Jessie L. Embry, Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 181–91.

^[89] Gibbons, Joseph Fielding Smith: Gospel Scholar does not discuss the Genesis Group.

^[90] See Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood,” BYU Studies 47, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 5–85; Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 105–09.

^[91] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 102–03, 107–08, 476–77, 553–54; Joseph Fielding McConkie, The Bruce R. McConkie Story: Reflections of a Son (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 373–79; Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood,” 46–47. For McConkie’s influence on the contemporary LDS Church, see Bowman, The Mormon People, 201–02; and David John Buerger, “Speaking with Authority: The Theological Influence of Elder Bruce R. McConkie,” Sunstone 10, no. 2 (Mar. 1985): 8–13.

^[92] Bruce R. McConkie, memo to Spencer W. Kimball, “Doctrinal Basis for Conferring the Melchizedek Priesthood Upon the Negroes,” Mar. 1978, box 64, folder 3, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, CHL. McConkie wrote this memo at Kimball’s request, as the Church president felt that he needed a theological rationale to grant priesthood ordination to Black Latter-day Saints.

^[93] Bruce R. McConkie, “All Are Alike Unto God” (address given at a Book of Mormon symposium for [LDS] Seminary and Institute Instructors at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Aug. 18, 1978), transcript at the CHL. For the notion that God had lifted the curse, see Bruce R. McConkie, “The Blessings of the Priesthood,” in Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 128.

^[94] Spencer W. Kimball, quoted in LeGrand Richards interview with Wesley P. Walters and Chris Vlachos, Aug. 16, 1978, transcript at the CHL. See also Richard N. Ostling, “Mormonism Enters a New Era,” Time, Aug. 7, 1978, 55.

^[95] “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays. For an appraisal of this important document, see Matthew L. Harris, “Whiteness Theology and the Evolution of Mormon Racial Teachings,” in The LDS Gospel Topics Series: A Scholarly Engagement, edited by Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2020), chap. 10.

^[96] See Pentecostal “Racial Reconciliation Manifesto” (1994), in The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America Since 1945, edited by Paul Harvey and Philip Goff (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 387. For the Southern Baptist Convention Apology, see Paul Harvey, Freedom’s Coming: Religious Culture and the Shaping of the South from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 218; and Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “Presbyterian Church in America Apologizes for Old and New Racism,” Christianity Today, June 24, 2016. My thanks to Paul Harvey for these references.

[post_title] => Joseph Fielding Smith’s Evolving Views on Race: The Odyssey of a Mormon Apostle-President [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2021): 1–76
Given the inadequate tools to police racial boundaries, LDS Church leaders like Joseph Fielding Smith struggled to define precisely where Black and light-skinned Latter-day Saints fit into the Church’s conception of soteriology. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => joseph-fielding-smiths-evolving-views-on-race-the-odyssey-of-a-mormon-apostle-president [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-18 14:27:44 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-18 14:27:44 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=30736 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 24205 [post_author] => 3357 [post_date] => 2019-10-06 05:05:15 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-10-06 05:05:15 [post_content] =>

My talk today is about how to wrestle with passages of scripture that may test our faith. There are many sections of scriptures that I find troubling, including the sanction of genocide in the Old Testament, Paul’s calls for women to be silent in the New Testament, and the explanation of polygamy in the Doctrine and Covenants. I am about to read one of the sections of scriptures I have wrestled with the most in my life. We don’t talk about these verses often, but my talk is about why we should and how we can do so productively. But I also know that these words are very painful for some people in this room, so I want to apologize in advance for reading them and ask for your patience as I explain my wrestle with them.

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.

And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done.

And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey.

And the Lord God said unto me: They shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to stir them up in remembrance of me; and inasmuch as they will not remember me, and hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction. (2 Nephi 5:21–25)

I clearly remember the first time I read these verses and had them truly sink in. I had gotten my own set of scriptures for my twelfth birthday, and I was reading through the Book of Mormon on my own for the first time. I read these verses, froze, read them again, and felt a wave of confusion and fear wash over me. For me, the crux of the problem these scriptures present is that Nephi, a prophet, uses words and ideas that are contrary to how I understand God—a God that is no respecter of persons and who is deeply offended by any ideas of white supremacy. Where do I go with that?

When I was twelve, I went to my parents and asked them about it. They had two different answers. My father said that he thought Nephi’s words were meant to be metaphorical. He said that when Book of Mormon prophets write about people having hard hearts and stiff necks, we don’t take them literally, thinking that someone’s neck actually became difficult to move or that their heart became like concrete. We understand that these are words invoke the body but are meant to describe the spirit. He believed that it was our cultural obsession with race, our society that categorizes people by the color of their skin before anything else, that led to us reading this passage as if it is actually about skin color. I’ll admit that I was skeptical then, and I’m skeptical now of that answer. But I think it’s certainly an interesting explanation to consider, and it may work for some people in this room.

My mother had a different answer. As a convert to the church, she had many unanswered questions about doctrine and policies. She frankly told me that she didn’t have an explanation for these verses, although she found them as upsetting as I did. She reminded me that we learn “line upon line, precept upon precept” (2 Nephi 28:30), and that we should not expect to have all the answers during our lifetimes. It is okay to sit with some discomfort and some lack of knowledge. She described it, metaphorically, as having shelves in our brains in which we can set down some issues and let them rest until we have some inspiration or greater knowledge that can help us progress on that issue.

For the next ten years, I used these two explanations. When I read the Book of Mormon, I skipped over these verses that I found so troubling. I didn’t have an answer, and I didn’t feel any direction to help me find an answer, so I put the question on my mental shelf to think about later. Then, in my early twenties, I moved to inner-city Baltimore. I don’t have the right words to describe how much I loved that ward. It was the closest thing I’d ever experienced to church being, as Elder Uchtdorf described in a 2015 talk, a service station instead of an automobile showroom. People were honest and open about their struggles and shortcomings, which gave the community opportunities to speak about how the Atonement was an ongoing force in their lives. The vulnerability that people shared led to me loving my fellow ward members in a deeper way than I had previously experienced. It was a time of intense spiritual growth for me as I confronted what I truly believed and grew to be grateful for the diversity of spiritual journeys—a multiplicity of paths that all led back to God.

The ward was about forty percent people of color, including a large number of refugees, immigrants, and African Americans. In my work in the Primary and Relief Society presidencies, as well as a visiting teacher, I went into many women’s homes all over the city. On more than one of these visits, I had the experience of an African American woman confronting me with these verses from 2 Nephi. In one case, I gave her the answer that my mother had given me: it’s okay to not have answers; sometimes we just need to sit with things. I will never forget her response. She told me that her husband was white and her children biracial. She asked me if I thought, in their family scripture study, that they should read these verses together. “I don’t have the luxury of simply not thinking about these words,” she said. “They are about me and my family.”

I realized with shame then that I had let my mother’s explanation of sometimes not having answers evolve into simply no longer searching for answers. I had grown lazy with the issue because wrestling with it made me uncomfortable. I felt like it was time to take these verses off my mental shelf and start working on them more actively again.

Although I read, pondered, and prayed quite a bit, I didn’t find any answers for another ten years. Sometimes that’s the way it is.

This past year, I spent three weeks working intently on just 2 Nephi chapter 5. I read it half a dozen times out loud. I pondered and prayed. I worked closely with Fatimah Salleh, a friend of mine who is a woman of color and who lives in our stake. I called on everything that I’ve read and studied about these verses for the last ten years. Here are the observations and conclusions Fatimah and I reached.

First, some of what Nephi writes here contradicts things that he has previously written in his own account. In verse 24, Nephi writes, “And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety” (emphasis added). Nephi is stating that the dark skin came first, then the sin. He is saying that they became sinful because of the darkening of their skin. But Nephi’s own narrative contradicts this. We know that Laman and Lemuel were idle and mischievous before their skin darkened, when they had white skin. Not only that, but from Nephi’s account, we observe Laman and Lemuel engage in extreme violence, multiple attempts at murder, disobedience, and cruelty—all while inhabiting white skin. Nephi’s claim that one followed the other simply doesn’t follow what we already know about this family. It’s not coherent. So Nephi is not seeing completely clearly.

The second claim that doesn’t ring true is that the Lamanites were idle. Nephi contrasts the Lamanites to his own people who were, as he writes, “industrious” (2 Nephi 5:17), as they built a complex society with cities, government, a military, and far-ranging communication. Yet we will read in the following pages of the Book of Mormon that the Lamanites will build a society that rivals that of the Nephites. The two groups of people are so evenly matched, in fact, that they will jostle for power for the next several hundred years. Out of the wilderness and starting from nothing, the Lamanites, like the Nephites, managed to construct a government, cities, a military, and a flourishing community with a booming population—a population that actually becomes much greater than the Nephites, as the Book of Mormon tells us repeatedly. Nephi’s proof of his own people’s industry also seems to apply to the Lamanites. So, without evidence of idleness, it’s hard to maintain this claim.

The final claim here that is strange, given Nephi’s own account, is his condemnation of the Lamanites for hunting in the wilderness for food. We know that Nephi used his bow to hunt for food and that God guided him in those efforts. Why is hunting for food suddenly a sign of immorality? It doesn’t make sense.

It may seem at this point that I’m mired in details. But I believe that examining these details is crucial. These details help a careful reader understand what is lying beneath the surface of Nephi’s angry accusations. It appears that Nephi continues to resent and fear his brothers and their families. This is understandable, as Nephi endured so much trauma at their hands. Nephi’s brothers beat him terribly many times. They tried to kill him multiple times. They were emotionally, spiritually, and physically abusive. After enduring years of trauma, it is not surprising that Nephi would feel resentful or have hard feelings toward them. I do not believe that we can take Nephi’s words out of the context of the years of violent abuse heaped on him.

What Nephi seems to be doing here is taking his lingering resentment and building a case against the Lamanites. He is reframing the narrative, attributing their behavior to skin color when his own account states otherwise, and pointing out every possible trait he can criticize. It’s such a universal human reaction that I think everyone in this room can identify with what he’s doing. Anyone who has looked up a former high school bully on Facebook and taken a small pleasure in finding a photo of him with stupid shoes and an ugly cat can relate in some way. Anger is often the manifestation of deeper feelings that are harder to confront. In Nephi’s case, his anger reveals the grief he has never finished processing. He never had the chance—he has been fighting just for survival his entire life.

Everyone on this earth struggles with the limitations of human nature—including prophets. Of all people, Nephi is the most aware of his own failings. There are multiple times in his account that he writes about his own humanity, saying, “And now, if I do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself” (1 Nephi 19:6). He’s saying, “I am human. Please understand that as you read this text.” As readers, I think we can reasonably give Nephi space for his feelings of resentment and residual anger. I believe that even God understands those feelings. If anything, reading these scriptures with that context of his life history and the emotions he has increases my sense of empathy for him. Like me, like you, like all of us here, he is a flawed person working his way back to the divine, doing his best with a limited understanding. That is beautiful to me.

So I don’t believe that Nephi’s feelings are wrong. I do believe that he makes a terrible error when he attempts to enlist God in cosigning on those feelings. When he writes that God caused a skin of blackness, when he writes that God sees people as loathsome, when he writes that God has cursed them, he is doing something very disturbing and problematic: he is couching his anger in theology. Seeing God’s punishments in other people’s struggles is a very dicey thing to do, and humans are not particularly good at getting it right. It would, after all, be easy for an outside observer of Lehi’s family to see years wandering in the wilderness, living in tents, and eating raw meat as evidence of God’s displeasure toward Lehi. And yet, we know that’s not the case—Lehi’s family’s suffering was the result of obedience, not disobedience, to God’s commandments. The scriptures are full of righteous people suffering. We know from the New Testament that lepers were considered cursed and that Jesus Christ upended that cultural idea. The same thing is true for the woman with the issue of blood and the man who was blind and deaf. Humans are simply not good at correctly identifying the objects of God’s wrath, so we probably shouldn’t try.

Nephi’s effort to have God endorse the lingering effects of his own trauma is deeply destructive. Nephi chooses not to limit his pain to his personal journey. The moment he takes his disgust and deep hurt and decides to stamp God’s name on it, he does theological damage. Serious harm can come from not being able to separate personal bias and feelings from the divine. Those who follow God need to strive to recognize their own prejudices, their own human inclination to exclude people or withhold compassion. It’s our own natural faultiness as humans. But do not ask God to endorse our taking our hurt, disappointment, and fear, and weaponizing it against another human being.

So where do we go from here? I believe that Nephi’s words present readers with two important challenges: to offer empathy for his humanness, and to refuse to elevate his words to doctrinal status. I’ll discuss the second one first.

For much of history, readers of the Book of Mormon took Nephi’s words seriously. The Nephites certainly did, and I wonder if perhaps that prejudice added to the centuries of violent conflict between the two peoples. I suspect that it influenced the Nephites’ disregard of the words of Samuel the Lamanite—they would not hearken to or record the words of someone who they believed was inferior to them. In more modern times, members of the Church, including Church leaders, believed and taught these ugly words as God’s truth. This was unequivocally wrong. It harmed people. It continues to harm people. Recently, Church leaders have frankly acknowledged that those teachings were wrong. In the Church-published essay “Race and the Priesthood” (which I strongly encourage you to read if you haven’t yet), we read, “Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a pre-mortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.” And yet, in my experience, because Nephi’s words make us uncomfortable, we tend to simply try to ignore them. I agree that they are painful to read. Yet we need to be very careful to not just pass these verses by, but to pause and say, “No. That is not what we believe. These words are wrong. We’re sorry for anyone who was or is hurt by them.”

This brings me to the second challenge of these verses: to stretch the bounds of our human compassion and offer Nephi understanding for his mistakes. In this process, we learn to offer one another a small part of the grace that God offers us. This experience of wrestling with these verses has changed how I think of Nephi. I no longer think of him as the muscle-bound hero of an Arnold Friberg painting. But I think I understand him better. I see his humanity, and I see the way God took an imperfect person and performed miracles through him. I see how his own path toward God was sometimes indirect but that he was always trying to be better. Just like the people in our ward in Baltimore whom I loved so much, it is when I saw Nephi’s vulnerability that I came to truly love him, not just admire him.

I want to make it clear that I’m not saying that I have the answer to understanding these scriptures. I believe that there are many possible answers to every hard theological question and that different times of our lives will yield different meanings. The only claim I am making is that we ought to dig into our holy texts in a sustained effort to understand more than is what is on the surface. Read boldly; the scriptures can take anything we throw at them.

Finally, I want to note that Nephi’s story also reminds us that people can change. We can repair past mistakes. We can draw closer to God. We can do better. After all, it was Nephi, the same man who wrote these troubling verses, who also wrote, closer to the end of his life, “For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men . . . and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female . . . and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile” (2 Nephi 26:33, emphasis added). And to that I can only add: amen and amen.

---

This sermon was given by Margaret Olsen Hemming in the Chapel Hill First Ward, Durham Stake in North Carolina on February 10, 2019. The narrative and structure of the article are hers but the theology and exegesis comes from a forthcoming book authored by Rev. Dr. Fatimah S. Salleh in collaboration with Margaret Olsen Hemming. The book, a social justice commentary of the Book of Mormon, hopes to provide readers with tools to read LDS scripture in new ways.

[post_title] => Wrestling with the Racism of the Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.3 (Fall 2019): 209–217
A sermon wrestling with the curse of blackness in the Book of Mormon. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => wrestling-with-the-racism-of-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 14:09:36 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 14:09:36 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=24205 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 24179 [post_author] => 2358 [post_date] => 2019-10-05 15:06:14 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-10-05 15:06:14 [post_content] => Shortly before The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’s 2018 “Be One” event, celebrating forty years since the LDS Church removed racial restrictions on temple and priesthood participation, Black Latter-day Saint podcaster and author Zandra Vranes asked white members to consider “what you or your Mormon ancestors were doing between 1852 and June 7, 1978.”[1] It’s an important question that forces us to, in Eugene England’s words, “face our unbearable Mormon loss of innocence.”[2] It forces us to deeply consider, and to apply to Mormon-ism, the late Reverend James Cone’s observation that “the white church is not God’s redemptive agent but, rather, an agent of the old society. . . . [I]t maliciously contributed to the doctrine of white supremacy. . . . Racism has been a part of the life of the Church so long that it is virtually impossible for even ‘good’ members to recognize the bigotry perpetuated by the Church.”[3] In his essay that appeared on the Church’s blog, “Healing the Wounds of Racism,” Darius Gray offers valuable instructions for coming to terms with and overcoming the racism that has been and still is a part of the LDS Church.[4] They include: acknowledging racism, recognizing it in ourselves, learning a new approach to addressing racism, and listening to those who are and have been most affected by the racial bigotry within and perpetuated by the Church. Black members and scholars of Mormonism have done a lot, especially in the last decade, to acknowledge and to help us recognize racism in ourselves—as individuals and as an institution—but there is more to be done.[5] Because of my position as a professor of history at Brigham Young University, the Church’s flagship educational institution, I’ve been especially interested in understanding BYU’s role as an “agent of the old society,” and how and why it is that for the last thirteen years that I’ve been teaching there—including now, more than forty years after Official Declaration 2—BYU students are still encountering racist justifications for the priesthood/temple restrictions in their religion classes, on their missions, in Gospel Doctrine classes, from peers, in sacrament meeting talks, and in Church books. William E. Berrett, most famous among scholars of race in the history of the LDS Church for his contribution to John Stewart’s 1960 Mormonism and the Negro, joined the religion faculty at BYU in 1948 as its first “expert” on LDS Church history after a brief stint as an Assistant United States Attorney in my hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. Berrett was not new to Church education: he had started the LDS seminary in Roosevelt, Utah; taught seminary in Blackfoot, Idaho; and wrote numerous textbooks and other core curriculum for the Church Educational System (CES) and various Church auxiliaries beginning in 1932. The Church published his most popular book, The Restored Church, in multiple languages. It went through more than a dozen editions between 1936 and its most recent reprinting in 2017. Berrett’s work has been used throughout the CES, including at Church universities, seminaries, and institutes, in Sunday School classes, and in other auxiliary organizations. As a “scholar” of Church history and doctrine (he received graduate training in law, not religious history or theology), what he said mattered. This likely gave Mormonism and the Negro more standing and traction than it otherwise might have enjoyed and legitimized everything else Berrett said about race. In 1954, Ernest L. Wilkinson appointed Berrett vice president of BYU during a period in which the university oversaw the Unified Church School System. Berrett served in a dual capacity, teaching and heading religious education at BYU and serving as vice administrator (i.e., director) of the Unified Church School System, which meant he headed all LDS seminaries and institutes. He also recruited and approved BYU faculty hires and, not insignificantly, brought Boyd K. Packer (later a member of the Quorum of the Twelve) and A. Theodore Tuttle (who would become a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and serve in its presidency) into CES leadership and the orbit of the Church hierarchy. When BYU no longer oversaw all Church education beginning in 1964, Berrett continued as Commissioner of Church Education until Neal A. Maxwell assumed that position in 1970, after which he remained on the teaching faculty at BYU for a few additional years. Berrett was celebrated for his work expanding Church religious education across the nation and the globe. And in 1986, Dialogue reviewed of one of his books, noting that he had influenced “thousands of seminary and institute teachers . . . encouraging kindness, moderation, and faith.”[6] He also used that influence, however, to validate and spread a racialized Mormon theology that reflected, embraced, normalized, and sanctified white supremacy.[7] Berrett’s published work, his curricular materials, memos, letters, teaching notes, and BYU devotionals reveal that his views about race in general, and the priesthood/temple ban in particular, echoed the ideas of white Southerners who protested integration, along with the “power-fully influential . . . racialized theology” of Joseph Fielding Smith, Mark E. Petersen, and other Church officials.[8] For Berrett, like for many other Church leaders, “the seeming dis-crimination by the Church toward the Negro” did not originate with man but went “back to the beginning with God.” He supported the belief that, acting under divine mandate, Joseph Smith initiated the priesthood/temple ban. Especially since they had been reaffirmed by modern prophets, he argued that the race-based restrictions should not be questioned by man. To do so meant questioning the trustworthiness of multiple Church presidents. Even to suggest that the ban was a matter of policy and not revelation signified an act of supreme disloyalty to the Church and its leaders. Aware of early Black Latter-day Saint Elijah Abel’s priesthood ordination and Church service, Berrett emphasized Abel’s mixed-race status, labeling his ordination a reasonable mistake that had been rightly corrected by later Church authorities. He explained Abel’s subsequent missionary work as understandable since women could also serve missions without the priesthood. (He did not note that sisters were not called to serve proselytizing missions until more than a decade after Abel’s death.[9]) At the same time he rejected the idea of the ban as evidence of discrimination and asserted its heavenly and deep historical origins, Berrett also argued against the whole notion of human equality. He defended the Church’s racial restrictions, insisting: “There is no equality.” “Men are not equal when entering this life. . . . We were not equal in the pre-earth life,” and will not be equal in the eternities. “A Negro child,” he declared, may be “born into the world innocent . . . [but] this does not mean that he had achieved the same status or progress in the eyes of the Lord prior to coming into the earth that some others may have achieved.” In Teachings of the Doctrine and Covenants, Berrett even offered corrections to some of Joseph Smith’s writings to buttress his point—suggesting that Smith meant to describe spirits as “co-eternal” rather than co-equal with our Father in Heaven.”[10] Berrett further insisted that the Church’s racial restrictions were evidence of God’s respect for human agency and compassion for all mankind. Berrett taught: “The Lord is withholding the priesthood from the Negro because of his love for them, so that they won’t be under condemnation.” Poor pre-earth choices and behavior meant that some souls were less virtuous than others as they entered mortality. Restricting priesthood/temple access kept otherwise unprepared people from entering into covenants they would fail to uphold. Careful to square the restrictions with Mormonism’s second article of faith, which precludes the possibility of penalizing individuals for other’s transgressions, he claimed: “We do not believe that the Negro is punished or cursed because of the act of Cain, but that Cain was cursed by having a certain group of pre-earth spirits come to earth through his lineage who, because of their own lack of preparation, may not yet have been ready to serve in the Priesthood.” For Berrett, differences in race, wealth, and national origin could be explained by, and were all determined by, pre-earth behavior. The most righteous of God’s children entered the world in white bodies, in Christian nations, and with greater economic resources. Drawing on his own experience living in “the polar north” with “dark-skinned” “Eskimos” as evidence, Berrett dismissed scientific explanations for differences in skin pigmentation.[11] He also pointed out that God had historically limited priesthood ordination, so the current racial restrictions were in keeping with ancient patterns. He further suggested that contemporary Mormons were unusual in the purity of their bloodline, which accounted “for the freedom [outside of the race restrictions] which the Lord has allowed our prophet in this day to call people to the Priesthood.”[12] Berrett called on scripture, history, unique LDS theologies, and what he labeled “practical good sense” to support the Church’s racial restrictions and taboos against interracial marriage.[13] His justifications and ideas about race were hardly unique in Latter-day Saint thought. Other, even more prominent, LDS Church leaders believed and promulgated the same ideas. Yet, there has been little direct engagement with these ideas or acknowledgment that they represent an especially insidious and influential expression of white supremacy in modern Latter-day Saint and American history.[14] As Cone says, “there has been no sharp confrontation of the gospel with white racism.”[15] Moreover, it matters that at a time of heightened activism by civil rights organizations and African Americans across the South and the nation, and at a time of notable changes to the legal structure and moral framework of white supremacy in the United States, Berrett was heralded as an expert on Church history and doctrine and was the man in charge of Church religious education. Scholars have noted the central role that religion and religious groups played in challenging segregation and the unequal status of Black Americans. Civil rights organizers, and many religious denominations, called on constitutional principles as well as on religious beliefs—their understandings of God, Jesus Christ, humankind, and the gospel—to contest the racial status quo. Scholars have also shown that religious beliefs undergirded segregationist defenses. As Jane Dailey argues, religion “played a central role in articulating not only the challenge that the civil rights movement offered Jim Crow but the resistance to that challenge.”[16] Ultimately, Martin Luther King Jr. and others in the civil rights movement won “the titanic struggle waged by participants on both sides of the conflict to harness the immense power of the divine to their cause.”[17] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supported the theology of segregation and racial inequality in that struggle. Berrett’s ideas and teachings were not only like those of other Latter-day Saint Church leaders, they were also like those of white Southerners who staged a massive resistance to the Black freedom movement. William E. Berrett, as BYU’s vice president and head of Church education, played a key role in affirming, institutionalizing, and repackaging previously expressed and officially sanctioned white supremacist ideas for continued and broad dissemination among Latter-day Saints in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. He used his positions at BYU and in Church leadership to support and normalize racist ideas that were quickly losing legitimacy across America and the world. Indeed, it is indicative of Berrett’s conscious opposition to the growing consensus about racial equality and of his role in facilitating the spread of an increasingly (on both the national and international scenes) contested white supremacist interpretation of racial difference that shortly after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, he invited apostle Mark E. Petersen to address religion faculty and CES employees at BYU. (Berrett had recently reintroduced the prac-tice of having General Authorities speak at training sessions of religious education personnel at the university.) Petersen’s now notorious talk at that event repeated a number of racist theological ideas, including some unique to the faith; warned LDS religious educators against “the phi-losophies of men” being peddled by civil rights advocates; and otherwise defended the Church’s racial restrictions. It seems unlikely that Berrett would have been unaware of Petersen’s intended topic or his views on that topic. Moreover, Berrett conducted a discussion among Church authorities and religious educators following the address. During that meeting, he, along with President Wilkinson, apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, and BYU religion faculty members Sidney B. Sperry and Archibald Bennett, was among those in attendance who voiced dismay at the outcome of the Brown ruling, articulated theological ideas grounded in white supremacy, and worried about how to teach the rising generation of LDS youth to respect their racial heritage and the Church’s position on racial exclusion given the new law of the land and the overall more racially-inclusive direction of the country. That so many in attendance, and in positions of authority within the Church and its education system, unambiguously supported Petersen’s remarks suggests the salience of segregationist thought in mid-century Mormonism.[18] Berrett was also largely responsible for BYU’s disingenuous approach to Black student admissions in the 1960s. Indeed, he seems to have played a key advisory role for President Wilkinson on this issue (and everything having to do with race), warning Wilkinson that there would “always be some problem with Negroes on our campus” but arguing that barring Black applicants “would be far more detrimental to us and the Church than the danger of a chance intermarriage which now exists.” Instead of outright exclusion, he recommended a number of steps that BYU and other Church schools could take to effectively limit Black attendance and save “our fine white girls.” Those steps included:

Do no proselytizing of Negro athletes. Discourage undue publicity of the Negro who is on campus. Watch moral standards carefully. Quietly counsel students against dating a known Negro. (Call in any boy or girl seen with  a Negro.) Send a prepared letter in answer to inquiries of Negroes regarding admittance to BYU to other church schools.[19]

Berrett’s sample letter for Black students interested in attending BYU, which the university appears to have adopted, stressed that BYU “is open to all who meet our academic and moral standards” but, “in fairness,” also warned of the “social difficulties and disappointments [Blacks] might encounter on entering an institution where all of the students are of the white race, save a mere dozen or so. . . . They are treated courteously and as equals in the classroom—but invariably are lost socially. . . . This situation, right or wrong as it may be considered in your thinking or mine, does exist, and could be a constant source of irritation and hurt.” The letter also explained that “the community in which our University is located contains no families of your race,” and that “despite our best efforts . . . students of your race . . . rarely return to us after one year.”[20] Here Berrett, like many other white segregationists of his generation, cast racism as an interpersonal problem—a problem with and between individuals, about hearts and minds, that laws or university policies or Church practices could not change—rather than as a structural, institutional problem, for which the university (and its sponsor) was directly responsible and could alleviate through a different set of teach-ings, policies, and practices. Scholars like Charles Payne have called for attention to the “mystification” of the nature of racial oppression. By making the racial situation at BYU about “how white and Black people feel about each other,” and about the sensitivity of Black students, rather than connecting it to a theology and set of practices that systematically privileged whites, Berrett was adopting a distinctly Southern paradigm for thinking about race. It was a paradigm rooted in racism that tried to hide its racism even as it aimed to perpetuate structures of inequality.[21] This is a little of what BYU and one of its chief administrators were doing between the time the school’s namesake, Brigham Young, instituted the ban and June 7, 1978. Moreover, although Berrett retired in the early 1970s, he continued to speak to CES groups and to write Church-published and distributed titles that spread his white supremacist interpretations of the restrictions long after 1978. At a 1980 devotional at the University of Utah’s LDS Institute of Religion, for instance, Berrett expressed his “shock when in June 1977 [sic] the announcement came that every worthy male member of the Church could hold the Priesthood of God.” His description suggests he found the inclusion of Black members into full fellowship more difficult than he had found their marginalization. It is significant that he never used any positive modifiers to talk about the 1978 revelation, that he reaffirmed that the racial ban originated with Joseph Smith, and that he used it as an example of how “that which is wrong at one time, under one set of circumstances, may in another set of circumstances be right.” Official Declaration 2 did not alter Berrett’s belief in the infallibility of Church leaders or the supremacy of the white race. In his view, the 1978 revelation left ample space for racist beliefs about pre-earthly grades of righteousness, priority races and nations, and divinely sanctioned race-based inequalities.[22] Indeed, in his 421-page The Latter-day Saints: A Contemporary History of the Church of Jesus Christ published in 1985, Berrett spends only two pages on the 1978 revelation, most of that explaining how a loving and just God has, at times, withheld power and light from men in order to save them from condemnation, and in another section likewise maintains that “out of love for his children” God has sometimes withheld his power (i.e., priesthood) “because they were not prepared to receive it.”[23] The latest edition of Berrett’s The Restored Church, published in 2017, includes similar ideas. In it he posits that “pre-earth man” exercises “his own will or free agency” and is therefore “subject to laws of progression” and can only advance “in varying degrees of capacity and intelligence.” All of these entries are thinly veiled code for racist concepts about lineage, pre-earth valiance, and the supposedly God-sanctioned inequality of humankind and past racist LDS practices. In addition, the 2017 edition of Berrett’s book (Berrett himself died in 1993) still refers readers who want to know more about the topic of race and the priesthood to sections about the “curse of Cain” and other blatantly white supremacist teachings in Joseph Fielding Smith’s The Way to Perfection, which the Church-owned publisher Deseret Book distributed until May 2018, when an independent scholar successfully lobbied for its removal.[24] Perhaps just as significantly, and in the absence of any specific repudiations from Church headquarters, the generations of religious educators and students Berrett trained, and the religious education department he played a key role in developing, continued to pass along the racist teachings he helped to legitimize. One former Black student recently explained: “I don’t remember exactly when and how I first heard about the ban but I assumed it was in the Church’s past and it was over with, so I didn’t think much of it. Attending a Church school and being in Utah changed that. I realized its effects still lingered in its organization, books, materials, and members.”[25] Many other students, Black and white, have shared similar sentiments with me and other BYU faculty. As Matthew Harris has argued, despite Jeffrey R. Holland’s and others’ fairly recent dismissal of these ideas as mere “folklore,” the racist theories that BYU religion professor Randy Bott reported in 2012 to the Washington Post, the ones that Berrett believed, validated, and promulgated, and that my students have been asking me about over the last thirteen years, came—and still come—from authoritative, official sources. They come from Church leaders and Church publications, and from the Church Educational System.[26] That “people who espouse white supremacy feel comfortable sitting in LDS pews on Sundays and using [LDS] scriptures to support racism” can be directly attributed to the ways that the institutional Church has supported and, even in the twenty-first century, continues to give space to white supremacist ideas.[27] In his Church blog post and Ensign essay, Darius Gray not only talks about the importance of acknowledging racism and recognizing it in ourselves, he also advises that we “take a new approach” to the topic. As a historian, I can identify old approaches, patterns the Church and its leaders and members have generally followed as they address issues of race. Pointing out such patterns can help the Church stop acting as “an agent of the old society.” It can help point the way to something new that can move the Latter-day Saint community toward the type of healing that Gray imagines, and for which many of my students yearn.[28] On this, Berrett again is a useful example. He, like many others in Church leadership throughout the twentieth century, tended to historicize the issue of race, distancing the contemporary Church from any direct engagement with it and effectively placing the racial restrictions beyond current leaders’ control. Berrett did this by insisting that the Church’s temple/priesthood policy originated with God and Mormonism’s founding prophet and by locating the reasons for it as far back as possible in LDS theology, that is, in pre-earth life—a time for which there is little (or no) record, and certainly no memory. Attributing the race restrictions to Black people’s own actions, completely outside the realm of earthly existence, was one way the LDS Church further “mystified” the nature of race and racial oppression. More recently, the Church’s official “Race and the Priesthood” essay claims, in the present tense, that “in theology and practice” the Church “embraces the universal human family,” that its “structure and organization” and lay ministry “encourage racial integration.” The document puts racists ideas and practices associated with the faith squarely in the past, dismissing them as irrelevant to the modern Church. Moreover, it admits Brigham Young’s role in creating past racial restrictions, and that these were clearly inspired by human prejudice, but effectively skips over nearly a century of official racist theology and practice, framing the mid-twentieth century in particular as chiefly a period of softening racial lines that steadily led to the 1978 revelation rather than as a period in which many Church leaders and educators, very much like white Southern politicians of the era, drew a line in the sand and staged a massive resistance in defense of strict racial boundaries. The Church’s progressive narrative contradicts the theologizing and actions of LDS leaders like Berrett. That the 1950s and 1960s saw the escalation and normalizing of white supremacist defenses of its restrictions coming from the center of the Church Educational System surely played no small role in keeping those restrictions in place for more than two decades after the Brown ruling and more than a decade after the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. The work of Berrett and other Church leaders in reinforcing racist beliefs (along with the notion of prophetic infallibility) at mid-century and beyond also helps explain the persistence, into the present, of white supremacist explanations for the temple/priesthood ban.[29] In his much-heralded 2006 general conference talk, President Gordon B. Hinckley insisted that “we all rejoiced in the 1978 revelation.” “Racial strife,” in his estimation, was supposed to be a relic of the past, its continued presence worthy of condemnation but not of substantial, sustained institutional attention. In that same year apostle Jeffrey R. Holland talked to the media about the Church’s “racial folklore,” relegating those teachings to the margins of the Latter-day Saint past and discounting their actual and unremitting status in LDS thought. The Church’s 2012 responses to BYU religion professor Randy Bott’s Washington Post comments likewise emphasized a sharp divide between historical teachings and practices and the modern-day Church that was in some ways more theoretical—more aspirational—than real, and which certainly belied the continued prominence of Mormonism’s racial mythology.[30] Another old approach has been to deny any direct relationship between LDS teachings and practice and racism. Berrett, like other Church officials during his lifetime, repeatedly argued that, “Our treatment of the Negro has been the best of any segment of the American people,” highlighting Joseph Smith’s pre–Civil War statements against slavery, Black people’s unhampered access to the franchise in Utah, the absence of officially segregated LDS congregations, and the history of integration in Utah public schools (including BYU’s overtly inclusive admission policy) as evidence of Latter-day Saint racial liberalism. He attributed the practice of missionaries “not going deliberately among the Negro” to practical considerations born of local conditions rather than “prejudice on the part of Church leaders.” The low number of Black students at BYU was not the result of institutional racism, including backhanded deterrents, but a matter of the personal preference of individuals. Sounding like so many other white supremacists of his generation, Berrett personally maintained that “I always had close friendships with Negro families, and my parents went to school with Negro children.” He defended the institutional Church he represented in similar terms. “We accept [the Negro] as a brother, perhaps as no other people in the world accept him,” he insisted. “There is no people more anxious that the Negro shall have their full civil rights.” Mormons could not be blamed; after all, “the prejudice didn’t start with us. White people everywhere are prejudiced. . . . [T]his is an international prejudice. . . .  All races are prejudiced against the Negro.” “Integration hasn’t been effective,” he further argued. “But it isn’t the fault of the Mormons. It is not peculiar to us, and we are not as bad as most.” Averring a strict distinction between civil rights and religious practice, he, like many other Church officials, also vociferously asserted: “Mormons defend civil rights” and “there is no evidence that the priesthood doctrine interferes with the civil rights of any person.”[31] More recent Church statements and resources follow similar patterns. They emphasize Joseph Smith’s abolitionist stance; the fundamental LDS doctrine that “all are alike unto God” (even if LDS practices might not have always matched that principle); that past Church leaders’ prejudices reflected the racism of the period in which they lived; that the LDS Church does not have, and has never officially countenanced, race-segregated congregations; and that people of color sometimes serve as leaders over white members. Official Church sources and leaders disconnect the teachings of the past from present theological beliefs. They also stress both historical and contemporary distinctions between the Church’s support for civil rights and its insistence on religious freedom, as well as between doctrines identified in LDS scripture and policies practiced, for a time, by the Church. Resource materials linked on the “Race and Priesthood” topic page of the Church’s website include talks that do not address race directly but instead reference more general ideas about “inclusion” and “the global Church.”[32] A third old approach has been to insist that Black people in the Church are content with the status quo. Berrett, for example, liked to quote Abner Howey, “a prominent Negro leader who says the Negro is not ready for the priesthood.” He also kept copies of, and sometimes referenced, Corey C. Bowles’s autobiographical booklet Experiences of a Negro Convert. This publication contrasted Bowles’s supposed expectations that upon joining a church with race-based priesthood restrictions he could “relax” (his “slaving days were over”) with the multiple ways he was called on to serve in the Church after baptism. In addition to minimizing the impact of the restrictions, Berrett repeatedly insisted that “the Negro convert to the Church has no difficulty in separating the will of God from the prejudices of men. . . . [They] have been happy in their faith.” “Black members of the Church do not object [to the priesthood ban]. The objection is raised by Blacks who are not members of the Church,” who do not even know what priesthood is.[33] The same pattern has dominated official post-1978 discussions of the topic. For the thirtieth anniversary of Official Declaration 2 in 2008, for instance, the Church solicited and shared comments that affirmed the institution’s innocence on racial matters from select Black men who had advanced to significant leadership positions.[34] Church sources quoted Ahmad Corbitt (then a stake president in New Jersey), who maintained: “Anyone who says the Church is racist isn’t speaking from experience and has no idea of the racial harmony we enjoy as a Church family.” They also quoted Tony Parker (who served as the first Black stake president in Atlanta) saying: “Anyone who thinks the Church is racist just needs to come and see. They can sit in our church on the sidelines and watch, or talk to members.” Without denying the validity of these men’s individual experiences or the sincerity of their views, the Church’s focus on these kinds of Black member narratives has worked to discount others and to draw attention away from the still overwhelming whiteness of Church leadership. Parker’s description of himself as “a better person now than I was back then [before becoming a member]” and his years of Church membership as “years of personal growth and enrichment” have, like Bowles’s and Howey’s stories, been used as a way to silence critics and other voices, including other Saints of color with different experiences and perspectives, and to excuse the Church from more thoroughly and systematically attending to past and present racism. One former BYU student explains: “Black members are not a monolith. Some need an ‘apology,’ some don’t. . . . The Church needs to actually listen to the concerns of its Black members.” She also worries that her daughter’s sense of self is being harmed by all the white faces she sees in Church materials.[35] When addressing the history of its racial restrictions, another traditional approach employed by the Church and its leaders has been to talk about it in terms of the functioning and expansion of the bureaucratic institution rather than in terms of the people targeted and most affected by the restrictions and the 1978 repeal.[36] For Berrett, the Church’s “race problem” was about how to protect and advance the Church, including how to shield its overwhelmingly white membership from racial stain and discomfort and how to promote their spiritual progress and redemption. In an Advanced Theology class address, for instance, Berrett cautioned against getting “carried away by some of the enthusiasm of some sociologists of our time” and pushing to take the gospel to all peoples. We “have to be practical,” he explained. “When missionaries go to the Southern states they find tremendous prejudice against the Negros, and it becomes pretty much the choice of whether to spend the time with the Negroes or with the whites.”[37] Memos and other documents repeatedly show that Berrett’s concerns centered on “the adverse publicity” that racial issues brought the Church rather than on the exclusion of Blacks from Church proselytizing efforts, from BYU, or from the priesthood.[38] Moreover, after June 1978, he repeatedly framed the lifting of restrictions in terms of its relationship to the global expansion of Mormonism. Rescinding the ban mattered not because it opened opportunities for salvation to Black people or corrected a grave injustice, but because it facilitated Church growth around the world.[39] Modern leaders have likewise overwhelmingly centered their narratives of the 1978 revelation, the history leading up to it, and its aftermath on the expansion of the institutional Church, especially in Brazil, the Caribbean, and African nations. The 1978 declaration allowed the Church to expand its membership, to “accomplish the commission to teach all nations,” and erased bureaucratic impediments and headaches.[40] Church narratives that celebrate the 1978 revelation have also fixated on the emotional and spiritual relief it brought the white LDS Church hierarchy. For instance, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, in a 2007 account currently highlighted on the Church website, shared that his heart “ached for my church,” and that “nobody was more relieved or more pleased when the word came.”[41] The emphasis was on Oaks’s feelings and on the predicament of the institutional church. His comments at the June 2018 “Be One” event included a similar story about his personal struggle with the restrictions and the strain they created for the Church in the larger society. While one can appreciate the deeply-felt sentiments Oaks expresses in the video and allow that acknowledgements of shared distress can help in healing processes, such accounts still signify a tendency to focus on the perspectives of the Church as an organization and its white male leaders. They do not convey a willingness to fully grapple with the pain and suffering of those directly hurt by past policies and their legacies. Moreover, while other elements of the “Be One” event, and the inclusion of a greater variety of Black voices in the planning and media coverage of Official Declaration 2’s fortieth anniversary, marked an important step forward in decentering Church narratives about race and history, Oaks’s assertion that “institutionally the Church reacted swiftly to the revelation” even if “the hearts and practices of individual members did not come suddenly and universally” and his plea for Church members to look forward as a unified body suggest an enduring narrow, institutionally oriented frame of reference. Again, while one can agree that the 1978 revelation brought with it significant changes, alongside the leaders’ hopes for a unified, inclusive Church organization, such comments denote a lack of understanding of (or willingness to be accountable for) the Church’s role in the reluctance of some of its members to fully abandon “attitudes and practices of prejudice.” The statements of contemporary Church leaders continue to “mystify” the problem of race—making it solely about how individuals think and feel outside of their religious background rather than directly related to more than a century of “systemic racial domination” within the LDS Church.[42] Another example along this same theme, and one that suggests BYU Religious Education continues to hold some responsibility for the obstinacy of racist justifications for the temple/priesthood ban, as well as the need for the university and the Church to deliberately take action to fully “emancipate the gospel from ‘whiteness,’” is that during winter semester 2018 a professor asked at least one section of Foundations of the Restoration (a required religion class) to defend Brigham Young’s 1852 decision to establish the restrictions. His study guide invited students to: “Explain why you think the Prophet felt this was a necessary course of action during this time period.” At least one student was subsequently marked down for attributing the restrictions to racism and told by the class teaching assistant to make allowances for Brigham Young because he had to make choices for the good of the Church during a time of persecution for the Saints. “Life in nineteenth-century America demanded institutional racism and the Church needed to be in the government’s good graces,” the TA wrote. A question on the final exam later asked: “What was the primary motivating factor behind the priesthood ban?” The correct answer? “Utah statehood.”[43] Another “old approach” has been to insist that members ignore or not draw attention to racial issues in the Church and its history. In the 1960s, Berrett cautioned seminary and institute teachers: “You have difficult problems in this area, but I think sometimes you make them greater than they are.” He counseled, “Let’s not raise this problem unnecessarily,” and summarily dismissed suggestions to create lesson plans “on the Negro question” for seminary and institute teachers in the late 1960s because to do so—to talk about the issue—might cause more harm than good.[44] Oaks’s directives at the “Be One” event to concentrate “on the opportunities of the future rather than the disappointments of the past” and to not “concern ourselves . . . with past explanations by those who were operating with limited understanding” are perhaps the best recent example of this approach. Church curriculum materials of the recent past have also encouraged members to brush off the topic. The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball manual, for instance, includes a chapter on the doctrinal principle of revelation that highlights the 1978 announcement as the “most well-known of all” of President Kimball’s revelations. The lesson, however, does not address the actual content of that revelation and instead focuses on questions such as: “what aspects of [Kimball’s] experience are common to all our efforts to receive revelation?”[45] A number of students, white and Black, presently report that many of their BYU religion professors do not talk about race or the history of race in the Church even when the subject is clearly relevant to the course, or they talk about it only superficially. These students relate some change over the span of the last few years, but not as much as they had expected to see. Students tell me that they are often both surprised and disappointed by the unwillingness of some religious education faculty to engage in serious discussions about race and the Church’s racial history. One former Black student recently related: “In religion classes at BYU the topic [is] briefly explored, usually without substance or acknowledgement of the harm it has caused black people.”[46] Another reported that they still hear things like: “Let’s not pretend that God hasn’t made racial restrictions for the priesthood and gospel before. He didn’t want the gospel being taught to the Gentiles at one point. I don’t know why God makes these restrictions, but he let both go on for a long time.”[47] One spoke directly about Church leaders’ responsibility, saying, “I just want them to own the history and make sure everyone is aware the best they can in order to dispel the inaccuracies, racism, and myths of the past.”[48] And another recounted: “I learned about the racial restrictions the Church made over a stretch of time because no one would give me a straight answer until college. . . . People would just say that we don’t know why it happened but it did and things are better now. That was obviously unsatisfactory.”[49] One of these former students explained the current problem saying:

I wish there were more talks against racism in Church lesson manuals [and] devotionals (both BYU and Church-wide) and that these topics were addressed in greater length and depth than the few sentences they are given now. Conversing about an issue normalizes it as an issue, and not just something related to someone’s personal opinions. The statement issued after the Charlottesville protest is a clear example that the Church has not made it clear enough in the past that it doesn’t support white supremacist ideals or racism. Why should that have to be clarified by the Church?! Because the leadership never addresses it![50]

These Black Church members, whose sentiments have been repeated by many others I’ve encountered at BYU, suggest that resisting or limiting opportunities for conversations about the topic of race in Church history has resulted in its further mystification. Moreover, when placed beyond the pale of human explication, Church members, teachers, and leaders continue to ascribe the origins of the priesthood/temple ban to God and to believe the racist ideas that undergirded the ban. Even as these old approaches—and old, white supremacist ideas—have persisted, Black Latter-day Saints have increasingly encouraged (to channel Ta-Nehisi Coates) the creation of a “new story, a new history told through the lens of [Black Mormon] struggle.”[51] And indeed, the last point of Gray’s essay on healing the wounds of racism in the Church is to listen. While I have studied race in American history for more than two decades, and dedicated some of that time to exploring the topic in my own faith tradition, listening to Black students at BYU has fundamentally changed the way I think about race and the history and legacies of America’s and the Church’s racial past. It has also strengthened my resolve to support them as they create a “new story,” told through the lens of their struggles, their hope, and their faith. I am privileged to have included as part of this essay a small sampling of comments from several current and recently graduated Black BYU students and invite you to hear more of what they have to say at the Dialogue website. Their voices suggest, among other things, the importance of continued, direct engagement with this history and of listening to those most affected by it and most in need of a new story. For, as one student relates, “Mormon myths are still prevalent, making it difficult for black members of the Church to form positive self-fact for themselves in the gospel context.”[52]

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[1] Zandra Vranes, Facebook, May 21, 2018. [2] Eugene England, “Playing in the Dark: Mormons Writing about Blacks and Blackness,” in Colloquium Essays in Literature and Belief, edited by Richard H. Cracroft, Jane D. Brady, and Linda Hunter Adams (Provo: Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature, Brigham Young University, 2001), 434, 444. [3] James H. Cone, Black Theology and Black Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1969), 71. [4] This essay first appeared on the Church’s blog as Darius Gray, “Healing the Wounds of Racism,” Apr. 5, 2018. A shortened version was subsequently published in the June 2018 Ensign with the title “Moving Forward Together.” [5] The articles and essays in the fall 2018 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought provide a good example of recent academic work along these lines. Paul Reeve’s Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford, 2015) represented an important scholarly mile-stone on this topic as well. [6] Kenneth W. Godfrey, “Balance and Faith,” review of The Latter-day Saints: A Contemporary History of the Church of Jesus Christ, by William E. Berrett, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 192. [7] William E. Berrett Papers, 20th Century Western and Mormon Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (hereafter cited as Berrett Papers); William E. Berrett oral history interview, Jan. 27, 1982, Manuscripts Collection, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. On Mormonism and the Negro, see Russell Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830–2013 (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015): 313–36. [8] England, “Playing in the Dark,” 434. Berrett’s beliefs and teachings as described throughout the article were culled from various documents in boxes 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, and 12 of the Berrett Papers. [9] See William E. Berrett, “Church History and Philosophy 245 Advanced Theology Address,” July 10, 1956, box 3, folder 4, Berrett Papers. [10] Ibid.; Berrett’s handwritten notes in box 3, folder 3, Berrett Papers; William E. Berrett, Teachings of the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1961): 243. [11] In addition to everything else wrong with Berrett’s statements, the Fairbanks, Alaska region is home to Athabascan, not, traditionally, Eskimo peoples. [12] Berrett, “Church History and Philosophy”; William E. Berrett to Allan Taggart, Apr. 24, 1967, box 4, folder 1, Berrett Papers. [13] Berrett, “Church History and Philosophy.” [14] Again, the articles and essays in the fall 2018 volume of Dialogue stand out for their direct engagement with this history and what it means. Joanna Brooks’s “The Possessive Investment in Rightness: White Supremacy and the Mormon Movement,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 51, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 45–82, in particular, uses terms like “white supremacy” to describe Mormon beliefs and structures, and shows how white supremacy was an integral part of Mormon theology and institution and community building. [15] Cone, Black Theology, 31. [16] Jane Dailey, “Sex, Segregation, and the Sacred after Brown,” Journal of American History 91, no. 1 (June 2004): 22. [17] Ibid. [18] Mark E. Petersen, “Race Problems As They Affect the Church” (address given at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Aug. 27, 1954). A transcript of the Oct. 7, 1954 discussion can be found in box 4, folder 7, Berrett Papers. [19] See, “How Can the Door of the University Be Left Open and Still Attract Few Negros?,” box 3, folder 2, Berrett Papers; “Church Schools and Students of Color” (1961); and “Memo, RE: The Negro Problem,” Dec. 8, 1960, box 3, folder 3, Berrett Papers. [20] Ibid. [21] See Charles M. Payne, “‘The Whole United States Is Southern!’: Brown v. Board and the Mystification of Race,” Journal of American History 91, no. 1 (June 2004): 83–91. [22] See William E. Berrett, “Change,” devotional address given at University of Utah Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1980, typescript in Berrett Papers. Bruce R. McConkie’s oft-quoted 1978 “All Are Alike unto God” speech likewise leaves ample room for theological beliefs grounded in white supremacy, including the Church’s unique teachings about racial difference. See Bruce R. McConkie, “All Are Alike unto God,” devotional address given at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Aug. 18, 1978. [23] William E. Berrett, The Latter-day Saints: A Contemporary History of the Church of Jesus Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1986), 351–53, 382–85. [24] See William E. Berrett, The Restored Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), chap. 44, section 144 and the “Supplementary Readings” for chap. 45 (e-book edition). Joseph Fielding Smith’s The Way to Perfection is referenced in nine different chapters of The Restored Church and in its bibliography. Stirling Adams correspondence with Deseret Book, May 2018, shared with the author. [25] Daylin Farias, email correspondence with author, May 21, 2018. [26] See Matthew L. Harris, “Mormonism’s Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 33, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2013): 90–114; Jason Horowitz, “The Genesis of a Church’s Stand on Race,” Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2012. [27] “Commentary: Putting Our Shoulders to the Wheel to End Racism and White Supremacy in Mormonism,” Salt Lake Tribune, Aug. 17, 2017, last updated Aug. 28, 2017. See also Zandra Vranes, “Op-ed: Speaking to the Pain of a Black Mormon Woman,” Deseret News, Aug. 17, 2017. [28] Gray, “Healing the Wounds of Racism”; Cone, Black Theology, 71. [29] “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays. [30] Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Need for Greater Kindness,” Apr. 2006; Holland interview transcribed at “Interview: Jeffrey R. Holland,” The Mormons, PBS; “Church Statement Regarding Washington Post Article on Race and the Church,” Newsroom, Feb. 29, 2012. [31] William E. Berrett, “The Negro Situation,” address given at Coordinators Convention, Mar. 6, 1969, BYU, Provo, typescript in box 3, folder 4, Berrett Papers. [32] “Race and the Priesthood.” [33] Berrett, “The Negro Situation”; Letter from William E. Berrett to George Allan Taggart, Apr. 24, 1967, Box 4 Folder 1; Corey C. Bowles, Experiences of a Negro Convert (Newark, N.J.: April 1970), in box 3, folder 2, Berrett Papers. [34] “Race Relations,” Newsroom. [35] Tony Parker and Ahmad Corbitt, quoted in “Race Relations”; Daylin Farias, email correspondence with author, May 21, 2018. See also Darron T. Smith’s important analysis of Black member identity and internalized oppression in “Negotiating Black Self-Hate Within the LDS Church,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 51, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 29–44. [36] Gina Colvin, ed., with Elise Boxer, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Melissa Inouye, and Janan Graham-Russell, “Roundtable Discussion: Challenging Mormon Race Scholarship,” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 3 (July 2015): 277–78. [37] Berrett, “Church History and Philosophy.” [38] Berrett, “Memo, RE: The Negro Problem.” [39] Berrett, The Latter-day Saints. [40] See, for instance, Howard W. Hunter, “All Are Alike unto God,” address delivered at a fourteen-stake fireside, Marriott Center, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Feb. 4, 1979; Gordon B. Hinckley, “Priesthood Restoration,” Ensign, Oct. 1988. Note: The website currently refers to this as “an edited version of a talk given 15 May 1988 at the Church-wide fireside commemorating the 159th anniversary of the restoration of the priesthood.” [41] “Elder Dallin H. Oaks’ Reaction to Priesthood Revelation,” Newsroom, July 20, 2007, emphasis mine. [42] “President Oaks Remarks at Worldwide Priesthood Celebration,” Newsroom, June 1, 2018; Payne, “Brown v. Board and the Mystification of Race,” 85. [43] Cone, Black Theology, 32; Twitter correspondence (Apr. 16, 2018) documenting this incident in possession of the author. [44] See Berrett, “Church History and Philosophy,” and letters between William E. Berrett and Henry Draper (1963) in box 12, folder 12, Berrett Papers. [45] “Revelation: ‘A Continuous Melody and a Thunderous Appeal,’” chap. 22 in Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2006). [46] Julian Harper, “Racism at BYU,” May 14, 2018, typescript in possession of the author. [47] Kirstie Stanger Weyland, “Racism at BYU,” April 2018, typescript in pos-session of the author. [48] Justin Tyree, email correspondence with author, May 15, 2018. [49] Harper, “Racism at BYU.” [50] Stanger Weyland, “Racism at BYU.” [51] Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (New York: Random House, 2015), 44. [52] Melodie Jackson, “African American History Since Emancipation” final exam, Apr. 2019, typescript in possession of the author. Used with permission. [post_title] => "There Is No Equality”: William E. Berrett, BYU, and Healing the Wounds of Racism in the Latter-day Saint Past and Present [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.3 (Fall 2019): 62–83
De Schweintiz documents how students at BYU still hear racist reasons for the priesthood/temple ban in classes, missions, Gospel Doctrine, sacrament meeting talks and even in books published by the Church. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => there-is-no-equality-william-e-berrett-byu-and-healing-the-wounds-of-racism-in-the-latter-day-saint-past-and-present [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-18 14:29:03 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-18 14:29:03 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=24179 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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Brothers and sisters, when I was a teenager, my favorite apostle to listen to was Dallin H. Oaks. I appreciated that he was to the point, kept his sentences on the shorter side, and didn’t mince words. One of my favorite memories from back then was when he began a talk about divorce by saying, “I have felt impressed to speak about divorce.” I appreciated that he was willing to speak on a topic that he acknowledged evoked strong feelings, and I appreciated that he threw it out there at the beginning. Ironically, this is my way of letting you know that I have failed to find a delicate way to introduce my topic, which similarly tends to evoke strong feelings. 

So, brothers and sisters, I wish to speak frankly about the subject of racism. Part of me wants to discuss it because we don’t really talk about it a lot in the Church. If you open your Gospel Library app right now and search general conference for the word “racism,” you’ll get three results. One is two sentences from 1995, and the other two, while more recent, are one sentence each and say the exact same thing because one quotes the other. Now, if you search for “pornography” in general conference, you’ll get results for days. I can tell you that I know pornography to be an issue, not only because many are deeply affected by it, but because it’s something that we regularly talk about. However, because racism isn’t mentioned regularly in conference, we may not be well equipped to deal with issues of race inside or out of our chapels. 

The other reason I want to discuss this issue is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about reclamation. Jesus Christ came to reclaim us from sin and death. The four-fold mission of the Church can be summed up as reclaiming our ancestors through temple work, reclaiming ourselves by perfecting ourselves, and reclaiming one another by helping the poor and needy and preaching the gospel. I know, brothers and sisters, that that last one won’t happen unless we rid ourselves of racism and take steps to help others do the same. Let me tell you how I know this by telling you what I learned about sheep recently. 

The first thing I learned was that for every hundred sheep, God creates a black sheep (or brown or gray or spotted). The second thing I learned is that the black sheep are how shepherds know how many sheep they have. So if you have five black sheep, you have 500 sheep. The third thing I learned is that in the old West, the black sheep were called “markers” and were used the same way shepherds used them. An old saying they used was, “once your markers are in, your flock is in.” This last piece gave the parable of the lost sheep a whole lot more meaning for me. I’d like to believe that the shepherd in the parable knew his flock was incomplete because his marker was missing. He left the ninety-nine not only because every sheep is valuable, but because the flock would not be complete otherwise. That’s important. The flock is not complete without the black sheep. 

Brothers and sisters, I’m not concerned with talking about why racism is bad. I believe I’d be hard pressed to find anyone in this room who feels otherwise. Plus, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the leaders of the church, even the whole of the gospel of Jesus Christ declare that “God is no respecter of persons,” that “the lord looketh on the heart,” and that “all are alike unto God”—“black and white, bond and free.” 

What does concern me is that I don’t see more people who look like me in this room. According to the Higher Education Research Institute, black folk are the most likely to seek religion, and they rank highest in eleven of twelve spirituality categories. Since the Church regularly ranks high in growth, it would stand to reason that there would be more of us here, yet here we are not.

What does concern me is that when the subject of the priesthood and temple ban comes up, there are still people comfortably affirming belief in divine authorship despite there being no evidence of the same and much evidence to the contrary. Additionally, one should consider the spiritual and emotional implications of blaming God for the spiritual dispossession of black saints. To accept that God wanted us to suffer for 126 years without the blessings of the priesthood and temple is to accept Brigham Young’s original, though now disavowed, reasons for that suffering. “If there never was a prophet or apostle of Jesus Christ spoke it before, I tell you this people that are commonly called Negros are the children of Cain, I know they are; I know they cannot bear rule in the priesthood, in the first sense of the word.” We cannot put that on our Father in Heaven, brothers and sisters. 

What does concern me is that too often our missionaries and members are not prepared to have conversations about racial issues in the Church’s past with black members and investigators. Why isn’t the ability to talk openly and honestly about this a priority, especially when it’s such a stumbling block for black Saints and investigators? 

What does concern me is that there are additional stresses on the black member of the Church that have spiritual as well as mental and emotional implications. To demonstrate this difference in experience, I borrowed a list of questions, modeled after the prompts in Peggy McIntosh’s essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” These questions are meant to determine from their answers alone whether or not the one answering is a Mormon of color. For example, do you worry about the racial attitudes of your leaders, teachers, and peers? If you forget to do your ministering, don’t respond to emails, show up late to meetings, or otherwise make mistakes, do you worry that people attribute these things to race? If you behave in ways that don’t fit the church norm, do you worry people attribute it to your race? Do you see yourself widely represented in Church materials and other media? If you feel isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared in the LDS community, do you fear it’s because of your race? When you think of pioneers, do those people look like you? Can you choose whether the Church’s legacy of racism will affect your religious experience? Would anyone tell you that your skin color is the result of sin? Do you experience the dissonance of attending church with people who support political policies or other rhetoric that oppresses people of your race? I’m quite certain I answered those questions differently than most of you and that does concern me. 

What concerns me is that a common lament I hear from black Saints is that we feel alone or invisible in the very places we surround ourselves with those who have covenanted to be their brothers’ keepers. A friend of mine told me a story where she visited a predominantly black ward on the same weekend that black men Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by police officers. Many in the congregation were still shaken by the events. The counselor conducting the service told the congregation that the bishop, who happens to be white, would like to address the congregation after the final speaker. Brothers and sisters, there was an audible gasp in that chapel. Again, this is a predominantly black ward three days after these high-profile killings that have traumatized much of black America. The anticipation was palpable. The bishop got up and began addressing the congregation with the words, “I’d like to tell you about a trip my family and I took to Idaho . . . .” I don’t know how Jesus felt when he came across Peter after the latter had just denied the former three times, but I suspect it was something like what the black members in that room felt. This happens often enough on a macro level as well. For example, when the Church released a statement on the Paris terror attacks, but not the ones in Kenya around that same time, or when the Church released a statement on the Vegas and synagogue shootings, but not the Charleston Nine. 

What concerns me is that, despite early Saints being subjected to racially motivated and state-sanctioned violence in Missouri, I see today a disturbing number of Saints who are apathetic or hostile toward racial minorities who seek redress for the same. 

In summation, what concerns me is that despite the gospel of Jesus Christ condemning racism, despite just about everyone in this room agreeing that it is bad, and despite the fact that even the white Mormon pioneers experienced racial violence, the Church is still significantly affected by racism, which raises the questions, “Why is this the case?” and “How do we address it?” I’m only interested in answering the former question insomuch as it helps us answer the latter, and I want to point to Brother Darius Gray—former president of the Genesis Group and spiritual mentor to many black Saints—for some answers. 

He writes in an LDS.org blog post on healing the wounds of racism that we must first acknowledge racism. Like I said at the beginning, we don’t really talk about this issue as a church, and contrary to what some may believe, no problem as significant as racism goes away by ignoring it. Ida B. Wells—educator, journalist, and cofounder of NAACP—adds her witness that the only way to right wrongs is to shine a light upon them. Silence is not an option. Silence is complicity with the status quo and an affront to our covenant to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places.” It is an affront our covenant to “comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” It is an affront to the second great commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Brothers and sisters, while I can acknowledge the discomfort of engaging in this difficult conversation, are our covenants not worth far more than our comfort? 

The next thing Darius suggests is taking personal inventory and recognizing racism in ourselves. It’s important to note that most racism isn’t as overt and hostile as wearing a Klan hood or having @apurposefulwife’s Twitter account. Darius gives some examples of what this kind of racism looks like, and I added some more personal examples for good measure: It looks like being proud of yourself for behaving well with someone of a different race. It looks like less compassion toward those of a difference race when they experience poverty, war, famine, crime, etc. It looks like jokes and disparaging remarks related to someone’s race. It looks like being quick to blame the Spanish-speaking ward when something breaks or goes missing in a multi-unit building. It looks like a mission president honoring a request from an investigator to dismiss a brown missionary so he can be taught by two white ones instead. It looks like an apostle complimenting African members on their innate enhanced spirituality without acknowledging that their spiritual resilience and strength may be a natural consequence of surviving centuries of exploitation and colonization. It looks like a white person submitting unsolicited criticism to the seven black women who put on the black LDS legacy conference because she didn’t feel represented. It looks like refusing a deeper look into the gospel and the Church as they relate to people of African descent because we don’t feel that affects us. As King Benjamin said, “I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means,” but we have been counseled to come unto the Lord that he may show us our weaknesses with the promise that he will “make weak things become strong” unto us if we humble ourselves before him. The last tip Darius gives aids us in that pursuit. 

We must listen to those whom we regard as the other. Many years ago, I sang in the BYU Men’s Chorus under the direction of Rosalind Hall. A common word of advice she gave us was to listen louder than we sang. Being able hear those around us put us in a better position to blend with each other, which consequently made us a better-sounding choir. How much better would we be as a church if we listened louder than we sang? I can tell you this is easier said than done, but I must acknowledge that it may be our best shot at reclaiming one another. I bear testimony that this work is honoring our baptismal covenants, it is fulfilling our mission to proclaim the gospel, and it is fulfilling our mission to perfect ourselves and complete our flock that is the human family.

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Given during sacrament meeting at the Longfellow Park meetinghouse in Cambridge, Massachussetts on February 24th, 2019.

[post_title] => Racism [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 52.3 (Fall 2019): 203–208
The only way that you can both help the poor and needy and preach the gospel is if you let go of racism “and help others to do the same.” [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => racism [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 14:55:53 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 14:55:53 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=24204 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19137 [post_author] => 3803 [post_date] => 2019-01-14 01:15:09 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-14 01:15:09 [post_content] =>

No other aspect of Latter-day Saint teachings led to more discussion, ridicule, head-shaking, and even outrage in the twentieth century than the Church’s position regarding Black African priesthood denial.[1] While most American mainstream religious denominations were tainted with irrational racist thinking at one time or another, the majority had shed themselves of racist thought by the 1960s, and some of these denominations even placed themselves at the forefront of the civil rights movement.[2] Other alternative Christian movements that arose in a similar fashion to Mormonism—denominations such as the Disciples of Christ (Campbellites), Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (known now as Community of Christ)—managed to avoid racism as a central teaching altogether. Key Mormon leaders, on the other hand, continued to entertain beliefs in white racial superiority and Black African moral and racial inferiority, which ideas had their origins as a defense of chattel slavery in seventeenth-century America.[3] Numerous books and articles have been written on the topic of LDS Black priesthood denial in all of its various aspects, but this study concentrates on one aspect of the discussion—the so-called “one-drop” rule brought about by the imagined “curse of Cain” and his descendants—and how it adversely affected a single devout Mormon family in rural Utah. Americans in general subscribed to the notion that a single drop of Black African blood was enough to color an entire ocean of whiteness. The idea first developed in the American South, from there spread to the entire United States, has become a codified legal concept, and was accepted by both whites and Blacks alike. Also called the “one black ancestor rule,” the “traceable amount rule,” and by anthropologists the “rule of hypo-descent,” the “one-drop” rule posits that racially mixed persons are assigned the status of the subordinate group, even if they show none of the characteristics of the group to which they are assigned. Thus, to be considered Black in the United States, one only needs to have a known Black African ancestor, no matter how remote.[4] Within the LDS Church, “one drop” of Black African blood denied a Mormon male of all rights to priesthood ordination and his family of access to the most important temple rituals, which are thought to be essential for exaltation in the afterlife. Belief in this doctrine led to a serious amount of grief, frustration, hardship, heartache, and even severe racial identity problems in an otherwise devout Mormon family in the small rural town of Fillmore, Utah. 

By the early part of the twentieth century, Mormon racial doctrine in all of its aspects was solidified. Mormon racism was based on a lineage hierarchy, i.e., there were thought to be “chosen” or “royal” lineages and lineages that were inferior and “cursed.” Mormon leaders and scholars promoted the idea that because of their valiant and heroic efforts in a “war in heaven” during a premortal spiritual life, they had entered mortality as a chosen people to further God’s work on earth and to preserve, administer, and exalt the ordinances of the priesthood. They taught that they had entered mortality, or the “second estate,” through the lineage of Joseph’s son Ephraim, and were thus, along with the Jews, God’s chosen people.[5] Blacks, on the other hand, were said to be inferior because of a divine curse that God had placed on the entire lineage of Adam’s son Cain—the so-called “mark of Cain.” Cain’s descendants inherited a cursed black skin, which survived the Great Flood through Egyptus, who was thought to be a descendant of the biblical Cain, and her husband, Noah’s son Ham. This couple’s son Canaan continued the curse, and his progeny were banned from receiving the priesthood and further condemned to be “servant of servants.” The inferior status of Blacks was determined to be based on their behavior during premortal life in the spirit world. Just as there were noble and great spirits in the premortal existence, there were less valiant, cowardly, and indifferent spirits—those who entered earthly life cursed with a “black covering emblematical of eternal darkness.”[6] These less valiant and morally inferior individuals were barred from receiving the Mormon priesthood and could not participate in the most important sacred temple rituals. Individuals with any known Black African ancestry, no matter how remote, were subject to these restrictions—the so-called “one-drop” rule—even if there were no outward signs of Black African ancestry. Those of the chosen lineage were also warned to never intermarry with the “seed of Cain.” “If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain,” Brigham Young stated in an 1863 speech, “the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.”[7] This racial ideology was given a scriptural proof text with interpretations of various passages in the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, which was canonized in 1880. When the story of the Marshall family begins, there was thus in place a priesthood ban for those thought to have the “blood of Cain” based on First Presidency precedent, interpretations of Mormon scripture, and a culture supportive of Mormon attitudes toward Blacks and those thought to be Black.[8] 

The saga of the Marshall family begins not in Fillmore, Utah, but rather in Crenshaw County, Alabama, a rural area in the Deep South located not far from the state capital of Montgomery, where seminal events of the civil rights movement—events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott made famous by Rosa Parks, the Selma to Montgomery marches, and the Bloody Sunday massacre—took place in the mid twentieth century. There Dorcas Leanna Faulk (1872–1938) was born to Hannah Faulk (1836–1903), a “mulatto” woman who was given a “wide path” by many local citizens because she mixed magic potions, was thought to be capable of casting spells on people, and was believed to have supernatural powers related to witchcraft.[9] Hannah herself was the product of a relationship between a young widow, Nancy Faulk (1802–1887), and an unknown Black man, most likely a slave.[10] Dorcas’s father was Isham Bodiford (1834–1904), a prominent farmer and Civil War veteran who was known as a “busy boy” because of his many amorous adventures.[11] All of the available federal censuses recorded in the state of Alabama list Dorcas as being “mulatto,” a term reserved for mixed-race persons assigned to Black status under the “one-drop” rule.[12]

Almost a decade after Dorcas’s birth, Mormonism arrived in Crenshaw County. Following the Civil War, religion became an even stronger force in the South than it had been before 1860, and it was dominated by evangelical churches with a strong emphasis on a literal interpretation of the Bible and informal and often enthusiastic worship. Strongest among the Protestant denominations were the Baptists and the Methodists—the two denominations accounted for nearly 90 percent of the official church membership in the region—but other groups were also active, including Campbellites, Seventh-day Adventists, Primitive Baptists, and both “Brighamite” and “Josephite” Mormons.[13] The South was viewed as a prime area for proselyting following the Civil War, and a large number of LDS missionaries were sent there. Mormonism was, however, new to the Deep South in the late 1880s and early 1890s, but had already been active in Tennessee, northern Alabama, Virginia, and other southern areas, where it had been met with ridicule, expulsion, violence, whippings, tarring and feathering, and even death to a handful of missionaries and members by vigilante groups.[14] The LDS Church thus faced a tough slog gaining converts in the South. This was especially true in southern urban cities, and Mormon missionaries, therefore, concentrated their efforts in backwoods, rural areas. As Joseph S. Geddes, the president of the Southern Alabama Conference of the Southern States Mission, wrote on April 6, 1895, “In the more metropolitan cities we find the people are much more indifferent to our doctrines than elsewhere.”[15]

Mormon elders first appeared in Crenshaw County in the late 1880s, and as was the case elsewhere in the South, they were met with hostility and stiff resistance. Family stories tell of how Claiborn “Babe” White (1850–1911) and Isham Bodiford, both of whom were large and powerful men, prevented groups of men from whipping, tarring and feathering, and expelling missionaries from the county.[16] Joining Mormonism was difficult and often meant social and familial isolation and ostracism, but by 1895 there was a thriving colony of Mormons in this rural part of the Deep South. Why people accepted the Mormon message is not clear from missionary reports and family records, but join they did. “Uncle Isham,” as he was known to the missionaries, was the chief benefactor of the local branch in Crenshaw County, and he provided food and lodging hundreds of times to the missionaries. Meetings were held on the “Bodiford Old Field,” either out-of-doors when weather permitted or in a large frame building on the property provided by Brother Bodiford. The Sunday School Movement had been sweeping the South for several decades among all Protestant denominations, and a Mormon Sunday School was organized on October 26, 1895 by Elders Joseph Geddes and Joseph West. It was given the name “The Bodiford Sunday School” in honor of Isham. President Geddes established his headquarters on the Bodiford property in LaPine, Alabama. Several large conferences with as many as two hundred attendees were held there in the 1890s and early 1900s. “The Lord is certainly stretching forth his mighty arm and gathering his people, Israel,” wrote an enthusiastic Elder Daniel H. Thomas on March 13, 1897.[17] The branch thrived, and many baptisms were performed. Dorcas Leanna Faulk’s baptism occurred on May 26, 1896. “Our mission is not to the Negroes,” the missionaries were instructed by the legendary president of the Southern States Mission J. Golden Kimball (1853–1938). “We are not to visit nor preach to them. Those who seek for the Gospel we shall teach, but them only.”[18] Dorcas sought out the missionaries aided by her father Isham Bodiford, and she was rewarded with membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Hannah Faulk died in 1903, and Isham Bodiford passed away in 1904. Sometime after October 1904, Dorcas migrated to Utah with Josephine “Josie” Frances Bodiford (1864–1938), Isham’s second wife, whom he married in 1896, and her children. Cousins of the Bodiford family, Elizabeth Bodiford Whitaker (1865–1932) and Sara Jane Bodiford White (1862–1945), had already moved to Utah and settled in the small town of Hatton, near present-day Kanosh, in eastern Millard County.[19] Because of her heavy Southern accent, Dorcas became known as “Darkis” or “Darkus Folk.” A photograph from the early twentieth century shows her as a woman of color; not long after arriving in Fillmore, she married a widower by the name of Jesse Millgate (1840–1922) on December 2, 1905. Even though a Utah law of 1888 prohibited mixed-race marriages, no one in Fillmore seemed to mind at the time. Jesse Millgate was born in Lansdowne, Isle of Sheppey, England, converted to the LDS Church there, migrated to Utah in 1871, and settled in Fillmore in 1874. While still in England, Mr. Millgate married Mary Jane Morris Millgate (1843–1884), and together they raised a family of six girls. Jesse Millgate had already been a prominent member of the Fillmore community for several decades when he married Dorcas Faulk: he had been a brickmaker and mason for a number of years, owned a limestone kiln in Chalk Creek Canyon, learned to be a plasterer or “calsominer,” and for a number of years was the town sexton (sextons in early Utah prepared graves for burial and cared for the town cemeteries).[20] Jesse Millgate was praised for his industriousness in the community, had the reputation of being an upright citizen, and was known to be a faithful member of the LDS Church in Fillmore. Even though Mr. Millgate became a semi-invalid toward the end of his life because of his earlier strenuous physical work, he spent his final years weaving rugs, gardening, and raising his young family.[21] Dorcas gave birth to two daughters, Gussie Millgate Marshall (1907–1990), Jessie Millgate Holley Thornton (1909–1996), and a son, Jeremiah “Jerry” Millgate (1910–1992). These were happy times for the Millgate family, and only ended when the family patriarch passed away on August 19, 1922. 

The 1920s and 1930s were difficult years for Dorcas Faulk Millgate and her young family. She was a single mother raising three young children—the oldest being Gussie, who was only fifteen years old in 1922—on her own under trying circumstances. The family, nevertheless, was known for its hard work and for its faithfulness to the Church. When Dorcas passed away in late December 1938 from cancer, she was described by Nona Hatton Brown (1902–1982), the wife of the Millard Stake President Arthur C. Brown (1899–1992), as having been “a most ambitious and hard working woman,” “honest and upright,” “a faithful tithe payer,” and a “most faithful member of her church” who was “always willing to do her share and more.”

Despite their faith and good works, the family lived a shunned existence because of their known racial heritage. Nona Brown further described Dorcas as “a quiet stranger in our midst” and her life as having known “toil and care” and “bitter loneliness.”[22] Dorcas’s two daughters—Gussie and Jessie—married and raised families in Fillmore, although continuing rumors of the family’s mixed-race heritage made successful marriage difficult for them. The son, Jerry Millgate, fought in Europe during World War II and was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, and though he spent some years in Fillmore, he spent much of his time living in Salt Lake City and the Los Angeles area. 

The eldest daughter, Gussie, married a man named Frank Marshall, though he spent most of the time working away from Fillmore and the family, and to this couple four children were born: Frank Marshall Jr., who was known as “Junior” to most people in Fillmore; Eldon DeRoy; Joyce; and Jesse Ross. Because Dorcas had been known to be a person of color and Gussie herself exhibited some characteristics coded as Black at the time—much more so than her younger sister Jessie Thornton— problems arose for the family when the boys reached priesthood age. They were denied priesthood ordination by the local Church authorities, in keeping with LDS Church policy, and instead were seated in a row behind the deacons when the sacrament was passed during the church service. Local authorities thought this would make the boys feel they were part of the service, even though they could not actively participate. Since they did not look any different from the other boys their age and had no contact whatsoever with Black people or Black culture, they could not understand why they too could not be ordained to the priesthood and have full participation in church activities. The local LDS Church officials could do nothing to help Gussie Marshall with her predicament due to Church policies, so she consulted with Elder Marion G. Romney (1897–1988), who was at the time an assistant to the Council of the Twelve Apostles and was attending the Millard Stake conference on June 4, 1944 on behalf of the Church Welfare Department. Elder Romney, who had been a lawyer and would become one of the longest-serving General Authorities in the history of the LDS Church, had only been called as a member of the third-tier council of the Church in 1941. During this meeting in Fillmore, Gussie Marshall explained her problem and apparently admitted to Elder Romney that there had been a Black progenitor in the family, but the color line had “run out” since none of her children exhibited signs of Black African heritage.

Upon returning to Salt Lake City, Elder Romney consulted with two members of the Quorum of the Twelve: Elder Joseph F. Merrill (1868–1952), who had a PhD in the physical sciences from Johns Hopkins University and who, according to Gordon B. Hinckley, had a “compassionate heart” beneath a “brusque exterior,” and Elder Albert E. Bowen (1875–1953), a former lawyer with a law degree from the University of Chicago.[23] In keeping with long-standing Church policy, these three men determined that the Marshall boys were ineligible for priesthood ordination because of their slight African lineage. In a letter sent to Gussie Marshall dated June 16, 1944, Elder Romney wrote that his “heart is touched with the tragic problems you face,” but male members of the Church “who have a trace of negro blood in their veins, though they themselves show apparently no signs of it, may not receive the priesthood.” He went on to write that this answer would “continue to stand as it does until another ruling is made.” He further stated that life has trials that cannot always be understood, but someday a merciful God will make known the reasons for all our sorrows. He concluded by saying he hoped the Lord “will give you wisdom sufficient for your needs that you may be able to keep your boys true and faithful to the standards and principles of the Gospel, even though they cannot now understand why they are not permitted to hold the priesthood.”[24] Gussie must have been heartbroken at the news of this decision, but she was a strong woman and remained active and steadfast in her belief in the LDS Church in spite of this major setback. She counseled her children to remain faithful to the Mormon Church because she was confident the family would someday enjoy the fullness of the Gospel, and her boys would receive the blessing of priesthood ordination.[25] Her oldest son Frank Marshall Jr. (1931–2017), however, became angry and estranged from the Church because of his priesthood denial and spent most of his adult life living near Pensacola, Florida, where he was a member of the Harold Assembly of God.

As the Marshall children grew older, it became apparent that they possessed considerable talents and abilities, and because of this they were liked and respected by nearly everyone in the community. This was especially true in the field of athletics. Frank Marshall Jr. was a good baseball player, a boxer, and a talented football player, being for a time the quarterback on the Dixie Junior College team in St. George, Utah. The youngest son, Jesse Ross, was a star track runner, a decent football player, and a good student as well. Joyce, the lone daughter, had a sparkling personality. She was elected cheerleader in high school multiple years, was selected as a rodeo queen attendant, played the clarinet well, and was well-liked by everyone. Some in Fillmore even doubted the racial lineage rumors about the Marshall family because Joyce was so pretty, vivacious, talented, and had blond hair.[26] When she attended college at Utah State University, she became a cheerleader and a member of the school’s marching band, although she withdrew from school when other girls shunned her upon hearing rumors of the family’s Black lineage. Exceeding them all in physical talent, however, was the middle child Eldon DeRoy Marshall (1933–2001). Eldon excelled in track, especially the sprints, was a starter on the basketball squad, a star pitcher and center fielder in baseball, and, above all, an outstanding football player. In his senior year, Eldon led Millard High School to its first of many Class B state championships, and he was selected first team all-state halfback. He was even given his own honor assembly on February 8, 1951. On this occasion Hack Miller, sports editor for the Deseret News, presented him with the first Thom McAnbronze football shoe trophy “in recognition of his selection as the most outstanding high school football player during the 1950 football season.”[27] At the same honor assembly, Otto Wiesley presented Eldon with an award as the most outstanding junior American Legion baseball player during the 1950 summer season. Eldon was awarded a football scholarship to the University of Utah and played on the team during the 1951, 1952, and 1956 seasons, although he never achieved the same stardom in college that he did at Millard High School. 

In spite of the children’s achievements, life was almost always a struggle for the Marshall family. Being a single mother with four children to raise, Gussie had to make ends meet as best she could. Good jobs were scarce in rural Fillmore, and Gussie could only find employment in the most menial and low-paying jobs, such as doing maid work in local motels and working in local restaurants. Money was scarce in the Marshall household, as evidenced by Gussie’s frequent appearance on the delinquent property tax rolls published in the local newspaper every year. Even though the family raised a large garden and owned a small farm, existence was difficult for the family most of the time. Most of the citizens of Fillmore were kind to the family, and Gussie was respected for her hard work. The family was active in their local ward, and they were well-respected there. The family participated in church activities and programs in the ward such as musical programs and plays, they went on excursions and trips, Gussie was once made Primary secretary, and the children were always active in the various church youth groups, though the boys were denied priesthood ordination. Stake President Roy Olpin (1909–2002), the local undertaker, even once organized a group of local citizens to improve the housing situation for the Marshall family, although a small minority in town complained about the assistance. There was always, however, the ever-present rumor among the people of Fillmore of racial impurity in the Marshall family line, and this was a very serious problem, resulting in racial identity problems for the entire family. An out-of-town girl visiting her cousin in Fillmore dated Frank “Junior” Marshall, and when she returned, she was told by her mother to never again date that “nigger.”[28] Eldon Marshall later complained that none of the local girls in high school would date him, and one of his female classmates confirmed that she had refused his offer of a date because she feared “falling in love” when “nothing could ever result from the relationship.”[29] The whole lineage question would come to a head in 1957 when Joyce Marshall and her fiancé Paul Anderson decided they wanted their marriage to be solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple.

Eldon Marshall enrolled at the University of Utah in the fall of 1951 on a football scholarship, and at the same time took courses and attended services at the LDS Institute of Religion, which had been established and was directed by Dr. Lowell L. Bennion (1908–1996). Bennion was a noted scholar—having done graduate work in Europe at universities in Erlangen, Vienna, and Strasbourg—humanitarian, and friend of students at the university, and the two men encountered one another in a very emotional way. Following Sunday School one day, Eldon went to Bennion and with tears in his eyes explained how he was asked to pass the sacrament but had to decline since he did not hold the priesthood. When asked why not, Eldon explained how it was believed in his hometown of Fillmore that his grandmother had come from the South and was believed to possess a Black African bloodline. Bennion was flabbergasted at hearing this since Eldon had blue eyes and blond hair. Bennion did not believe in the LDS Church’s teachings regarding race and its priesthood ban. He thought the racial policies had first been enunciated at a time when no one questioned their authenticity, and then a dubious theological structure, based on false premises, had been constructed to bolster them. He also categorically rejected the notion that alleged behavior in a premortal life led to a curse in earthly existence. Bennion made his views known to a few insiders, including President David O. McKay, but later felt he had not been vocal enough condemning the teachings and had “compromised my integrity in not standing up and shouting it from the housetops.”[30] Bennion was also aware that such ideas caused serious problems to individual and family lives, as was the case with Eldon Marshall and his family. 

Lowell Bennion and Eldon Marshall developed a close personal relationship after the emotional encounter. Eldon was often invited to the Bennion home for dinner, and he played football on the back lawn with the Bennion children. Eventually this close contact ceased when Eldon was injured during the 1952 football season and dropped out of school. He then enlisted in the US Army for two years and, upon returning, worked in Salt Lake City at the ZCMI men’s department and at Kennecott Copper Corporation. One day, the same student Dr. Bennion had known years earlier appeared in his office with another perplexing problem. Eldon’s younger sister Joyce, whom Bennion had met years earlier, wanted to be married in the Salt Lake Temple, but she was unable to get temple clearance from her local ecclesiastical authorities. Eldon, in the meantime, had spoken with apostles Mark E. Petersen (1900–1981) and Joseph Fielding Smith, both of whom he had come to know while working at the ZCMI men’s department, where most General Authorities bought their suits, and they had taken the matter up with the Quorum of the Twelve. The bride and groom were interviewed extensively by members of the Twelve, but matters were not proceeding well because of Marion G. Romney’s previous discussions and correspondence with Gussie Marshall concerning priesthood ordination for her sons. Elder Romney, who was now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, discussed the letter he had sent to Gussie Marshall in 1944 with the other members of the Twelve, and this stalled movement toward allowing the temple marriage to proceed. Two racial hard-liners, Elders Smith and Petersen were, interestingly enough, not the main obstacle in the way because they both believed that the rumors of Black ancestry in the Marshall family were false, but rather it was Marion G. Romney who blocked the wedding. With the wedding scheduled for Friday, June 14, 1957, Eldon telephoned Lowell Bennion on Tuesday, June 11 and told him he had given up hope for a positive outcome. But the ever-optimistic Bennion replied, “Let me see what I can do.”[31]

Beginning in 1935, just after he became the founding director of the Institute of Religion at the University of Utah, Bennion developed a close personal relationship with David O. McKay (1873–1970), who in 1951 became the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Paul H. Dunn in a 1995 interview with Gregory Prince told how “Lowell was as close in the 50s to David O. McKay as any outsider ever was.”[32] Bennion telephoned his friend Hugh B. Brown (1883–1975), who like Bennion rejected the LDS Church’s racial ideology and actively sought to abolish the priesthood ban, and he set up an appointment for the institute director to meet with President McKay on Wednesday morning, June 12, 1957. Bennion explained the Marshall wedding situation to President McKay and appealed to his sense of justice, mercy, and fairness by stating, “President McKay, in my experience the gospel builds life. Here I see it tearing it apart, tearing it down.”[33] President McKay responded to Bennion’s plea for help, and although it was almost too late to do anything, he said, “Leave it to me.”[34]

Just one day before the scheduled wedding was to take place, David O. McKay next contacted a number of people familiar with the Marshall family. Since Elder Romney already knew there was Black lineage in the family, he would have been the likely candidate to halt the wedding, but he preferred not to be the one standing in the way of eternal bliss. “I should be perfectly happy,” Romney told President McKay, “to approve your decision.”[35] McKay next spoke with Arthur C. Brown, the former president of the Millard Stake, and when asked about the possibility of “colored blood” in the Marshall family, he replied, “there has always been an understanding that it was there.” When asked if he had known the grandmother “Darkus” Faulk Millgate, President Brown, who had offered the closing prayer at her funeral in 1938, stated, “She certainly looked like there was negro blood there.”[36] In spite of this positive testimony as to Black ancestry in the family, President McKay, who personally favored racial segregation and opposed race-mixing, next telephoned Bennion and asked him if he noticed any indication of Black ancestry in Eldon Marshall. The institute director replied, “No, he said he had talked with a geneticist and he had said that there was no evidence. But there is no evidence of color in the family.”[37] A few years earlier in connection with questions of race in the South African Mission, President McKay had established the policy that if racial origins were based only on rumor, the person in question should be given the benefit of doubt and allowed priesthood ordination. Since there was some question in his mind in this case after speaking with Bennion, President McKay decided to allow the wedding to take place, being of the opinion that if he erred on the side of mercy, a loving God would forgive him of the error.[38] He next spoke with Paul Anderson, the anxious groom, and told him, “I do not see how you can make it, but I think we shall let you go through the Temple.”[39] Later that evening, President McKay spoke with Roy Olpin, the Fillmore Stake president, and authorized him and Bishop Lloyd Mitchell (1918–2008) to issue the temple recommend for Joyce Marshall since there was no “absolute proof” of Black ancestry in the family. Upon learning of President McKay’s decision to allow the wedding to take place, President Olpin declared, “We haven’t better people than the Marshall family in the ward.”[40] President Olpin also authorized the granting of a temple recommend to Gussie Marshall so she could attend the wedding sealing. 

The Anderson/Marshall wedding was a whirlwind affair: Joyce Marshall’s temple recommend was only signed on the evening of June 13, the couple got up very early the next morning to travel to the Salt Lake Temple, and after the sealing ceremony, the entourage drove all the way back to Fillmore—a distance of about 150 miles on windy roads through all the towns between Fillmore and Salt Lake City—for the reception hosted by Gussie Marshall. “Popular Young Couple United in Marriage” read the headline in the local newspaper. The reception was well attended—“the gift room was filled to capacity with gifts”—and it was a joyous occasion for all concerned.[41] The dream of a temple marriage reached fruition for the young couple, and Gussie’s lifelong desire to go through the temple to receive her endowment was fulfilled.

Most everyone in town was thrilled at the proceedings since Paul and Joyce were well-liked and respected, but not everyone was pleased. Since the earliest beginnings of Mormonism, there has existed a sense of exclusiveness in the organization, and there were a few in Fillmore who felt that perhaps President McKay had overstepped his bounds in allowing the marriage to take place in the temple—doing so allowed people to enter the holy edifice who were, in some minds, not entitled to do so. Linda King Newell, the co-author of both the definitive work on Emma Smith and an excellent history of Millard County, recalls how news of the wedding spread like wildfire throughout the community and the surrounding area. Although only a high school student at the time, she remembers going to Kelly’s Store, where the bridal registry was kept, and overhearing the clerk and a customer discussing the wedding and saying, “Can you believe what David O. McKay allowed to happen?”[42] In 1957, there were still many residents in east Millard County who had known Dorcas Faulk Millgate personally, and thus rumors of Black ancestry in the Marshall family persisted. 

Other radical changes took place in the Fillmore Third Ward following the Anderson/Marshall wedding. On Sunday, June 23, 1957, Jesse Ross Marshall and his cousin Leonard Royal Thornton were ordained and sustained as priests in the Aaronic Priesthood, and the younger Jay Ralph Thornton was ordained to the office of teacher.[43] A week later Eldon Marshall, who was working in Salt Lake City at the time, was ordained to the office of priest.[44] A few months later Eldon was ordained an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood by Lowell Bennion. Later he was called to serve as a missionary in the Northern States Mission headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, where he labored in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Nebraska from 1957 to 1959. Eldon’s missionary testimonial took place on October 27, 1957, and the featured speakers were Lloyd P. George (1920–1996), who would later become Fillmore Stake president and still later a General Authority, and Lowell Bennion, who drove all the way from Salt Lake City to Fillmore to participate in the missionary farewell. David O. McKay’s decision to allow the temple wedding for the Marshall family and priesthood ordination for the worthy males thus bore immediate fruits, and it had long-term positive results as well. Eldon would later serve a mission in Kentucky with his wife, his brother Ross would spend many years as a seminary teacher and school principal in various locations in the Intermountain West, their cousin Jay Thornton would serve a mission in the Gulf States Mission and spend twenty years working for the LDS Church as an accountant, and Paul and Joyce Anderson would occupy a host of leadership positions in the Church in Utah and California and preside over the Australia Melbourne Mission from 1995 to 1998. President McKay’s decision to bypass rumor and hate in favor of “building lives rather than tearing them apart” proved to be the wise and correct decision as Lowell Bennion insisted it would. 

Jesse Ross Marshall (1936–1997) had an outstanding academic career. He completed two years of general education at the College of Southern Utah in Cedar City, acquired a bachelor’s degree in education with a major in zoology from Brigham Young University, achieved a master’s degree in educational administration from BYU, and was awarded an education specialist certificate from the University of Utah. He joined the Church Education System and taught seminary in Moreland, Idaho, and was the seminary principal as well. He later moved to Missoula, Montana and became an institute instructor at the University of Montana, while simultaneously acting as coordinator of early morning seminaries in northern Montana. From 1969 to 1982 Ross was employed as a high school principal in Sunburst, Montana; North Summit High School in Coalville, Utah; and North Sevier High School in Salina, Utah. At the same time, he served in a number of leadership positions in the LDS Church, including bishop of the Wanship Ward in Summit County, Utah.[45] Although members of his family never complained about rumors of Black African blood, it bothered them a lot, and Ross developed a seething resentment toward the people of Fillmore. It became such an obsession that he eventually wrote a book cataloging injustices imposed upon the Marshall family by many of the people of Fillmore with their constant flow of gossip concerning Black African lineage. Eventually the obsession became so overwhelming that Ross contacted Elder Marion D. Hanks (1921–2011), whom he had met while employed in the seminary system and who was a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Elder Hanks arranged a meeting between Ross Marshall and the First Presidency, including President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985). The meeting took place in the Church Office Building on April 13, 1977 and was a rather lengthy affair in which [Ross vented his numerous complaints against some of the people of Fillmore for their rumormongering, and it concluded with President Kimball and the other members of the First Presidency giving Ross Marshall a blessing through the laying on of hands.[46]

Overcome by the anguish expressed by Jesse Ross Marshall, President Kimball, accompanied by his personal secretary D. Arthur Haycock (1916–1994) and the second counselor in the First Presidency, Marion G. Romney, made the decision to drive to Fillmore in order to participate in the Fillmore Utah Stake conference on April 17, 1977 “to endeavor to resolve a problem of a Brother Ross Marshall that has been troubling him for a number of years.”[47] Quarterly stake conference was usually well-attended, but when word was announced that the prophet of the Lord would be attending the meeting, “an overflow crowd was waiting in the Stake House to welcome him.”[48] Ross Marshall was the first speaker, and he told how he had lived his life with the rumor of Black African lineage that had supposedly been cleared up by President David O. McKay in 1957. He told of how he had hatred in his heart for the people of Fillmore, had written a four hundred–page book in which he chastised those who had spread rumors, and stated that he would destroy the book before its publication. He asked the people of Fillmore to forgive him “that this great burden be lifted from him.”[49] President Kimball followed as the second speaker. He said that a few people had been persecuting the Marshall family over Black African heritage, and “after this day not a word will ever be heard or spoken concerning this matter. And if it is shall be squelched immediately.” He went on to say the matter should be “buried forever,” and “if anyone ever hears this matter discussed they should be told it is not true.”[50] President Romney then cautioned everyone present to “always speak the truth” and “be careful to comply with the instructions of the President of the Church,” and he bore his testimony that President Kimball “is a living mouthpeace [sic] of the Lord.”[51] Stake president Lloyd P. George concluded by stating, “we have heard the word of the Lord. And we vow that we will take heed to the council [sic], and we will kill this rumor that has gone forth from this area.”[52] Those attending the conference left with the feeling that they would be endangering their eternal salvation and even their current Church membership if these rumors persisted, and there was a definite and perceptible decline in rumors concerning the matter following President Kimball’s visit and chastisement. Most people in Fillmore, Utah are reluctant to discuss the matter even some forty years later.[53]

In spite of President Kimball’s unscheduled visit to the Fillmore Stake conference in 1977 and his call for a halt to rumors of Black African ancestry in the Marshall family, problems did not end there. Many in Fillmore resented the fact that Ross Marshall had brought so much unwanted attention to their community through a chastising visit by the prophet of the Lord and his counselor, and he was very unpopular in the town after that. Additionally, there was the problem of racial identity in the family. The Marshall family worldview was deeply influenced in a negative way by the rumor of “tainted” blood in the family.[54] All of the Marshall children—who identified with white Mormon culture and had no connection whatever with Black people or Black culture—suffered serious racial identity problems because they were assigned to an inferior “cursed” lineage through the application of the hypodescent or “one-drop” rule. Frank Marshall Jr. became deeply embittered toward the LDS Church and found spiritual comfort in the Assembly of God denomination, Eldon Marshall expressed deep sadness to Lowell Bennion about not being allowed priesthood ordination and even consulted a genetics expert as a college student in order to be sure of his racial identity, and Joyce Marshall Anderson suffered traumatic ostracism as a college student and was always haunted by rumors of Black ancestry that followed her everywhere she lived.[55] One immediate family member confirmed that rumors of Black ancestry in the family were a problem “like you would never know” and were a source of heartache, trauma, and tragedy for everyone concerned.[56] It was Jesse Ross Marshall, however, who suffered most deeply and tragically from racial identity problems. He became a “marginal man” due in large part to his racial identity angst: he failed to find peace within himself even after a prophet’s blessing and intervention, his marriage floundered and ended in divorce, and he died by suicide in 1997.[57]

President Spencer W. Kimball, who had been greatly concerned about the LDS Church’s racial policies and the priesthood and temple bans for many years before his visit to Fillmore in 1977, began in the spring of 1978 an earnest attempt to come to grips with changing these long-standing policies. After weeks of intense fasting, pleading, and prayer aimed at lifting the priesthood and temple restrictions on Black members of African descent, President Kimball at last on Thursday, June 1, 1978 received firm confirmation to reverse Church policies that had been in place since 1852. This “most dramatic moment of the Kimball administration” and “highlight of Church history in the twentieth century” has been canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants under the title “Official Declaration 2.”[58] Although the revelation on the priesthood had immediate and far-reaching repercussions for the LDS Church, it was, nevertheless, an incomplete measure in that it failed to address the broader question of Mormon racist ideology that had been so important to every Church leader since the administration of Brigham Young. The LDS Church continued to publish books containing racist ideas by influential authors such as Joseph Fielding Smith and his son-in-law Bruce R. McConkie (1915–1985), and professors of religion at Brigham Young University still taught discredited racist myths in their classrooms. The official position was at first to allow “[t]he 1978 official declaration to speak for itself.”[59] Racial prejudice remained a continuing problem within Mormonism, however, and on April 2006 at a priesthood session of general conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) said, “I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ. Nor can he consider himself to be in harmony with the teachings of the Church of Christ. . . . Brethren, there is no basis for racial hatred among the priesthood of the Church.”[60] That same year apostle Jeffrey R. Holland referred to past racist ideas within Mormonism as “folklore” in an interview with Helen Whitney for the PBS production entitled The Mormons. It was not, however, until Randy Bott, a professor of religion at BYU, expressed ideas that Black people were under the “curse of Cain,” had been less valiant in a premortal life, and had not been ready to receive the priesthood in response to questions from a Washington Post reporter in 2012—the year Mitt Romney was seeking the presidency of the United States—that the LDS Church officially renounced earlier racist thinking on the part of Church leaders.[61] On December 6, 2013, the Church issued the Gospel Topics essay “Race and the Priesthood” on its official website LDS.org, in which it was declared that the Church “disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine dishonor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior to anyone else.”[62]

The LDS Church had finally formally abandoned its problematic past racist positions, but it was, sadly enough, not done in a more formal setting such as a declaration by the president of the Church in general conference or a First Presidency manifesto, and it was about seventy years too late to help the Marshall family, seriously burdened as it was by policies based on racial mythology.[63]

---

[1] The inspiration for this study came from an address delivered by Dr. Gregory A. Prince entitled “Lowell Bennion, David O. McKay, Race, and Priesthood” at the symposium accompanying the 2014 Sterling M. McMurrin Lecture on Religion and Culture. The symposium was called “Faith and Reason, Conscience and Conflict: The Paths of Lowell Bennion, Sterling McMurrin, and Obert Tanner” and was held on April 12, 2014 at the Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building on the campus of the University of Utah. 

[2] Northern Church opposition to segregation by the 1950s is well known. Less well known is opposition to segregation among Southern clergymen. Southern segregationist politicians in the South in the 1950s and 1960s tended to view their Southern white churches as their enemy. Southern Baptists and Southern Presbyterians went on record in favor of desegregation in the mid-1950s, as did the Methodists in a national vote. Billy Graham, the most famous Southern Baptist, shared his pulpit at a New York City crusade with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he also endorsed what he called the “social revolution” Dr. King was leading in the South. Graham would not allow segregated seating at his crusades, even at those held in the South. See David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 141–42.

[3] See David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), 142. 

[4] F. James Davis, Who Is Black?: One Nation’s Definition (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 5.

[5] Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 24–30. In addition to Armand Mauss’s classic treatise on Mormonism and race, there are a host of excellent studies on the subject: Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68; Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981); and Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015). Twentieth-century Mormon views on racial lineage are contained in two influential works by prominent LDS Church leaders: Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr., The Way to Perfection (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1931), and Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958).

[6] Smith, The Way to Perfection, 103. 

[7] Quoted in Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 43.

[8] Ibid., 44–45.

[9] Dorcas was likely named after the woman in Acts 9:36–42 who was raised from the dead by the Apostle Peter. 

[10] In the antebellum South, liaisons between white women and Black men were grudgingly tolerated, especially if the white woman was of the poorer class. See Martha Hodes, White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), 1–3. 

[11] For a discussion of Isham Bodiford’s Civil War activities, see Margaret M. Storey, Loyalty and Loss: Alabama’s Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004), 69, and the Southern Claims Commission File Number 17530, Sworn Before George H. Patrick, Special Commissioner on Aug. 30, 1875. On Isham’s amorous adventures, see Chris Jarvis, “Isham Was a Busy Boy,” Oct. 4, 2010, https://www.ancestry.ca/ family-tree/tree/18478156/story/e793c3cb-a6a7-42a0-8fe2-c6ec917db572. Information on Hannah Faulk is contained in Sue Faulk Todhunter, Our Matriarch: Nancy Faulk (Lacey’s Spring, Ala.: R. G. Todhunter, 2003), ii. Black women in the South were often leaders in and practitioners of African-derived forms of popular or folk religion, which evolved during and continued after emancipation. Focusing on magic and the supernatural, it involved healing and harming beliefs and practices. See Deborah Gray White, Mia Bay, and Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, 2 vols. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013), 2:383.

[12] Interestingly enough, the 1910 and 1920 censuses in Fillmore, Utah list Dorcas’s race as being “white,” but the 1930 census records her as being “Negro.” 

[13] William Warren Rogers, Robert David Ward, Leah Rawls Atkins, and Wayne Flynt, Alabama: The History of a Deep South State (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994), 274. 

[14] Patrick Q. Mason, The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 133–43.

[15] Joseph S. Geddes, South Alabama Conference Manuscript History and Historical Reports, Apr. 6, 1895, LR176782, folder L, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[16] Millard County Progress, Dec. 23, 1938, 1.

[17] Daniel H. Thomas, South Alabama Conference Manuscript History and Historical Reports, Mar. 13, 1897, LR176782, folder 1, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[18] Charles S. Cottam Missionary Journal (1891–1897), MS 21106, 33, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[19] Sara Jane Bodiford married Claiborn White, who was also from Crenshaw County, Alabama, and together they moved to Mesa, Arizona. Their grandson Wilford “Whizzer” White (1928–2013) played football for Arizona State University and was halfback for a short time with the Chicago Bears. His son Danny White played for the Sun Devils and was the punter and longtime quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL.

[20] Millard County Progress, Aug. 25, 1922, and Edward Leo Lyman and Linda King Newell, A History of Millard County (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1999), 157. 

[21] Millard County Progress, Aug. 25, 1922, 1.

[22] Ibid., Dec. 23, 1938, 1.

[23] Gordon B. Hinckley, “Church Mourns Passing of Elder Joseph F. Merrill,” Improvement Era 55, no. 3 (March 1952): 147.

[24] Marion G. Romney to Gussie Marshall, June 16, 1944, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. The papers of Marion G. Romney are currently closed to the public, and the author wishes to thank the Restricted Access Committee at the Church History Library for providing a copy of the correspondence for this study. 

[25] Interview with Lamar Melville in Salt Lake City on September 22, 2018. Mr. Melville, who was for many years a city judged in Wendover, Utah, was a neighbor of the Marshall family in Fillmore. He was a close personal friend, went to church and school with, and participated in team sports with Eldon Marshall. Gussie Marshall was at one time his Sunday School teacher.

[26] Interview with Bishop Jerrold Warner in Fillmore, Utah, July 11, 2014.

[27] Millard County Progress, Feb. 2, 1951, 1.

[28] Interview with a former classmate of the Marshalls who wishes to remain anonymous in Salt Lake City, June 29, 2014. 

[29] Interview with a former classmate of the Marshalls who wishes to remain anonymous in Fillmore, Utah, July 11, 2014.

[30] Mary Lythgoe Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian (Salt Lake City: Dialogue Foundation, 1995), 93–94. See also Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 79.

[31] Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion, 165.

[32] Prince, “Lowell Bennion, David O. McKay, Race, and the Priesthood.”

[33] Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion, 165. 

[34] Ibid., 166. 

[35] Telephone conversation between David O. McKay and Marion G. Romney, June 13, 1957, David O. McKay Collection 668, box 39, University of Utah Special Collections.

[36] Telephone conversation between David O. McKay and Arthur C. Brown, June 13, 1957, David O. McKay Collection 668, box 39, University of Utah Special Collections.

[37] Telephone conversation between David O. McKay and Lowell L. Bennion, June 13, 1957, David O. McKay Collection 668, box 39, University of Utah Special Collections. 

[38] Prince and Wright, David O. McKay, 77–79. 

[39] Telephone conversation between David O. McKay and Paul Anderson, June 13, 1957, David O. McKay Collection 668, box 39, University of Utah Special Collections. 

[40] Telephone conversation between David O. McKay and Roy Olpin, June 13, 1957, David O. McKay Collection 668, box 39, University of Utah Special Collections. 

[41] Millard County Progress, June 21, 1957.

[42] Interview with Linda King Newell in Salt Lake City, Aug. 6, 2014.

[43] Millard County Progress, June 28, 1957, 3. 

[44] Millard County Progress, July 5, 1957, 3.

[45] “Death: Jesse Ross Marshall,” Deseret News, Apr. 24, 1997, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/556615/Death-Jesse-Ross-Marshall.html.

[46] Spencer W. Kimball journal entry for Wednesday, Apr. 13, 1977. The journal entry was provided to the author by Edward L. Kimball, President Kimball’s son. 

[47] Spencer W. Kimball journal entry for Sunday, Apr. 17, 1977.

[48] Millard County Progress, Apr. 27, 1977, 1. 

[49] Fillmore, Utah Stake Record, recorded by Max L. Day and signed by President Lloyd P. George, Sunday, Apr. 17, 1977.

[50] Ibid. 

[51] Ibid. 

[52] Ibid. 

[53] In conducting many interviews with people who attended the Fillmore Stake conference, the author could only find a limited number willing to discuss the proceedings, and nearly all prefer to remain anonymous. 

[54] The American Psychological Association does not recognize racial identity as a disorder in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), but many believe it should be included. See Davis, Who is Black?, 150–56 for a discussion of how racial identity caused serious psychological problems for the singer and actress Lena Horne. There have been a host of studies on problems created by racial identity. See, for example, Margarita Azmitia, “Reflections on the Cultural Lenses of Identity Development,” in The Oxford Handbook of Identity Development, edited by Kate C. McLean and Moin Syed (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 286–96, and Frank C. Worrell, “Culture as Race/Ethnicity,” in The Oxford Handbook of Identity Development, 249–68. 

[55] Interview with Joyce Anderson’s sister-in-law Madge Warner in Fillmore, Utah, Dec. 7, 2015. 

[56] Telephone interview with an immediate family member who prefers to remain anonymous in Salt Lake City, June 7, 2014. 

[57] Many have told the author of Ross Marshall’s suicide. Most recently a friend and neighbor of the family, who has known the family for more than eight decades, confirmed this in an interview in Fillmore, Utah, July 24, 2017.

[58] Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood,” BYU Studies 47, no. 2 (2008): 5, and Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball, Working Draft (Salt Lake City: Benchmark Books, 2010), 309. 

[59] Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 131.

[60] Ibid., 133. 

[61] Ibid., 139. For a complete discussion of the Randy Bott incident, see Mat thew L. Harris, “Mormonism’s Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine,” The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 33, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2013): 90–114. 

[62] “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics, Dec. 2013, https://www.lds.org/ topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng. 

[63] That racism still exists in LDS congregations can be inferred by a statement published recently in the Church News: “White supremacist attitudes are morally wrong and sinful, and we condemn them. Church members who promote or pursue a ‘white culture’ or white supremacy agenda are not in harmony with the teachings of the Church” (“Statement on Racism,” Church News, Aug. 19, 2017, 2).

[post_title] => One Devout Mormon Family’s Struggle with Racism [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 155–180
This article tells the impact of LDS racial teachings on a single family history, the Marshalls, from Alabama in the 19th c. to Filmore, Utah in the present. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => one-devout-mormon-familys-struggle-with-racism [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 16:34:21 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 16:34:21 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19137 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19135 [post_author] => 3456 [post_date] => 2019-01-14 01:17:40 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-14 01:17:40 [post_content] =>

I want to begin by reading a prose poem to give context to my remarks on Black bodies and reconciliation. It is entitled “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid. 

How soft is the blackness as it falls. It falls in silence and yet it is deafening, for no other sound except the blackness falling can be heard. The blackness falls like soot from a lamp with an untrimmed wick. The blackness is visible and yet it is invisible, for I see that I cannot see it. The blackness fills up a small room, a large field, an island, my own being. The blackness cannot bring me joy but often I am made glad in it. The blackness cannot be separated from me but often I can stand outside it. The blackness is not the air, though I breathe it. The blackness is not the earth, though I walk on it. The blackness is not water or food, though I drink and eat it. The blackness is not my blood, though it flows through my veins. The blackness enters my many-tiered spaces and soon the significant word and event recede and eventually vanish: in this way I am annihilated and my form becomes formless and I am absorbed into a vastness of free-flowing matter. In the blackness, then, I have been erased. I can no longer say my own name. I can no longer point to myself and say “I.” In the blackness my voice is silent. First, then, I have been my individual self, carefully banishing randomness from my existence, then I am swallowed up in the blackness so that I am one with it. The black body is a racialized assemblage of the physical, spiritual, and emotional form. This form inhabits a peculiar existence within the American consciousness. In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. DuBois referred to freed black people as “refugees.” Author Michelle M. Wright, in Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, describes African Americans as individuals fixed in the dwelling of the settler colonialist. Both point to a people in suspension. It is in suspension that the black individual crafts an identity, upheld by social, theological, and political discourses predicated on categorization. Likewise, black Latter-day Saints negotiate their subjectivity in the backdrop of a Church body embedded in its racialized history. My remarks are reflections on the suspended as well as the suspension itself.

I acknowledge that “Black,” “Blackness,” and Black bodies differ across time and space. Varied socio-political exchanges between indigenous groups in Africa, citizens of the Afro Atlantic, and white Europeans make it challenging to define a monolithic Black identity. Still, I predicate my remarks on the belief that Mormonism is, arguably, a uniquely American religion. As such, I’ve formed my opinion around reflections on the construction of race in America as a social artifact, an artifact assembled by social, theological, and political theories and practices exchanged between institutions and individuals. In other words, I posit that race is a process of being and becoming. Black Latter-day Saints became Black through the enfleshment of the curse of Cain—whether one identified as Haitian, Ghanian, or Malian, among others—in the Mormon imagination.

Mormonism incorporated prevailing American ideas on race, championing a “pure and delightsome” white subject, the inherently guilty Black Other, and the significance of lineage in determining both, over the course of the latter half of the nineteenth century into the twentieth century. The condemnation of Blackness rang heavily within nineteenth-century America’s flourishing religious landscape. Though some groups and individuals supported abolitionist or integrated visions of community, pro-slavery advocates and segregationists often nodded to the curse of Ham to justify chattel slavery. Meanwhile, pro-slavery preachers used scriptural references to slavery to embolden the enslaved to remain obedient. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, author Harriet Jacobs recalls the words of a white reverend. She wrote: 

The reverend gentleman knelt in prayer, then seated himself, and requested all present, who could read, to open their books, while he gave out the portions he wished them to repeat or respond to. His text was, ‘Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.’ 

Here, the “reverend gentleman” establishes an association between Christ and the slave master.

Lineage, as we know, underscored the creation and maintenance race in the Mormon imagination for some time. What we do not speak about in enough detail is the co-constitution of race, theo-ideologies, and lineage. Israelite lineage played a role in the development of what womanist theologian Kelly Brown-Douglas calls the “Anglo-Saxon myth.” The conflation of Israelite narratives and the racialization of bodies, Brown-Douglas notes, gave rise to a theo-ideology that recognized white frames as sacred and protected. The Anglo-Saxon myth sustained the belief that God created the white body in God’s image. The existence of the Black body, then, existed as its opposite: dangerous, unruly, and, at times, demonic.

During a confrontation in 2014, Darren Wilson, a police officer then employed by the Ferguson Police Department, shot Michael Brown, a Black eighteen-year-old from Ferguson, Missouri. When asked about the incident, Wilson stated that at one point, Michael Brown appeared to him as a demon. His words evoked the imagery of the battle between good and evil, in which good ultimately prevails. In this way, Wilson’s rhetoric implicates Michael Brown’s Black body as something to be defeated, thus justifying his death. Whether Darren Wilson saw the face of a demon moments before he ended Michael Brown’s life is not the question. Instead, what are the implications of the connection made between Blackness, evil, and sin? 

Nineteenth-century sociopolitical thought situated free Black bodies as the opposite of Western standards of reason, virtue, and purity. Though then prophet-President Joseph Smith campaigned on an anti-slavery platform in 1844, he once warned that abolition would “set loose upon the world a community of people who might peradventure, overrun our country and violate the most sacred principles of human society, chastity, and virtue.”[1] Among his white Christian contemporaries, Smith was not alone in his beliefs about the supposed dangers posed by free Black people. Though the priesthood and temple restrictions did not originate in Smith’s lifetime, American civil and religious discourses on race arguably underlined his and other early LDS Church leaders’ interpretations of relationships between white and Black individuals. Also, it is these explanations, disseminated among the Church body, which bore a theology of racial difference. In the Mormon imagination, the priesthood and temple restrictions converged at the points of racialization, materiality, and theology, inscribing the curse of Cain into flesh. No longer able to fully participate in their faith tradition, Black members of the LDS faith had to redefine their relationships with God, the LDS Church as an institution, other members, and themselves.

In Black Skin, White Masks, sociologist Frantz Fanon describes an experience of alienation through his first encounter with the white gaze. He explains: 

‘Look, a Negro!’ It was an external stimulus that flicked over me as I passed by. I made a tight smile. 

‘Look, a Negro!’ It was true. It amused me. 

‘Look, a Negro!’ The circle was drawing a bit tighter. I made no secret of my amusement.

“Mama, see the Negro! I’m frightened!” Frightened! Frightened! Now they were beginning to be afraid of me. I made up my mind to laugh myself to tears, but laughter had become impossible.[2]

And then the occasion arose when I had to meet the white man’s eyes. An 

unfamiliar weight burdened me.[3]

Fanon spoke of the disorientation that occurs when one’s bodily schema is challenged and distorted beyond comprehension. He internalized this gaze—the watchful eye of a child tied to a past that trapped white and Black individuals in perpetuity.

From the time in which early LDS Church leaders implemented the racial restrictions to the present, Black and white Latter-day Saints have been engrossed in the past from which neither can easily escape. Elder Bruce R. McConkie in 1978 admonished members to: 

Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.[4]

As much we may hope that one would disregard the explicitly racial teachings of the past, the significance of corporeality in the Mormon imagination is such that Mormonism’s racial wounds run deep. Without a thoughtful consideration of the impact of the priesthood and temple restrictions, their legacy manifests in implicit and explicit ways.

Here, Black Saints negotiate their identity concerning faith, reli gious practice, culture, and history. Am I Black first and Mormon second? Alternatively, am I Mormon first and Black second? The answer may mean the difference between recognition or rejection by the broader community. As one who practices Mormonism, I know that the restrictions are a part of my identity. It is my Black body that was believed to be cursed. However, to internalize that means annihilating a part of myself. Something very curious happens when the images of the divine that reside in holy places don’t look like you. Moreover, though the restrictions dissolved, the revelatory voices continue to come from white Western lips. When you’re told that you should marry someone who shares similar cultural values—knowing the interconnectedness between culture, ethnicity, and race—microaggressions turn into macroaggressions.

“But you’re not like other Black people.”

“Oh, I have a Black friend in the ward.”

“There’s a difference between these two areas we served in—the other area is more ghetto; this area has more educated people.”

When you’re called a nigger in the temple, one may begin to wonder: was I cursed?

To go about the work of healing the Black body within the Mormon imagination, we look toward an alternative vision that acknowledges it in its entirety. I speak not only to the LDS Church as an institution but to the body of Mormonism itself.

Ask yourselves, do representations of Blackness and deep skin tones in Mormonism embody the call that “all are alike unto God”? How would you react to a depiction of God with black or brown skin? Would you find comfort? Representation—not in pursuit of managing a quota or the placation of guilt—is the counter-narrative to the construction of race within the Mormon imagination. We find wholeness in seeing ourselves in the eternal in that we recognize that our existence is not an aberration, but instead, it is intentional. Speaking

to Black Latter-day Saints, this includes seeing yourselves. “(There Is) A Balm in Gilead” references Jeremiah 8:22, and also, an African American spiritual. The first verse of that spiritual reads as follows, 

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole; 
There is a balm in Gilead 
To heal the sin-sick soul.

The balm is the hope found in Christ, whose life and ministry provided an alternative vision for those at the margins, a vision of healing, a vision of hope, a vision that makes the wounded whole. It is in this alternative vision that the work of reconciliation begins. Because when you see people as God sees us, in understanding all of us, it is indeed transformative.

---

[1] Joseph Smith, Letter to Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, Ohio, ca. Apr. 9, 1836; Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, 2, no. 7 (Apr. 1836): 289–91, The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/ letter-to-oliver-cowdery-circa-9-april-1836/1. 

[2] Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, translated by Charles Lam Markmann, forewords by Ziauddin Sardar and Homi K. Bhabha (London: Pluto Press, 2008 [1986]), 84. 

[3] Fanon, Black Skin, 83.

[4] Bruce R. McConkie, “All Are Alike unto God,” BYU Speeches, Aug. 18, 1978, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-r-mcconkie_alike-unto-god-2/.

[post_title] => Roundtable: A Balm in Gilead: Reconciling Black Bodies within a Mormon Imagination [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 185–192
“As much we may hope that one would disregard the explicitly racial teachings of the past, the significance of corporeality in the Mormon imagination is such that Mormonism’s racial wounds run deep. With-out a thoughtful consideration of the impact of the priesthood and temple restrictions, their legacy manifests in implicit and explicit ways.” [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => roundtable-a-balm-in-gilead-reconciling-black-bodies-within-a-mormon-imagination [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 15:20:18 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 15:20:18 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19135 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19134 [post_author] => 2160 [post_date] => 2019-01-14 01:18:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-14 01:18:00 [post_content] =>

Growing up in a Mormon home, I was raised on genealogy. Both sets of grandparents led back through four generations of devout Mormon stock who had left England or Ireland to come join Joseph Smith’s new church in America. On the Turley side (my paternal grandfather), after being converted by Parley P. Pratt in Canada, Theodore Turley moved to Kirtland, Ohio in 1838 and followed the Saints to Nauvoo. The Wilson line (my paternal grandmother) goes back to Robert Wilson, born in 1612 in Warwickshire and dying in London in 1644. The Udalls (my maternal grandfather) were called by Brigham Young to settle northern Arizona and became a sprawling, proud family of lawyers, judges, teachers, a congressman, and the Secretary of the Interior in John F. Kennedy’s administration. The Lees (my beloved maternal grandmother) were a funny, close, and tragic lot, being direct descendants of John D. Lee of Mountain Meadows infamy.

My great uncle Jesse Udall had the habit of exclaiming at every gathering that the Udalls were the royal family, without batting an ironic eyelash. I was trained to believe that my Mormon ancestors and their tales of pioneer hardship in the service of the Church made me royal too. Even with that tainted Lee streak—we knew John D. was a scapegoat for Brigham and became, for us, a kind of hero in refusing to escape the kangaroo courts put together to convict him as, purportedly singlehandedly, he killed 120 men, women, and children. We were happy, when, after three decades of searching, our maiden Aunt Elma cracked the code of where the Udalls came from in England—and even found living relatives there in Kent. The Lee line stopped with John D.’s father, the rapscallion Ralph Lee, who lived in Kaskaskia, Illinois in the early 1800s before absconding to unknown parts.

In 2015 I decided I wanted to learn even more about my genealogy and asked to have my DNA tested as a Christmas present. I wanted to know if one of my great grandmothers was Swiss Italian and if the Turleys really did go back to Ireland (MacToirdealbaigh) or if it was possible that the line went back to the south of France and was of Norman origin. I have been partial to France and the French language all my life and also loved the idea of being Irish or Italian. I also felt that I might get a little unexpected twist of je ne sais quoi in the DNA study. And, indeed, French, which so powerfully says so many things that can’t be said in any other language, has a wonderful word that described my reaction perfectly: “frisson.” I felt a shiver, a shudder, a pleasure mixed with utter surprise when I received the DNA results.

No surprise in the 47.5 percent British/Irish. A bit of a skitter with the 7.2 percent Scandinavian, but not surprised in afterthought for we know the Vikings made their presence felt in the British Isles. A warm grace in 18.9 percent German/French/Swiss. But the wonder, the incroyable moment—the frisson—was in learning that I was .1 percent of Central African and African hunter-gatherer descent. Immediately, the academic in me wanted to know all the ins and outs, hows, whys, wheres, and whos of this unforeseen knowledge about myself and my heritage.

Where to begin in answering all those questions? But at the most basic level, I simply liked that I was from Africa. The percentage was small but the jolt large and wondrous. In the nineteenth century, the United States had the one-drop rule about race: if you had one drop of African blood you were considered to be Black. Strangely this absurd doctrine couldn’t consider it the other way around, that one drop of white blood might make one white. I don’t know how to set my experience against that hypodescent notion of race. Nor do I know how to set this knowledge against what I have been teaching for years: that gender and race are fictional entities imposed by disciplinary institutional structures. The fictionality of those categories cannot negate, of course, the very real and painful effects of racism and sexism.

Then a year later or so the website that tested my DNA gave more information. They created an “Ancestry Timeline” for each ancestry line I came from, showing “How many generations ago was your most recent ancestor for each population.” For my African hunter-gatherer population the most recent ancestor was between 1680 and 1770, six to nine generations back. Further, it was noted that this particular ancestor was likely to “have descended from a single population,” meaning a full-blooded African. Astonishing. A veritable gleam came into my eye—the genealogist’s gleam, the academic researcher’s gleam. I had to find this ancestor.

Previous to this discovery of my DNA, I had become deeply attached to the story of the first known autobiography by a female British slave, Mary Prince. I had taught her amazing story many times in my classes. We don’t know her exact birth date, probably in the 1780s, and nor do we know if she was a second-generation slave or had direct ancestors who had been brought from Africa generations before. In any case, after years of abuse by her owners, the Woods, she was brought to England by them in 1828. There she met some anti-slavery activists and after many wrangles with and continued dreadful abuse from the Woods, she walked out their door and left them forever. This was possible, because, based on the famous Somerset case ruling made by Lord Mansfield in 1772, it was believed that slaves were free on British soil. Thus, slaves brought to England after that were technically considered no longer slaves. For a brief while after Mary wrote her “History” of being a slave, with the help of Sarah Strickland and Thomas Pringle, she was a cause célèbre in the abolition movement. Two court cases ensued in 1833 regarding the claim that her history was a libel against her owners. But this is the last we hear of her life. Like so many slaves, the rest of her history is gone.

I fell hard for Mary Prince. I went to Bermuda to see Brackish Pond where she was born. Across the way was a church she may have attended. I saw the church the slaves built at night for themselves. I saw the small island where runaway slaves were hanged as examples for other slaves, and the poles sticking out of the ground for enchaining slaves. I followed her to Turks & Caicos, where she worked in the miserable salt fields on Turks Island and possibly Salt Cay under a burning sun, blistering salt, sun and water curdling the skin on the slaves’ legs. These islands are almost unbelievably beautiful, but did the slaves see that beauty? And if so, how did they relate it back to the truth of their own condition as human beings? Now I must follow the trail of my own ancestor from Africa. I must know the outlines of this ancestor’s daily life.

***

I grew up in the fifties and came of age in the sixties, a time of enormous change and tumult in race relations in the United States. As a thirteen year-old in 1963, I gaped at our black and white TV when a burly white man named Bull Connor used water cannons to assault innocent Black people in Birmingham. I was sickened and didn’t know what it all meant. My dad was racist. He grew up in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, where, though he spoke the beautiful Spanish language fluently and with the Mormon colony exploited the lush resources and land, he hated the Mexicans. He only spoke this way in front of my brothers on fishing trips with them. My mother regularly referred to the US citizens in the small town she grew up in as “Mexicans,” and she told me once how she had once used the term “Jew” as a verb when talking to a friend whom she didn’t know was Jewish. It was the end of the friendship and she was appalled with herself.

I took what the Church told me about race naively and devotedly. Blacks were not valiant in the War in Heaven before coming to earth; they had sat on the fence in that fight, and so they deserved the “mark of Cain.” We chosen people of the Church, we white people, that is, should not marry across racial lines—that was a sin. I remember a white friend of my older sister, who I thought was the sweetest person I had ever met, who fell in love with a Pacific Islander. After much reflection and anguish, she gave him up because of Church teachings about miscegenation. She ended up marrying a man who physically abused her, but at least he was white. At the age of sixteen I could not understand why she, who was innocent and good, could not marry the man she loved with all her heart.

All through the sixties I heard the stupid jokes that adult Church members told about Black people; I heard rumors about how Blacks might come to Utah to riot and make an assault on the Church; or how they might rise up and invade peaceful white neighborhoods. In response to Church teachings that Black men could not hold the priesthood, many college basketball teams in the sixties and seventies protested having to compete with the BYU Cougars. I remember many Church members in our ward felt they were the misunderstood victims of such protests. These stories and fears whirled around me, and I did not know how to process it all. I was white—I had the privilege of not having to understand, not having to think about the meaning of race.

We went to an all-white grade school. In high school, there were only two Black young men. They were brothers. I admired them like everyone else. They were good looking, in all the clubs and student government offices, and on the football team, smart and going somewhere. I was somewhat of a cipher in high school. One day, the younger brother, who was in one of my classes, asked me on a date. I was floored—he was somebody and I was nobody. I don’t know what I said, some lame thing about being busy or something. But I know that my answer came straight out of the unacknowledged but very real Mormon handbook that said, “Do not date or marry across racial lines.” I saw the hurt in his eyes when I rejected him. The handbook didn’t explain how to deal with the pain inflicted by its policies.

Afterwards, I was disgusted with myself, feeling a guilt I still cannot erase, yet, still, I was fiercely devoted to the Church that had trained me to respond that way. I thought I had done the right thing even though I would not have been able to explain my belief if someone had asked me why ungodly behavior was alright. Only years later did I come to my own conclusions about the racism that was foundational to the Church I so loved at that time.

Foundations are everything. Biologists tell us that we are all Africans ultimately. Every race and ethnicity goes back to Africa. She is the motherland to us all. Millenia ago, the first humans arose on African soil. After more millenia some of them began to move across the land up northward into what are now known as the Middle East, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia and across the Bering Straits. My Central and South African ancestor came or was brought to England, I presume, sometime after the beginning of the continual presence of Blacks in England in 1555, when “five Africans arrived to learn English and thereby facilitate trade.”[1] By 1768 there were about 20,000 Blacks living in London on every level of society, from upper to lower class: prostitutes, servants, beggars, scholars, sailors, students sent by rich African leaders, or slaves who were the ornamental accoutrements to rich and middle-class Londoners wanting there stark white skin to appear whiter next to the slave’s Black skin.[2] Some were soldiers who had fought for the British in the American Revolutionary War and had been promised their freedom for doing so.[3]

Most Blacks brought to England in this time were men, and so many married white women and had families. Thus, “many thousands of British families,” if they “traced their roots back to the eighteenth or early nineteenth century, would find among their ancestors an African or person of African descent.”[4] My ancestor may have been brought to one of the slave ports, like Bristol, Birmingham, London, or Liverpool by his master. I do not think it was the Udall line, which goes back to the bucolic Kent, England, which had no large cities or ports. I suspect it might be the Turley line, for Theodore was born in Birmingham. It might be the Lee line, for we do not yet know Ralph Lee’s origins in England, Ireland, or France. Or it could be Robert Wilson, who was living in London in 1644.

We are all Africans. The only question is when we became Black. I became Black between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This facile but true statement does not give me the right to co-opt the Black experience. I experience all the privileges of being white, and because of that I have only begun my journey toward understanding race. Foundations matter, and I have learned something foundational about my being. I long to know my ancestor—but, what is more, I am now honor-bound, deeply so, to know what race does to people. I was honor-bound before to people of color, for we are all human and go back to a great mother together. But now my amour propre has been dignified and seared by my new feelings about ancestry. Who am I but one who must grasp for higher levels of awareness, of painful histories of generations of peoples, and the sorrows and glories of individual lives seared themselves by ancestry and race.

---

[1] Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Black London: Life Before Emancipation (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 3.

[2] Ibid. 15. 

[3] Ibid. 18–19.

[4] Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 1984), 235.

[post_title] => Roundtable: When Did You Become Black? [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 193–200
After taking a genelogy DNA test, Houston finds some African ancestory. “Where to begin in answering all those questions? But at the most basic level, I simply liked that I was from Africa. The percentage was small but the jolt large and wondrous. In the nineteenth century, the United States had the one-drop rule about race: if you had one drop of African blood you were considered to be Black.” [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => roundtable-when-did-you-become-black [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 15:12:12 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 15:12:12 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19134 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 19133 [post_author] => 3127 [post_date] => 2019-01-14 01:19:24 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-14 01:19:24 [post_content] =>

I would like to begin by recognizing that this is a celebration. Although only thirty-two years old, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a celebration that not only commemorates, but has come to embody, all of civil rights history: Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Loving v. Virginia (1967), and the 1978 revelation concerning Blacks and the priesthood. 

While my message this evening will primarily focus on the symbolism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision during the summer of 1965, I will look to create wider pathways of open discussion that will hopefully be fruitful, yet direct, and touch on the core of an unfulfilled dream. Therefore, I will be bold and attempt to demonstrate the strength of and respect we should have toward all civil rights activists—past and present—that have and continue to sacrifice more than I can ever imagine for the cause. 

First, let me state a fact: systemic problems require systemic solutions. The twenty-first century has not freed us from the racial and social injustices of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Second, I am not here to over-dramatize or overstate this deleterious condition that plagues so many areas in American life (e.g., poverty, economic disparities, and racial violence); however, the majority of African Americans today continue to solidly occupy the social and professional margins of the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” 

Since 1965, King’s dream has been a contested one at best, and at worst, a perennial nightmare. This has caused the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to remain unrealized for the significant majority of Black Americans. True justice must be a reality for all of God’s children. Therefore, “inclusion” must be the calling card of this new and progressive civil rights era/movement. 

Martin Luther King asserted that “it would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of [this very] moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. . . . Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.”[1] Colin Kaepernick’s autumn 2016 protest has proved less productive in bringing about the freedom and equality that King represents. It has ultimately shown that the United States is still not prepared to recognize the need for social change and justice, placing many citizens in a difficult position: searching for much-needed shade and protection from what was a harsh summer of discontented minorities facing oppression and violence. Similar to King, who fought for equal and fair relationships between all people, especially the oppressed and disadvantaged, Kaepernick, too, has not rested until people of color are justly treated as full American citizens, which is why this time feels so tumultuous to so very many. “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright days of justice emerge,” King concluded. 

Will you be a cultural arbiter to change this tide? Change, but more specifically, inclusion, within an organization doesn’t happen by default; issues of injustice must be addressed swiftly, systematically, and rigorously. Institutions cannot merely opt to face these issues; they ought to do far more than take the cover off the pool. They ought to drain the very systems that filled the reservoirs of abusive patterns of behavior and created an atmosphere where justice and inclusion sank to abhorrent levels. 

Many times I have been asked by white students, “What can we do to help and make a difference in the fight for racial and social justice?” “What can we do to bring about positive changes when the public discourse surrounding race is so intense, and emotionally and politically charged?” I would caution us not to reduce or sanitize the memory of Dr. King: Remember, he was seen as a dangerous, bold, and radical humanist for a just society. 

My response: stop tiptoeing around the subjects of race, inequality, and inclusion. Many well-intentioned white people in this country do not understand how the deeply rooted systems of racism and inequality function. Remember that you are the beneficiaries of a deeply entrenched system of racial inequality and oppression. So to begin the healing process, or at least be a greater antibiotic for the ancient wounds of white supremacy and racial violence, a good place for white people to start is with abandoning their collective innocence. White supremacy was invented by, and designed for, white people. This peculiar, and enduring, racial and social benefit has been handed down through generations of whites. The work of dismantling this social structure is, and will continue to be, a difficult task. Nevertheless, hundreds of social justice advocates have addressed critical elements of racial and cultural injustice that progressive communities can look to as ethical templates for propagating greater inclusion. 

I believe that progressive white American communities have taken bold measures that have come to serve as engines of racial and social equity: for example, the immediate removal of the statues and names of white supremacists in city and town squares, the immediate removal of the names of bigots and oppressors such as Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and other prominent US and religious leaders from university and college buildings. Progressive white communities must dissolve barriers that deliberately keep schools, churches, neighborhoods, law enforcement, and local governments, even in 2018, artificially “white.”

Furthermore, directly confront people—friends, family, roommates, and colleagues—who make comments born from a belief that white skin is some default setting or somehow synonymous with being a “true” or first American. Progressive white communities must not “fear to do good,” which means digging into the buried past (no matter how painful) and seriously investigating those questions that many comfortable white people hope and pray that no one will ever ask, specifically regarding how his or her community’s affluence took shape and flourished. 

The wounds inflicted on many minority communities by whites are extensive and traumatic! It is naïve to suggest that the process of healing wounds from centuries will occur suddenly or without complication. Acts of public commemoration, remembrance, and atonement—such as this one—should never be seen as the end of our country’s public discourse, but rather, a way to finally begin a healthy conversation. Further, this will, in no uncertain terms, foster an atmosphere conducive to long-term systemic solutions. This is only possible in progressive-minded environments that are not fueled by elitists and passive-aggressive behavior. 

I challenge you to get off the bench of social inactivity and go on the offensive! Stop saying to yourself, “I’m good, I don’t need to concern myself with injustice; it’s never going to happen to me; no one in my circle is prejudiced.” I’ve heard this from so many BYU students. Worse still, some attempt to speak for people of color with absolutely no historical knowledge of the plight of marginalized and underrepresented groups.

I challenge you to hasten social justice! I dare you to do so! Hastening racial and social equity is the work of God; simply “seeing” others through his eyes is not enough; we must also treat all his children as he would. This is at the center of King Benjamin’s message of service: we must be active stewards in setting the proverbial table of equality for the downtrodden, the widowed, and the less fortunate.[2]

Let us cease to be reactionary as so many people in positions of influence are and more proactive like our Father in Heaven who has established the correct standard of action and focused leadership. He is not reactionary, he never has been and never will be, and those who are, are not true hearers of his vision and message of divine inclusiveness.

In 2006, then Church president Gordon B. Hinckley declared, “no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ. Nor can he consider himself to be in harmony with the teachings of the Church. Let us all recognize that each of us is a son or daughter of our Father in Heaven, who loves all of His children.”[3] With this declaration, President Hinckley officially endorsed the guiding principle of “inclusion” not only among Latter-day Saints but also among all God’s children! If that was not clear enough, in early 2012, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unequivocally condemned racism, which includes any and all past racism by individuals both inside and outside the Church.[4] Moreover, cultures that foster beliefs of perceived racial superiority and social and cultural inferiority will always fail to gain full membership in the Lord’s kingdom. 

So, are you like unto Captain Moroni? “Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto [Cap tain] Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men” (Alma 48:17). Will you fight against the evils of racism and for principles of inclusion and equality? When I look at you can I apply these very words? Have you lived up to expectation and provided hope in a tumultuous world? Or have you allowed the moment to pass? 

Will your life reflect and serve as a warning for good to those who seek to fulfill the dream of Dr. King or serve as a cautionary tale, similar to the lives of Laman and Lemuel? 

Are you metaphorically “A City Upon a Hill” as the Puritan leader John Winthrop described to the emigrants on the Arbella as they embarked to create the first settlement in New England? Are you a standard-bearer of safety and inclusion for others to find peace and harmony in these socially tumultuous times? 

If you are, is your light safely guiding the many who are trapped in the all-consuming quicksand of racial and social injustice? Make a declaration to yourself: 

Declare all-out war that you will not be allergic to extinguishing hatred and bigotry. 

Declare all-out war that you will bring hope into the lives of others, that you will no longer be a liability to those striving for greater equality. Declare all-out war that you “fear not to do good,” that you will face fear with faith. 

Declare all-out war that you will live a principle-centered life, one that promotes justice and allows for freedom to ring uninterrupted. I dare you to live a life of impeccable integrity, and not one of convenience. I dare you to live a life above reproach and take full responsibility for your actions. Right now is your awakening. Right now is the urgency of now! It is unacceptable to live as a mediocre member of society, one who simply defaults on the words and promises of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence by failing to acknowledge white supremacy. By your own actions, you will either validate white supremacy and social inequality, or not. Dr. King proved that in our most trying times, God is there, yet he is quiet. He has not abandoned us; he is watching us, and we are proving to him whether or not we are ready. You cannot simply be willing; you must act! 

Don’t let others hold you back from pursuing charitable and just activities because of their personal feelings! The scriptures make no mention of associated promises based on one’s personal feelings; how ever, with every principle there is an associated promise (e.g., Moroni 10, D&C 89). On the final day, it will only be you standing before the judgment bar of God, not mommy, not daddy, no one else. Just you! Can the world count on you to never abandon those most in need? Will you be able to say, “not on my watch!” 

Stop looking to others for answers. Look to God. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1: 5–6). Find the answers yourself! Often it is those who are closest to us that misguide us because they use cultural or traditional ways of evaluating life and interpreting the word of God, which typically are misinformed and incorrect, so be very careful. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t seek guidance, but decide today that it will be you and only you who will retain responsibility and accountability for your own actions in breaking ground to pave the way for more extensive inclusion and social equity. 

Again, Dr. King looked forward to a day of perfect justice. He looked forward to a day when issues such as race and status would fail to divide us. His hope and vision were that God’s multi-ethnic family would unite together in spite of our differences. 

In closing, as devout followers of Christ, you are each blessed and highly favored. The Redeemer’s atoning sacrifice is what gives us all hope; it stabilizes our faith and cultivates our trust in the unifying message of our Eternal Father. I finally challenge each of you this evening to be democratic torchbearers of inclusion and social justice, ready to stand tall during the most severe times of challenge and controversy. 

We do not have the luxury to look the other way or bite our tongues to spare the comments or feelings of bigots, sexists, and racists; we cannot further silence the minority through inaction! We are too gifted, too educated, profoundly fortunate, and favored of God to do so. Therefore, the time is now! So, will you continue to allow the flickering embers of injustice to flourish or will your actions extinguish the flames of intolerance?

---

This speech was given as the keynote at the Martin Luther King Walk of Life and Commemoration, Brigham Young University, January 17, 2018. 

[1] “I Have a Dream,” address delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963, The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/ documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march-washington-jobs-and freedom. [Editor’s Note: The footnotes are one less than the PDF since the first footnote number was “2” in the PDF]

[2] See Mosiah 2. 

[3] Gordon B. Hinkley, “The Need for Greater Kindness,” Apr. 2006, https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/the-need-for-greater-kindness?lang=eng. 

[4] “Church Statement Regarding ‘Washington Post’ Article on Race and the Church,” LDS Newsroom, Feb. 29, 2012, https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/ article/racial-remarks-in-washington-post-article.

[post_title] => Roundtable: Shifting Tides: A Clarion Call for Inclusion and Social Justice [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 201–208
“What can we do to help and make a difference in the fight for racial and social justice?” McCoy responds to the BYU students who asked these questions which he brought up in an annual MLK March on Life held by BYU was ‘stop tiptoeing around the subjects of race, inequality, and inclusion. Many well intentioned white people in this country do not understand how the deeply rooted systems of racism and inequality function.’ He encouraged people to step up and do their own part for obtaining social justice for all. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => roundtable-shifting-tides-a-clarion-call-for-inclusion-and-social-justice [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 15:06:46 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 15:06:46 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19133 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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I talked to my grandmother the other day. Though age beats upon her brow and three scores and ten asks remembrance of her body, her mind slips into repetition and comments about doing right and trusting in God, and not having taken an aspirin in twenty years. She remembers the fields. 

“We lived on white’s man land,” she said: “We spent our days sharecropping on his land. Those were hard days. Sometimes we were overworked to exhaustion. But Papa never let us miss school. No matter how many crops we had to picked, we went to school. We would walk eight miles there and eight miles back. The white children passed by and laughed, but we kept walking. Sometimes it would just be me and three other students in the classroom during harvesting season. The fields and school. We first went to school and then to the fields.” 

The complexities of being Mormon (LDS) and African American are so far-reaching that it’s often difficult to articulate. In a Church that boasts fifteen million members worldwide, one may ask “Why?” Well, my Blackness has been a direct opposition to a church that has distanced itself from that Blackness in order to reclaim whiteness. W. Paul Reeve, a Mormon historian, stated in his book, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, that the LDS Church reshaped its identity and gained acceptance from the American public by alienating Blackness almost completely. Though earlier Black men like Elijah Abel and Walker Lewis held the LDS priesthood and participated fully in LDS congregations, in later years, missionaries were banned from directly seeking African American investigators. Many Black and African cultural practices, such as Black religious art, music, and root work were taught as wicked traditions of fathers that lacked “inspiration” from God. Black members’ church participation was subsequently limited to being baptized, receiving confirmation, and taking the sacrament. The necessary ordinances of exaltation and other blessings, like sealings, endowments, and missions were denied only to Blacks of African descent in this attempt to reclaim whiteness. 

The Church refused to grant the Black body whole recognition and divinity. To Nephi, I was not fair and delightsome. To Joseph, I was a violator of the most sacred principles of society, chastity, and virtue. To Brigham, I was Cain’s curse. To McConkie, I was an unfaithful spirit, a “fencesitter.” To you, I am colorless, my Blackness swallowed in that whiteness reclaimed, “a child of God.” Seemingly, I am invisible yet hyper-visible; for my body, although shaped and twisted into Mormonism’s image, will never fit properly in a culture that quickly vacuums spaces for Blackness. To be Black and LDS is to be Black first and LDS second, lest your identity is erased by “faith” and you become invisible and nonexistent. 

Moreover, while conversations regarding Black bodies within a Mormon imagination often surround those bodies male and Black, there is a void of Black female voices. We must create space for and re-center conversations on Black LDS women. The priesthood ban should be labeled “the priesthood and temple ban.” The Church discarded Black women’s divinity and recognition, too, among LDS congregations, by denying temple access and blessings. Though many women remain nameless and faceless, in discussing bans and declarations, we must remember the Jane Manning Jameses, the Mary Francis Sturlaugsons, and the Alice Burches. These conversations must bleed into our present wards as we navigate the current racial and cultural tensions against the Sistas in Zion, the Janan Graham-Russells, and even the Melodie Jacksons. 

On the cusp of the fortieth anniversary of the lifting of the priesthood and temple ban, we mustn’t neglect current racial strife and dissonance in our own spaces. We should recognize that Black members still struggle. I still struggle. We must go to school. We must learn our history. We must remember, if we are to labor in the fields “white already to harvest.”

My grandmother taught me repeatedly, “school first, then the fields.” The road is difficult. I am often jeered along the way, but I keep walking. Even if it’s just myself in the classroom of Mormon historical truth, I remain. I am on white man’s land and am frequently overworked to exhaustion. Some days are hard. But, my Heavenly Father, my ancestors, my grandmother, Jane Manning James won’t let me miss school. I must seek first to obtain the word before I can work in God’s field. My hope is that we wander no longer in the wilderness of denial, racism, and silence for another forty years. Like Jane Manning James painstakingly wondered, “Is there no blessing for me?” Zion’s blessings will come only when Black members are visible, acknowledged, heard, and truly unbanned from within LDS congregations.

[post_title] => Roundtable: The Black Cain in White Garments [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 209–211
Jackson explains “The Church refused to grant the Black body whole recognition and divinity. To Nephi, I was not fair and delightsome. To Joseph, I was a violator of the most sacred principles of society, chastity, and virtue. To Brigham, I was Cain’s curse. To McConkie, I was an unfaithful spirit, a “fence-sitter.” To you, I am colorless, my Blackness swallowed in that whiteness reclaimed, “a child of God.” [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => roundtable-the-black-cain-in-white-garments [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 15:00:07 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 15:00:07 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19132 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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[1]“Our living prophet, President David O. McKay, has said, ‘The seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God.’”

First Presidency statement, December 15, 1969[2]

It has been forty years since the landmark decision by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to end its long-standing restriction on people of African descent from full participation and recognition as worthy spiritual beings in a majority white religion. Since the ban on Black priesthood ordination was lifted in June 1978, subsequently allowing every worthy Black male access to its lay priesthood and all Black men and women their temple ordinances, the Church has made small strides and modest growth in the expansion of its Black urban membership. It is hard to know for certain the exact number of Black members in the Church, as the institution purportedly does not keep records based on racial demographics; however, in 2009, the Pew Research Center estimated that around 3 percent of US Mormons are Black.[3]

Given this dearth of Black membership, high-ranking Church officials have purposefully engaged in public awareness campaigns in Los Angeles; Washington, DC; Harlem; and New York City.[4] And utilizing its vast media resources, Church leadership worked to undo the Church’s image as a racist faith tradition hostile to Black people. The “I’m a Mormon” print and television ad campaign led by Church public relations was another attempt to represent the Church as multicultural by highlighting a few Black faces. But, as the Tony Award–winning musical The Book of Mormon demonstrated in its satirical portrayal of the LDS Church’s racial ignorance, stereotypes die hard. And if the Broadway production and its lampooning of anti-Black Mormon attitudes is any indication of how the greater public views those in the fold, the battle to increase the number of Blacks will remain a difficult undertaking.

The question remains: why would any self-aware Black person find Mormonism the least bit appealing given its ignoble history of racial exclusion and marginalization? In fact, white male Church leadership is notorious for sidelining any individual or group that poses a threat to its established order of truth-making from groups like Native Americans, the LGBTQ+ community, disaffected Mormons, and politically progressive members.[5] This paper is intended as a theoretical analysis into the complex issue of religious identity and internalized oppression in the lives of Black members of the conservative LDS Church, as these devout individuals struggle to find validation, a voice, and equal representation within a space they hold so dear. 

Introduction: Racial Battle Fatigue 

Throughout US history, Black Americans have long been required to seek the approval of whites in order to gain some semblance of economic, political, and material advantage. Post–civil rights assimilation did not improve racial matters beyond superficial changes and the gospel of colorblindness spoken in public spaces.[6] The ongoing attempt to desegregate America did, however, bring many African Americans in closer proximity with implicit and explicit racial bias and mistreatment at the hands of mostly white Americans.[7]

Since the election of Barack Obama (and particularly through Donald Trump’s salacious campaign and stunning victory in 2016), polls from reliable sources have consistently shown a growing tension over the state of US race relations.[8] This anxiety is most acutely felt among working-class white Americans who feel their white-skin privilege slipping away with the encroachment of racial diversity.[9] Hence, behind the polarizing moniker “Make America Great Again” is this unfounded racial fear that drove many whites to cast their ballot for an open and unapologetic bigot. Whether it is “sitting at Starbucks while Black,” “barbecuing while Black,” or “kneeling while Black,” Black folk remain the object of white contempt and scorn.[10]

As widespread ideas around the inherent inferiority of Blacks continue to inform American society, whites (and other groups) react to these dehumanizing messages and insults through the implementation of racial microaggressions.[11] These automatic put-downs are guided by unconscious thought and have a deleterious effect on the lives of Black people. Actions like name-calling, hair-touching, calling law enforcement for triviality, or second-guessing someone’s ability to perform in school or on the job are but a few of the relentless daily affronts (or stressors) that Blacks face.[12] Black people, both young and old, who endure these offenses on a routine basis find themselves susceptible to racial battle fatigue (RBF).[13]

The fundamental premise of RBF is that the accumulation of racial insults (microaggressions) are overtaxing to the body, keeping it in a chronic state of hyperarousal.[14] This autonomic and uncontrollable fight, flight, or freeze response can be detrimental to psychobiological regulatory systems necessary for optimal health.[15] The stress hormone cortisol is well documented as a major factor in the body’s response to stressful stimuli. But when cortisol remains elevated for too long, wear and tear can occur to vital organs such as the brain, kidneys, eyes, and heart.[16] Research has shown that Black Americans, irrespective of income or socioeconomic status, have incessantly elevated cortisol levels compared to white Americans, due in part to living with white racial discrimination in all aspects of their lives.[17] Furthermore, we know through epigenetic research that trauma and neglect can modify cellular DNA of their victims and can be carried intergenerationally to future progeny, leaving deep scars of emotional instability.[18] In other words, spending too much time interacting with whites can be a potential hazard to Black physical and mental health.

African Americans occupy unequal terrain alongside whites who have been socialized to devalue Black people as unthinking, lazy, incompetent, criminal, indolent, overly sexual, athletic, and much more.[19] These racialized images were historically crafted by elite white men as a method of social control (of the Black body) codified not only in popular culture through media representations but also in white religious thought.[20] In response to these stereotypical and racist views, white people engage in unconscious bias during their interpersonal dealings with Blacks.

The long-term impact of centuries-old white racial ideology about Black people as an abomination and the ubiquitous nature of this thinking have left a stain on the Black psyche. In truth, it is not possible for a people to spend 246 years in bondage followed by one hundred years of Jim Crow choking the life out of Black progress and emerge whole from the experience. Some Black people in the LDS Church and elsewhere in the US adopt proracist,[21] white attitudes and understandings, accepting the white definition of Blackness, which is tantamount to an assault on Black dignity and self-love.[22] In addition, the expenditure of energy required to assuage white fears, prejudice, and ignorance depletes psychological reserves needed for other important, creative, and productive areas of life. In this effort, Blacks are exposed to a host of shame-related, dehumanizing interactions, chipping away at their self worth and enabling the development of toxic, internalized self-hatred.[23]

The Vulnerability to Black Internalized Oppression in Mormonism 

It has been nearly half a century since the priesthood ban was removed, and still the majority of Mormons—from the elite Quorum of the Twelve to the rank-and-file members—believe in the offensively racist folk teachings of the curse of Cain that are well known in Mormon circles.[24] It was evident just how extensive these doctrines were embedded within the culture when in February 2012, Brigham Young University religion professor Randy Bott publicly expressed much of the old racist theology that had been in existence for over 130 years in the Church. In an interview with Washington Post reporter Jason Horowitz, Bott spoke of curses and marks on African peoples, invoking Genesis 9:18–27 and Abraham 1:26–27.[25] Randy Bott had been a towering figure at BYU for over two decades.[26] His instruction was highly influential on campus, which means that he was responsible for the racial indoctrination of generations of young, mostly white, Latter-day Saints. 

Even though Mormon leadership quietly and publicly debunked these recursive explanations of the ban, the reality is that many white Latter-day Saints (like other white folk) cannot easily shake off their inured racial prejudice. This is apparent from the 2016 Pew Research Center exit poll data that indicated that 61 percent of Latter-day Saints voted for Donald Trump even though his past and present racism was on full display throughout his campaign and current administration.[27] In turn, Mormon racial theology does not foster spiritual growth for people of color, but in fact is antithetical to Black group uplift. Black members rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to “speak their truth” about living in a racialized body within official Church settings, lest they be met with white resistance, fragility, and bitter defensiveness.[28] In situations where the normalcy of white space is merely disturbed, white people will seek to reestablish control of the discussion while silencing Blacks, leaving them deeply afflicted. Not only does this tension contribute to the development of racial battle fatigue (RBF), but it can also result in faith crisis. This psychic war will leave many Black Mormons unwittingly vulnerable to feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, the reverse of what religion is supposed to instill in its believers. Johnisha Demease-Williams is an African American student at Brigham Young University who decided to interview her white classmates about their racial understandings. In the twenty-five-minute short video, “The Black Student Experience—BYU,” Demease-Williams encounters and comes to understand the deep disjuncture between whites’ understandings of race and the reality she faces daily.[29] Experiences like this may cause some Black members to renounce their faith while others, at some point, must confront this double bind and reconcile their existence within the whiteness of Mormonism.[30]

It is within the sacredness of this white space where Blacks who choose to remain in the faith must find meaning in their Church membership and purpose beyond racial group affiliation.[31] But this does not come without cost. In staying, Black Latter-day Saints must seek to compensate for their relegation and isolation in the Church. They implement cognitive strategies to deflect pain associated with the shame of rejection from their community and uncaring Church leadership as well as the ongoing racial ignorance from their well-meaning white brothers and sisters. Some rely on apologia, believing that Church authorities are fallible men who harbor unexamined prejudice. These Black members recognize that Church leaders do not have all the answers (particularly regarding racial matters) but believe that they are inspired to lead Mormonism down a righteous path nonetheless. Black apologists often employ humor, intellectualism, verbal jousting, and music to pander to the white members in efforts to mitigate the discomfort associated with existential insignificance among the LDS people.[32] In other instances, when racialized teachings within the Church confound human reason, these Black Mormons adopt an extreme form of self-deprecation, permitting them to deal with the uncertainty they feel with regard to their acceptance and status in Mormonism. These members tend to ignore or downplay the profound racial contradiction found within their house of worship in their role as both an insider and outsider.[33]

Both groups of Blacks openly sustain Church authorities as inspired mouthpieces for God while they wrestle with the troublesome narrative and widespread use of racist dogma they are left to emotionally address. But the latter group must acquiesce to white prejudice, even when Church authority is patently wrong. Put differently, these Black Mormons must accept on some level an “inferior” status to accommodate white understandings of Blackness in Mormon theology. A study by writer-researcher Jana Riess of the Religion News Service found that 70 percent of Black Latter-day Saints believe the Mormon racial folklore of themselves as a cursed lineage. Not only is this number astounding in itself, but it actually surpasses the number of white Mormons who believe in this teaching (61 percent).[34] More than a few prominent Black members in North America have gone on record vocalizing these same racist sentiments.

One outspoken defender of Mormon racism is Salt Lake City attorney Keith Hamilton, an African American Latter-day Saint who wrote a memoir entitled Last Laborer: Thoughts and Reflections of a Black Mormon.[35] In the book, Hamilton states that, “Withholding the priest hood from blacks was part of God’s unfolding plan.” Despite the ban’s existence through a century and a half of racism in American history, Hamilton explains that it was “no man-made policy . . . nor a policy instituted because some white LDS Church leader(s) had concerns about black-white relations.”[36] Instead, he assumes the old LDS canon that Blacks were deficient enough to warrant a divine curse.[37] From this standpoint, Hamilton endorses the racist mythology that he was an inferior being prior to the 1978 proclamation.

Other Black Mormons have found additional ways to deflect the pain they endure at the hands of white members as a result of these extreme racist views still found in Mormon theology.[38] These Blacks follow many Church authorities in maintaining an aloofness and denial of white racial oppression by stating that “only God knows” the origins of the now-defunct ban. For example, Alan Cherry, another one-time well-known Black Mormon name in Utah County, was one of a handful of African Americans who converted to the Church and attended BYU in the 1970s before the restriction was lifted.[39] In an interview with the LDS-owned Deseret News, Cherry told a reporter, “From the very beginning my impression that came from heaven was I was not to worry about priesthood restriction.”[40] He continued by saying that men and women must stop looking for inequalities and injustices, and instead be happy for those who have more. Sadly, Mormon racial folklore is a primer for proracist attitudes and self-hate for some Blacks over time. This is evidenced in the ways in which these individuals speak and write about being Black in Zion. 

Love is Not Enough: Finding a Place in the LDS Church is Difficult 

On an individual level, Black Mormons often meet with supportive white persons who truly care for their welfare. These Black members feel adoration, validation, and a sense of belonging. Though they may not experience individual racist incidents, these are but one form of racism. Unfortunately, interpersonal bias is the only example of racism that the general public acknowledges and remotely comprehends. White Americans (and some white-identified proracist Blacks) tend to view racism as an individual matter wherein one race has animus for the other. Such a narrow definition of white supremacy does very little to explain the stark systemic inequities (in education, healthcare, crime and punishment, etc.) that Black Americans and other Americans of color disproportionately encounter in a so-called post-racial society. Treating racism as isolated acts of meanness mystifies its pervasiveness in US society and in the Western world as a whole. It’s not individual examples of bigotry, but rather a well-coordinated system founded on racist principles, practices, assumptions, policies, methods, and laws (enacted by elite white men) that creates the backdrop for Black members of the Church. Yet, Latter-day Saints as a group do not recognize this form of domination. 

Instead, the faith tends to promote the “prosperity gospel,” a particularly American ethos steeped in the notion that obedience translates into monetary success.[41] When the wealthy lives of white members are juxtaposed against the bleak life circumstances of many Black Americans, it is not hard for Black Mormons to imagine that such a comfortable lifestyle may come from keeping the commandments. Further, the nature of LDS church participation for Black people requires them to go through extraordinary measures to “assimilate” in an effort to fit in and appear “less Black,” and therefore, less threatening to white people. Conflict between hyper-whiteness in the meetinghouse and the struggle for acceptance as fellow saints in society can leave many Black saints jaded, longing for acknowledgement on their own terms. This is an unjust reality for those deemed the “least of these” by white society. And such a cycle can lead to Black self-hatred as well as loathing for other Blacks, especially the poor and working class, blaming them for their circumstances in life. 

The culture of whiteness, in its acutely cruel variations, encompasses every facet of US society from the criminal justice system, public school curricula, healthcare access, housing, and employment. The LDS Church, being uniquely American in the narrative of manifest destiny through Mormon pioneers’ westward expansion, follows a similar trajectory. Church publications extol the virtues of white men and their dealings with Jesus, and Church leaders remain overwhelmingly white and male. Just as in mainstream American culture, whites within the Mormon Church have little empathy for Blacks as a group, though they make exceptions for a few token individuals (many of whom are socially white in their self-presentation). They love us when it is expedient to do so, but they fear Blackness and what it has come to embody in the despicable history of Mormon race relations. Despite the love from a few close personal Church members, Black members find Mormonism to be a place of unapologetic whites. Consequently, Black membership within the LDS Church comes at an emotional cost to those individuals. 

Can Faith Move the Mountain of White Supremacy? 

For many Black Latter-day Saints who stay and practice their faith, the emphasis of the doctrines of the Mormon gospel on family and community often trump the racist past (and present). Still others have come to believe, like their white counterparts, that statements by Church leaders on controversial issues are institutionally-sanctioned pronouncements by God, when, in fact, they often reflect individual political and social bias. Thus, pointing out these inconvenient truths in the Church is akin to cultural warfare. Black Latter-day Saints spend a great deal of energy reaffirming their humanity against the conservatizing forces in the Church. And despite it all, these Black members remain optimistic and hopeful that the Lord will cause the scales to fall from the eyes of white folk and deliver them from the morass. To this end, Blacks in the Mormon Church exert much labor muddling through the rigors of racial battle fatigue, straddling two distinctly different and unequal worlds.

For decades, the Church has not forthrightly addressed its racist past despite calls to do so from many of its more progressive Black and white members. Not surprisingly, then, the Black membership in the United States is minuscule. And the reality is that a fair number of those Black members who practice Mormonism in the United States do not actually identify as African American but are first- or second-generation immigrants mainly from the West Indies, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, and the Congo. These low membership numbers suggest that the Church has done very little to atone for its racist past and open the door to fellowship for African Americans, who are also children of our Heavenly Father. If recompense were sincerely a principle taught from the pulpit, then we should expect no less of an apology than that shown by Pope Francis, who recently begged the indigenous native peoples of South America for forgiveness for the atrocities committed in the name of the Roman Catholic Church during the colonial era.[42] Is such a token gesture beneath the LDS Church? Do Black lives not matter enough to deserve the same full consideration from the LDS Church? Until these questions can be addressed with action as opposed to rhetoric, Black people have no cause to celebrate but should approach the LDS Church with measured caution, paying attention to the realities marked by race, power, and privilege.[43]

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[1] I would like to thank my wife, Tasha Sabino, for her creativity and brilliance, along with Kerry Brown, Adewale Sogunru, Dr. Brenda Harris, and Dr. Boyd Petersen for their efforts in helping this manuscript come to fruition. 

[2] First Presidency statement, Dec. 15, 1969, available at BlackLDS.org, http://www.blacklds.org/1969-first-presidency-statement. 

[3] “A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, July 24, 2009, http://www.pewforum.org/2009/07/24/a-portrait-of-mormons-in-the-us. 

[4] Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003).

[5] See, for example, Kristen Moulton, “Kelly on Excommunication from Mormon Church: ‘I’ve Done Nothing Wrong,’” Salt Lake Tribune, June 24, 2014, http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/news/58104587-78/women-kelly-church-ordain.html.csp; and Laurie Goodstein, “Mormon Church Threatens Critic with Excommunication,” New York Times, Jan. 15, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/us/john-dehlin-mormon-critic facing-excommunication.html.

[6] Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, White Supremacy and Racism in the Post–Civil Rights Era (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001). 

[7] Darron T. Smith, “Images of Black Males in Popular Media,” Huffington Post, Mar. 14, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darron-t-smith-phd/Black men-media_b_2844990.html; Hugh Honour, From the American Revolution to World War I, part 1: Slaves and Liberators, vol. 4 of The Image of the Black in Western Art, edited by David Bindman, Henry Louise Gates, and Karen C. C. Dalton (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989); and Adam Waytz, Kelly Marie Hoffman, and Sophie Trawalter, “A Superhumanization Bias in Whites’ Perceptions of Blacks,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 6, no. 3 (2015): 352–59. 

[8] See Eugene Scott, “Most Americans Say Race Relations Are a Major Problem, but Few Discuss it with Friends and Family,” Washington Post, May 31, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/05/31/most-americans-say-race-relations-are-a-major-problem-but-few-discuss it-with-friends-and-family; and Ryan Struyk, “Blacks and Whites See Racism in the United States Very, Very Differently,” CNN Politics, Aug. 18, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/16/politics/blacks-white-racism-united-states polls/index.html. 

[9] Sarah McCammon and Alyssa Edes, “Michele Norris on the Anxiety of White America and Her Optimism for the Future,” NPR, Mar. 13, 2018, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/03/13/593243772/michele-norris-on-the anxiety-of-white-america-and-her-optimism-for-the-future. 

[10] Recently, there has been a spate of incidents caught on camera where whites have called the police on people of color who are engaging in nonthreatening, legal activities. These activities include but are not limited to golfing “too slow,” shopping for prom, touring a college campus, checking out of an Airbnb, waiting for a meeting at Starbucks, grilling at the park, selling bottled water to baseball fans, swimming at the neighborhood pool, wearing socks at the pool, and napping in a college dorm lounge. 

[11] Derald Wing Sue, Christina M. Capodilupo, and Aisha M. B. Holder, “Racial Microaggressions in the Life Experience of Black Americans,” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 39, no. 3 (2008): 329–36. 

[12] Chester Pierce, “Psychiatric Problems of the Black Minority,” in American Handbook of Psychiatry, vol. 2, edited by Silvano Arieti (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 512–23; and Chester Pierce, “Stress Analogs of Racism and Sexism: Terrorism, Torture, and Disaster,” in Mental Health, Racism, and Sexism, edited by Charles V. Willie, Patricia Perri Rieker, Bernard M. Kramer, and Bertram S. Brown (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995), 277–93. 

[13] William A. Smith, Walter R. Allen, and Lynette L. Danley, “‘Assume the Position . . . You Fit the Description’: Psychosocial Experiences and Racial Battle Fatigue among African American Male College Students,” American Behavioral Scientist 51, no. 4 (2007): 551–78; and William A. Smith, Man Hung, and Jeremy D. Franklin, “Racial Battle Fatigue and the MisEducation of Black Men: Racial Microaggressions, Societal Problems, and Environmental Stress,” The Journal of Negro Education 80, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 63–82. 

[14] William A. Smith, Man Hung, and Jeremy D. Franklin. “Between Hope and Racial Battle Fatigue: African American Men and Race-Related Stress,” Journal of Black Masculinity 2, no. 1 (2012): 35–58; and Bessel A. Van der Kolk, “The Body Keeps the Score: Memory and the Evolving Psychobiology of Posttraumatic Stress,” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 1, no. 5 (1994): 253–65. 

[15] Marni N. Silverman and Esther M. Sternberg, “Glucocorticoid Regulation of Inflammation and its Functional Correlates: From HPA Axis to Glucocorticoid Receptor Dysfunction,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1261, no. 1 (2012): 55–63. 

[16] Bruce S. McEwen, “Stress, Adaptation, and Disease: Allostasis and Allostatic Load,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 840, no. 1 (1998): 33–44.

[17] Arline T. Geronimus, Margaret Hicken, Danya Keene, and John Bound, “‘Weathering’ and Age Patterns of Allostatic Load Scores among Blacks and Whites in the United States,”American Journal of Public Health 96, no. 5 (2006): 826–33. 

[18] Marjolein V. E. Veenendaal, Rebecca C. Painter, Susanne R. de Rooij, Patrick M. M. Bossuyt, Joris A. M. van der Post, Peter D. Gluckman, Mark A. Hanson, and Tessa J. Roseboom, “Transgenerational Effects of Prenatal Exposure to the 1944–45 Dutch Famine,”BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology 120, no. 5 (2013): 548–54; and David R. Williams, Rahwa Haile, Hector M. González, Harold Neighbors, Raymond Baser, and James S. Jackson, “The Mental Health of Black Caribbean Immigrants: Results from the National Survey of American Life,” American Journal of Public Health 97, no. 1 (2007): 52–59. 

[19] Tim Marcin, “Forty Percent of Whites Think Black People Just Need to Try Harder, Poll Finds,” Newsweek, Apr. 4, 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/forty percent-whites-think-black-people-just-need-try-harder-equality-poll-872646; and Aaron Blake, “Republicans’ Views of Blacks’ Intelligence, Work Ethic Lag Behind Democrats at a Record Clip, Washington Post, Mar. 31, 2017, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/31/the-gap-between republicans-and-democrats-views-of-african-americans-just-hit-a-new-high. 

[20] Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki, The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000); and Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). 

[21] The term “proracist” refers to the negative attitudes, beliefs, actions, and assumptions that white Americans communicate about Black people as lazy, on welfare, criminal, etc. Compliant Blacks use these same hateful views to denigrate other Blacks who are thought to be out of step with white standards.

[22] Brenda Major, John F. Dovidio, Bruce G. Link, and Sarah K. Calabrese, “Stigma and Its Implications for Health: Introduction and Overview,” in The Oxford Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health, edited by Brenda Major, John F. Dovidio, and Bruce G. Link (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3. 

[23] Ronald E. Hall, “Self-Hate as Life Threat Pathology among Black Americans: Black Pride Antidote vis-à-vis Leukocyte Telomere Length (LTL),” Journal of African American Studies 18, no. 4 (2014): 398–408; and Christopher Charles, “Skin Bleaching and the Cultural Meanings of Race and Skin Color,” Social Science Research Network, Mar. 21, 2014, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412800. 

[24] Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith, eds., Black and Mormon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1981); and Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 34, no. 1/2 (2001): 225. Note that this latter citation is from a commemorative issue of Dialogue; the article was originally published as Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68. 

[25] Jason Horowitz, “The Genesis of a Church’s Stand on Race,” Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-genesis-of-a-churchs-stand-on-race/2012/02/22/gIQAQZXyfR_story.html.

[26] See Bott’s webpage, which is still posted with BYU’s department of Religious Education (http://religion.byu.edu/randy_bott) and the Wikipedia entry for Bott’s publication record (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_L._Bott).

[27] Gregory A. Smith and Jessica Martínez, “How the Faithful Voted: A Preliminary 2016 Analysis,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 9, 2016, http://www.pewresearch. org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis. 

[28] Darron T. Smith, “Unpacking Whiteness in Zion: Some Personal Reflections and General Observations,” in Black and Mormon, 148–66. 

[29] Johnisha Demease-Williams, “The Black Student Experience—BYU,” Nov. 3, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyx9kpDThh4; Peggy Fletcher Stack, “It’s Not Easy Being Black at BYU, Film Shows,” Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 8, 2016, http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=4601215&itype=CMSID.

[30] Internalized oppression is unavoidable in a white racist society. In order to reduce prejudice some Blacks turn their rage, frustration, fear, and powerlessness on each other. This is done through the invalidation of Black people and the Black experience. White supremacy has driven many Black folk to unwittingly attack, criticize, or have unrealistic expectations of other Blacks, particularly those willing to step forward to challenge systemic injustice. See Darron Smith, “These House-Negroes Still Think We’re Cursed: Struggling against Racism in the Classroom,” Cultural Studies 19, no. 4 (2005): 439–54. 

[31] Elijah Anderson, “The White Space,” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 1, no. 1 (2015): 10–21. 

[32] Trent Toone, “Sistas in Zion Are Voices of Humor and Faith on Stereotypes, Misconceptions, and All Things Mormon,” Deseret News, Aug. 15, 2013, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865584709/Sistas-in-Zion-are-voices-of-humor and-faith-on-stereotypes-misconceptions-and-all-things-Mormon.html.

[33] Jennifer Crocker and Brenda Major. “Social Stigma and Self-Esteem: The Self Protective Properties of Stigma,” Psychological Review 96, no. 4 (1989): 608–30. 

[34] Jana Riess, “Forty Years On, Most Mormons Still Believe the Racist Temple Ban Was God’s Will,” Religion News Service, June 11, 2018, https://religionnews. com/2018/06/11/40-years-later-most-mormons-still-believe-the-racist-priest hood-temple-ban-was-gods-will. The survey question asked respondents to rate the following statement as true, probably true, might be true, probably not true, or not true: “The priesthood and temple ban on members of African descent was inspired of God and was God’s will for the Church until 1978.” The numbers cited represent the first two categories added together (i.e., those who said it was true as well as those who believed it was probably true). This question appeared as one of fifteen “testimony” statements, and in that context, received the lowest scores of any other testimony question. So these numbers are high and surprising, but they are possibly higher than they would have been if the question had not been embedded in a series of other positive-response questions like “God is real” and “Joseph Smith was a prophet.”

[35] Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Black Mormon Defends Priesthood Ban Thirty Three Years after It Was Lifted,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 9, 2011, http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=51976643&itype=cmsid; and Keith N. Hamilton, Last Laborer: Thoughts and Reflections of a Black Mormon (South Jordan, Utah: Ammon Works, 2011). 

[36] Quoted in Stack, “Black Mormon.” 

[37] Now that the Church has posted the “Race and Priesthood” essay to its official website, which points the finger at Brigham Young as the instigator of the priesthood ban, should we expect Hamilton to offer up a redaction to that section of his manuscript? 

[38] Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015).

[39] Alan Gerald Cherry, It’s You and Me, Lord!: My Experiences as a Black Mormon (Provo: Trilogy Arts, 1970). 

[40] Molly Farmer, “Having Priesthood ‘Is My Better Means to Serve,’” Deseret News, May 21, 2008, http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705383516/Having-priesthood-is-my-better-means-to-serve.html?pg=all.

[41] See Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

[42] Nicole Winfield and Frank Bajak, “Pope Francis: I’m Sorry,” US News and World Report, July 9, 2015, http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/07/09/pope-to-meet-with-workers-grass-roots-groups-in-bolivia. 

[43] Darron T. Smith, When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide: Black Athletes at BYU and Beyond (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).

[post_title] => Negotiating Black Self-Hate within the LDS Church [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 29–44
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As members of the Church, we need to have the hard and uncomfortable conversation of racism. We need to keep having it to expel all the hot-air anger and have it until we’re able to reach effective dialogue during which we are truly hearing one another, learning, and changing our generations old myth-based paradigm—however subconscious it may be.

Alice Faulkner Burch[1]

What role did anti-Black racism and white supremacy play in the growth of the Mormon movement and key institutions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? What is the connection between ongoing white supremacy and members’ belief in prophetic inerrancy and the abiding “rightness” of the LDS Church? For those of us who have no conscious memory of the LDS Church’s ban on priesthood ordination and full temple access for members of Black African descent or its end in 1978, it is tempting to imagine the ban as a reflection of the prejudices of a few influential past leaders, or a consequence of Mormonism’s historic whiteness: a regretful and egregious but marginal error. But this is not so. As bell hooks powerfully articulated, the relationship between “center” and “margin” is never arbitrary, and when we re-center our thinking around the so-called “margins,” we change the way we see the whole.[2]

When I use the words “racism” and “white supremacy,” I do so as they are used by scholars who work on race in the humanities, social sciences, and related applied scholarly fields. Racism is the system of ideas, beliefs, and practices that divides people and gives some people better life chances—opportunities to live a happy, healthy life—based on their skin color and ancestry. In the United States, racial classifications connected to skin color and ancestry were promulgated in laws and policies pertaining to chattel slavery and colonization and even after the legal abolition of slavery have continued to function in the service of inequality. White supremacy is the system of ideas, beliefs, and practices that give white people better life chances based on perceived skin color and ancestry.[3] Racism and white supremacy are not simply individual character flaws or the result of personal ill intent. Investigating the role anti-Black racism and white supremacy played in the growth of the Mormon movement and key LDS institutions is not about impugning the character of individuals. It is about assessing how systems of inequality take shape through our social, economic, political, and religious interactions. Individuals are born into these systems, absorb them, learn to operate within them, and make choices over time that will build them or dismantle them. Within the last few years, many major American institutions have started reckoning with their historical entanglements with systems of white supremacy, including slavery. The work of generations of dedicated LDS scholars and activists—Darius Gray, Lester Bush, Armand Mauss, Newell Bringhurst, Ronald Coleman, Tamu Smith, Zandra Vranes, Janan Graham-Russell, Darron Smith, Paul Reeve, LaShawn Williams, Fatimah Salleh, Max Mueller, Amy Tanner Thiriot, and many others—makes it possible for LDS people to do the same. This essay offers an examination of key moments when white supremacy coalesced within LDS institutions, an analysis of the deeper dynamics at work in these moments, the way these dynamics shaped racist systems of power within Mormon institutions and communities, and how these dynamics can be remediated and these systems dismantled.[4]

***

White supremacy in Mormonism took shape unevenly and over the course of many years. Positions held privately by various early Mormon leaders—from pro-slavery to gradualist emancipation—theological speculation, human conflict, personal ambition, and political pressures on Mormon settlements in border and frontier states all played a role in its formation. We can see these intersecting influences compete and resolve at key pressure nodes in Mormon history. A striking example of such a pressure node is the publication in the July 1833 Evening and Morning Star of W. W. Phelps’s notice to “Free People of Color” who might join the Mormon movement or its settlements warning them that Missouri was a slaveholding state.[5]

So intense was the reaction of local white Missourians to this notice that two days later Phelps printed an “extra” broadside to clarify that he intended the article not just to “prevent . . . misunderstanding” but also to discourage Black conversion, a position at odds with the contemporaneous activity of Mormon missionaries. Mormonism’s white supremacy comes into being around this and other critical instances of reversal, disavowal, abandonment, and incoherence. Whenever predominantly white Mormon communities found themselves under pressure, they elected, as had W. W. Phelps in Independence, to choose their relationships with other whites in position of power over loyalty to or solidarity with Black people. If there was a logic in these decisions, it was that Mormonism had more to gain through collaboration with whites, even if that came at the expense of Black lives, Black equality, and white integrity.

Take, for example, the establishment of legalized Black “servitude” in Utah territory in 1852. Joseph Smith had supported gradual emancipation in his 1844 presidential campaign literature.[6] Brigham Young appeared to follow him when, on January 5, 1852, he declared in a prepared speech to the territorial legislature, later published in the Deseret News: “No property can or should be recognized as existing in slaves.”[7] Just two weeks later, though, Young declared himself a “firm believer in slavery” and urged passage of An Act in Relation to Service, which legalized a form of Black servitude in Utah that would persist until at least 1862, if not longer. After some debate, the measure passed unanimously in early February 1852.[8]

Historians Chris Rich, Nathaniel Ricks, Newell Bringhurst, and Matthew Harris have agreed that one significant factor in the passage of the Act was to protect the interests of slaveholders and proslavery men who held positions of power in early Utah by establishing what was, at least on paper, an ameliorated form of slavery to be called “servitude.” Orson Hyde stated as much in the Millennial Star on February 15, 1851: 

We feel it to be our duty to define our position in relation to the subject of slavery. There are several in the Valley of the Salt Lake from the Southern States, who have their slaves with them. There is no law in Utah to authorize slavery, neither any to prohibit it. If the slave is disposed to leave his master, no power exists there, either legal or moral, that will prevent him. But if the slave choose to remain with his master, none are allowed to interfere between the master and the slave. All the slaves that are there appear to be perfectly contented and satisfied. When a man in the Southern states embraces our faith, and is the owner of slaves, the Church says to him, if your slaves wish to remain with you, and to go with you, put them not away; but if they choose to leave you, or are not satisfied to remain with you, it is for you to sell them, or let them go free, as your own conscience may direct you. The Church, on this point, assumes not the responsibility to direct. The laws of the land recognize slavery—we do not wish to oppose the laws of the country. If there is sin in selling a slave, let the individual who sells him bear that sin, and not the Church. Wisdom and prudence dictate to us this position, and we trust that our position will henceforth be understood.[9]

The number of slaves brought to Utah was not large—the 1850 census counted twenty-six and the 1860 census counted thirty, a number largely regarded as an undercount. Newell Bringhurst estimated that twelve Mormon migrants to Utah brought “sixty to seventy” slaves, and that early Utah’s slaveholders held positions of influence: Charles C. Rich was in the Quorum of the Twelve; William Hooper became Utah’s representative to Congress; Abraham Smoot became mayor of Salt Lake City and Provo. Slaveholders’ investment—economic, political, and social—was noted and regarded by Young, who pledged not to contest it.[10] In addition to consideration for the property interests of influential slaveholders, historians have identified other factors that made the Act something of a “practical compromise,” as Christopher Rich described it, that would help Utah avoid becoming embroiled in national controversy, limit large-scale slaveholding in the territory, and signal that white Mormons belonged in the mainstream of American society.[11] “Young was not simply negatively situating blacks within Mormon theology,” Paul Reeve explains, “he was attempting to situate whites more positively within American society.”[12]

But documentary evidence supports an even stronger reading of Brigham Young’s switch on slavery. Young’s own writing reveals that it was his goal as territorial governor and LDS Church president to use territorial laws and LDS Church policies to build a domain where white men would “rule.” I use this word deliberately, as did Brigham Young. It derives in Young’s usage from Genesis 4:7, wherein God tells Abel that he will “rule over” his brother Cain as a consequence of Cain’s faulty sacrificial offering. Young uses this language repeatedly in his private writings and public speeches in early 1852. His manuscript history entry (a record compiled by clerks from extant papers) for January 5, 1852 reads: 

The negro . . . should serve the seed of Abraham; he should not be a ruler, nor vote for men to rule over me nor my brethren. The Constitution of Deseret is silent upon this, we meant it should be so. The seed of Canaan cannot hold any office, civil or ecclesiastical. . . . The decree of God that Canaan should be a servant of servants unto his brethren (i.e., Shem and Japhet [sic]) is in full force. The day will come when the seed of Canaan will be redeemed and have all the blessings their brethren enjoy. Any person that mingles his seed with the seed of Canaan forfeits the right to rule and all the blessings of the Priesthood of God; and unless his blood were spilled and that of his offspring he nor they could not be saved until the posterity of Canaan are redeemed.[13]

Days later, Eliza R. Snow, who was a spouse of Brigham Young, published “The New Year, 1852” on the front page of the Deseret News on January 10, 1852. The poem corroborates and provides another viewpoint on the goal of establishing theocracy in Utah by celebrating the territory’s situation outside of and in opposition to political currents in the United States, including its reform movements:

            On, on 
Still moves the billowy tide of change, that in 
Its destination will o’erwhelm the mass 
Of the degen’rate governments of earth, 
            And introduce Messiah’s peaceful reign. 
There is “a fearful looking for,” a vague 
Presentiment of something near at hand— 
A feeling of portentousness that steals 
Upon the hearts of multitudes, who see 
            Disorder reigning through all ranks of life. 
Reformers and reforms now in our own 
United States, clashing tornado-like, 
Are threat’ning dissolution all around. 

Snow wrote disparagingly of anti-slavery reform, holding to Young’s vision of African Americans as “cursed” to “servitude”:

            Slavery and anti-slavery! What a strife! 
            “Japhet shall dwell within the tents of Shem, 
And Ham shall be his servant;” long ago 
The prophet said: ’Tis being now fulfill’d. 
The curse of the Almighty rests upon 
The colored race: In his own time, by his 
            Own means, not yours, that curse will be remov’d. 

Similarly, she dismissed the quest for suffrage: 

            And woman too aspires for something, and 
She knows not what; which if attain’d would prove, 
Her very wishes would not be her wish. 
Sun, moon, and stars, and vagrant comets too, 
            Leaving their orbits, ranging side by side, 
Contending for prerogatives, as well 
Might seek to change the laws that govern them, 
As woman to transcend the sphere which God 
Thro’ disobedience has assigned to her; 
            And seek and claim equality with man. 

Snow argued that political reform efforts were pointless because the only true government, the “perfect government,” was priesthood: 

            Can ships at sea be guided without helm? 
Boats without oars? steam-engines without steam? 
The mason work without a trowel? Can 
The painter work without a brush, or the 
            Shoe-maker without awls? The hatter work 
Without a block? The blacksmith without sledge 
Or anvil? Just as well as men reform 
And regulate society without
The Holy Priesthood’s pow’r. Who can describe 
            The heav’nly order who have not the right, 
Like Abra’m, Moses, and Elijah, to 
Converse with God, and be instructed thro’ 
The Urim and the Thummim as of old? 
Hearken, all ye inhabitants of earth! 
            All ye philanthropists who struggle to 
Correct the evils of society! 
You’ve neither rule or plummet. 
Here are men 
Cloth’d with the everlasting Priesthood: men 
Full of the Holy Ghost, and authoriz’d 
            To ’stablish righteousness—to plant the seed 
Of pure religion, and restore again 
A perfect form of government to earth. 

That form of government was not only to be established in the stakes of Zion, as later generations of Latter-day Saints would come to understand it, but on earth in the territory of Utah, a point she makes in the Deseret News by repeatedly declaiming at line-break points of poetic emphasis the word “here”: 

            If elsewhere men are so degenerate 
That women dare compete with them, and stand 
            In bold comparison: let them come here; 
And here be taught the principles of life 
And exaltation. 
Let those fair champions of “female rights” 
Female conventionists, come here. Yes, in 
These mountain vales; chas’d from the world, of whom 
            It “was not worthy” here are noble men 
Whom they’ll be proud t’ acknowledge to be far 
Their own superiors, and feel no need 
Of being Congressmen; for here the laws 
And Constitution our forefathers fram’d 
            Are honor’d and respected. Virtue finds 
Protection ’neath the heav’n-wrought banner here.
’Tis here that vile, foul-hearted wretches learn 
That truth cannot be purchas’d—justice brib’d; 
And taught to fear the bullet’s warm embrace, 
            Thro’ their fond love of life, from crime desist, 
And seek a refuge in the States, where weight 
Of purse is weight of character, that stamps 
The impress of respectability. 
“Knowledge is pow’r.” Ye saints of Latter-day! 
You hold the keys of knowledge. ’Tis for you 
            To act the most conspic’ous and the most 
Important parts connected with the scenes 
Of this New Year: To ’stablish on the earth 
The principles of Justice, Equity,— 
Of Righteousness and everlasting Peace.[14]

As Maureen Ursenbach Beecher wrote, “Eliza adopted ideas from whatever source she trusted—Joseph Smith’s utterances would be received without question—and worked them meticulously into a neatly-packaged theology with the ends tucked in and the strings tied tight.”[15] In this poem, Eliza R. Snow endorses Brigham Young’s vision of a theocratic Utah governed by white priesthood holders. 

We see this explicit conjoining of Church and territory on February 5, 1852, the day after the passage of the Act in Relation to Service and the day the legislature established voting rights (white men only) in Cedar City and Fillmore. Young used the occasion to hold forth extemporaneously and at length on the status of whites, Blacks, and others in matters spiritual and temporal. Records from this day are the first contemporary document of a theologically rationalized ban on priesthood ordination for African Americans. Young declared that African Americans were descendants of Cain and thus bearers of a curse that prohibited them from holding the priesthood. Further, he stated that any who intermarried with African Americans would bear the same curse and that it would be a blessing to them to be killed. Finally, he outlined principles for establishing the “Church” as the “kingdom of God on the earth,” returning again and again to the ideal of white “rule” as he had in his January 5 journal entry: 

I know that they cannot bear rule in the preisthood, for the curse on them was to remain upon them, until the resedue of the posterity of Michal and his wife receive the blessings. . . . Now then in the kingdom of God on the earth, a man who has has the Affrican blood in him cannot hold one jot nor tittle of preisthood; . . . In the kingdom of God on the earth the Affricans cannot hold one partical of power in Government. . . . The men bearing rule; not one of the children of old Cain, have one partical of right to bear Rule in Government affairs from first to last, they have no buisness there. this privilege was taken from them by there own transgressions, and I cannot help it; and should you or I bear rule we ought to do it with dignity and honour before God. . . . Therefore I will not consent for one moment to have an african dictate me or any Bren. with regard to Church or State Government. I may vary in my veiwes from others, and they may think I am foolish in the things I have spoken, and think that they know more than I do, but I know I know more than they do. If theAffricans cannot bear rule in the Church of God, what business have they to bear rule in the State and Government affairs of this Territory or any others? . . . If we suffer the Devil to rule over us we shall not accomplish any good. I want the Lord to rule, and be our Governor and and dictater, and we are the boys to execute. . . . Consequently I will not consent for a moment to have the Children of Cain rule me nor my Bren. No, it is not right. . . . No man can vote for me or my Bren. in this Territory who has not the privilege of acting in Church affairs. 

Brigham Young’s white supremacy was posited primarily but not exclusively in relation to African Americans. In the same speech, Brigham Young envisioned a day when people might emigrate to Utah from the “Islands,” or “Japan,” or “China.” They too, Young averred, would have no understanding of government and would have to be governed by white men.[16] This speech suggests that the legalization of slavery and Young’s exclusion of Blacks from the priesthood were elements of a larger vision in which the kingdom of God on earth was to be established with whites avoiding intermixing with Blacks except to rule over them. The legal establishment of Black servitude in Utah territory managed to preserve the slaveholding interests of a few influential white Mormons while discouraging voluntary emigration to Utah territory by free Blacks, even as free Blacks were setting out to seek their fortunes in other western states. In December 1852, Young told the legislature that the Act “had nearly freed the territory of the colored population.”[17] The 1860 census found fifty-nine African Americans in Utah, constituting .14 percent of the territorial population. In neighboring Nevada, the census found forty-five African Americans constituting .6 percent of the territorial population, and in California, 4,086 African Americans constituting 1.1 percent of the population.[18]

One of the consequences of “freeing the territory” was “freeing” the vast majority of white Mormon people from significant interaction with African Americans as neighbors, coworkers, friends, or coreligionists, and the limited extent of Black servitude also “freed” them from reengaging to any significant extent with the national controversy over slavery’s abolition. Outsiders who visited Salt Lake City were struck by white Mormons’ lack of engagement with the issue. B. H. Roberts’s History of the Church provides a vivid commemoration of the lack of abolitionist sentiment in Utah, as noted by Horace Greeley at Salt Lake City banquet in his honor in 1859: 

I have not heard tonight, and I think I never heard from the lips or journals of any of your people, one word in reprehension of that national crime and scandal, American chattel slavery, this obstinate silence, this seeming indifference on your part, reflects no credit on your faith and morals, and I trust they will not be persisted in.[19]

Greeley wondered at the “obstinate silence” and “seeming indifference” of white Mormons. But it was not that white Mormons were not interested in matters of race. Quietly, the legal and theological architects of “the Kingdom of God on Earth” had established it as a white supremacist space. Brigham Young used his conjoint role as LDS Church president, territorial governor, and empire builder to implement anti Black racism as a means of consolidating relationships among the young territory’s key operatives and as a foundational step toward realizing a theocratic Mormon kingdom where white men “ruled.”

Another major instance of discontinuity and reversal in the service of white supremacy came during President John Taylor’s efforts to adjudicate the question of Black priesthood ordination in 1879. Two years after the death of Brigham Young, in May 1879, Taylor traveled to a conference of the Utah Valley Stake in Provo. Presiding over the stake was Abraham O. Smoot. After his conversion in Kentucky in 1833, Smoot proved to be a loyal, strong-tempered, battle-ready defender of the Mormon movement and had a long-standing relationship with Brigham Young.[20] Smoot was also a solid proponent of slavery. As a missionary in Alabama in 1844, he refused to distribute political literature for Joseph Smith’s 1844 presidential campaign that proposed a gradual emancipation plan. After his move to Utah, historian Amy Tanner Thiriot has confirmed, Smoot owned or hired three slaves. The 1851 census slave schedule held in draft form at the Church History Library shows Abraham and Margaret Smoot in possession of a slave named Lucy; the Great Salt Lake County 1860 census schedule of “Slave Inhabitants” shows “A. O. Smoot” as being in possession of two male slaves, both age forty, one of whom, Jerry, may have been procured for him by Brigham Young.[21]

Smoot was an extraordinarily effective businessman whose enterprises included farming and ranching collectives, the first woolen mills in Utah, lumber mills and lumber yards, and banks. He amassed a substantial fortune, which he used at the end of his life to build the Provo Tabernacle and to pay the considerable debts of Brigham Young University, making him its first underwriter. It is unlikely that his few slaves held from the 1850s through 1862 played a substantial role in the growth of these industries or Smoot’s wealth. However, it is clear that they played a significant symbolic and ornamental role for Smoot who, as a native Kentuckian and pro-slavery advocate, likely viewed slaveholding as an appropriate and necessary status marker for a man of means. Black lives were, to Abraham Smoot, a fungible display of wealth.

After the Saturday morning session of the Utah Valley Stake conference, Smoot brought back to one of his four Provo homes President John Taylor, Taylor’s secretary John Nuttall, Brigham Young Jr., and Zebedee Coltrin. Coltrin, who had joined the Church in 1831, attended the first School of the Prophets in 1833, and emigrated to Utah in 1847, lived in Spanish Fork and was a member of Smoot’s stake. Taylor sought from both men their understanding of Joseph Smith’s views on race in connection with a request from Elijah Abel to be sealed in the temple to his spouse. As notes taken by John Nuttall document, Taylor first interviewed Coltrin, who stated that in 1834 Joseph Smith told him “the negro has no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood” and that Abel had been ordained to the Seventy as symbolic compensation for labor on the temple but dropped when his “lineage” was subsequently discovered. Coltrin also testified that he had experienced a deep sense of revulsion while ordaining Abel at Kirtland. Smoot spoke next, indicating that he agreed with Coltrin’s statement and recounting that when he served a mission in the southern states in 1835–1836, Joseph Smith had instructed him to neither baptize nor ordain slaves.[22] Having traded for and hired Black men, Smoot understood the legal and social distinctions between free and enslaved Black men, but he did not maintain these differences in the testimony he provided to President Taylor, advancing Joseph Smith’s instructions in regard to conversion of slaves—a sensitive issue given the long and complicated history in the United States of proselyting and religious instruction of slaves, compounded by rumors in border and southern states that Mormons might seek to foment slave revolt—as though they were to pertain to Black men at large. 

Smoot and Coltrin did not provide reliable testimony. Elijah Abel himself held and provided Church leaders with documentary evidence of his ordination as an elder on March 3, 1836, a fact reaffirmed in his patriarchal blessing, given by Joseph Smith Sr. He also owned and provided evidence of his ordination to the Third Quorum of the Seventy in the Kirtland Temple on December 20, 1836, which was commemorated in two certificates affirming his membership in the quorum in the 1840s and 1850s. In fact, just a few months before the interview at Abraham Smoot’s house, on March 5, 1879, as historian Paul Reeve has discovered, Abel spoke and shared his recollections of Joseph Smith at a meeting of the Quorums of the Seventy at the Council House in Salt Lake City.[23] In the face of Abel’s open, ongoing, and uncontested participation in LDS leadership, Smoot and Coltrin’s testimony was bold and controversial. Even more striking is the fact that both Coltrin and Smoot were contemporaneous, living witnesses to Elijah Abel’s ordination to the Third Quorum of the Seventy on December 20, 1836 in Kirtland. It was, in fact, Zebedee Coltrin himself who had ordained Abel, as records show, along with six other new members of the Third Quorum of the Seventy—including Abraham Smoot, that very same day in that same place.[24]

It appears that Smoot and Coltrin jointly agreed to arrange their recollections to support a position opposing Black ordination and temple participation. They did so even though they themselves had been primary witnesses to Abel’s ordination: Coltrin performed it, and Smoot was certainly present at the occasion and may have witnessed the actual ceremony. Both men withheld this vital testimony from President Taylor. Both men instead purposefully provided testimony that obscured the ordination, obscured vital differences between slave and free, and attributed an anti-ordination stance to Joseph Smith himself. Abraham Smoot and Zebedee Coltrin together bore false witness to bar full participation by Black men in the priesthood and temple ceremonies.

How do we understand what happened at the home of Abraham Smoot that day? How do we understand the dynamics that led both Coltrin and Smoot to arrange their testimonies to align and to obscure important facts in order to advance Black exclusion? It would be perfectly human for Abraham Smoot to allow his own views on the status of African Americans, views that had been fully supported by President Brigham Young, who helped broker Smoot’s purchase of one of his slaves to influence him. He would have felt justified in doing so not only by the personal support of Brigham Young, but by the culture of theocratic expediency in which he had risen to power and by the near-complete absence of a culture of white abolitionism or emancipation in Utah in the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s. He would have felt completely assured, in the majority, and in the right advancing his interest in Black exclusion. Zebedee Coltrin never owned slaves. In fact, after settling in Spanish Fork in 1852 and surviving three subsequent years of failed crops, his family had survived on pigweed and the food carried to them by a Black woman held in slavery by the Redd family—likely Marina Redd. Poverty had been a persistent feature of Coltrin’s post-emigration life. When Brigham Young instructed Abraham Smoot to organize the united order in Spanish Fork in 1873, Zebedee Coltrin was among those who joined, and even though he was not among those Smoot put forward as its slate of officers on May 2, 1874, Coltrin vocally encouraged his fellow high priests in Spanish Fork to deed their property to the order—as he had in all likelihood done himself. Smoot presided over the united order and held the deeds to land, including the land on which Zebedee Coltrin’s home stood.[25] Had he wanted to enlist Coltrin’s loyalties, to arrange their joint recollections to support Black exclusion, had he wanted to steer the meeting—held at his own home, with his own testimony to close—Smoot was certainly in a position to do so. And it would have been in his best economic and social interests for Coltrin to comply. In fact, to resist the implicit and explicit pressure of the situation, Coltrin would have to have been a man of exceptional clarity, resolve, and independence. The very nature of the testimony he provided that day does not suggest this was the case. 

Additional insights are provided from the surviving text of Coltrin’s recollections, as documented in Nuttall’s journal. Coltrin recalled that he had always opposed the ordination of Black men, and that upon return from the Zion’s Camp expedition in 1834, he had put the question directly to Joseph Smith: “When we got home to Kirtland, we both went into Bro Joseph’s office together . . . and [Brother Green] reported to Bro Joseph that I had said that the Negro could not hold the priest hood—Bro Joseph kind of dropt his head and rested it on his hand for a minute. And said Bro Zebedee is right, for the Spirit of the Lord saith the Negro had no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood.”[26] As recollected by Coltrin, the story is arranged to feature Coltrin’s primary connection with Joseph Smith, to highlight his own advance discernment of prophetic revelation, and to ascribe to Joseph Smith an affirmation of Bro Zebedee’s “rightness.” Relationship, discernment, and rightness have been among the most powerful forms of social capital in Mormonism, and Coltrin arranged his recollections to claim all three for himself. His memory of Smith having “dropt his head” also suggests a micropolitics of fealty. Coltrin also claimed to have heard Smith announce in public that “no person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the priesthood.”[27] The word “particle” can be traced to various speeches of Brigham Young on the question of Black ordination. Coltrin demonstrated his own fealty to Young by putting his words in the mouth of Joseph Smith in the presence of Young’s son Brigham Young Jr. and his successor John Taylor. Coltrin, who despite his ordination to Patriarch to the Church in 1873, had—due in part to his financial and geographical marginalization in Spanish Fork—become a minor player in the affairs of the Church, enjoyed something of a personal renaissance after this interview, as he was invited by John Taylor to accompany him to temple dedications in his official capacity as patriarch in years following. Relationship, discernment, rightness, and loyalty or fealty shaped this pivotal moment in LDS history. The joint witness provided by Smoot and Coltrin, the consensus of two white men, was believed over documentation provided by a single Black man, Elijah Abel. Especially after the death of Elijah Abel in 1884, the Smoot-Coltrin consensus came to serve as a basis for LDS Church policy.

Another instance of testimony reversal in the service of white supremacy came in 1908 under the leadership of President Joseph F. Smith. Smith had been present at critical meetings in 1879 to testify that Elijah Abel had been ordained to the priesthood by the Prophet Joseph Smith. He would continue to maintain this memory for the next sixteen years, going on record again in 1895 at a meeting of Church leaders convened by President Wilford Woodruff to consider Jane Manning James’s request for temple endowment.[28] Over the next decade, Paul Reeve observes, as Church leaders received several questions pertaining to marriage and temple access for members who were Black, or even white members who had been previously married to Black spouses, the Church’s position consolidated into one of exclusion. In 1901, Joseph F. Smith became LDS Church president. By 1907, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve had agreed that no member of Black African descent could receive priesthood or be admitted to the temple.[29]

Joseph F. Smith played a pivotal role in this stark and decisive reversal. On April 4, 1908, President Smith at general conference in Salt Lake City requested an organizational overhaul of the Church’s priesthood organization, citing a specific concern that the “lesser” quorums of the priesthood should do more to engage young men and “make them interested in the work of the Lord.”[30] Less than two weeks later, on April 16, 1908, Jane Manning James died in Salt Lake City, a death reported on the front page of the Deseret Evening News just hours later. At her funeral a few days later, LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith spoke, recalling his memories of her, as he had known her from the time he was a five-year-old boy in Nauvoo, Illinois. On April 18, 1908, the LDS Church publication the Liahona, which was distributed to all LDS missions, published an article on “The Negro and the Priesthood” providing extensive rationale for the ban, citing the Pearl of Great Price and the Old Testament, arguing that Black people were the descendants of Cain and Ham, linking priesthood denial to that lineage as well as to a pre-earthly sorting out of spirits.[31] In June 1908, the First Presidency established the General Priesthood Committee on Outlines, a standing committee that until 1922 conducted an overhaul and systematic reorganization of the priesthood and with an explicit goal of bringing in “a great many young men who are now neglecting the work.”[32] First meetings of this group were held on June 5, 16, and 23, and they used the “middle months of 1908” to work out “problems” in the institutionalization of priesthood.[33]

On August 26, 1908, at a meeting of the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, President Joseph F. Smith responded to a letter from the recently returned president of the Church’s South Africa mission about whether missionaries should teach and baptize individuals of Black African descent. Smith instructed the council that Elijah Abel had been ordained to the priesthood but stated for the first time on record that this ordination “was declared null and void by the Prophet himself.”[34] He also cited as a precedent the denial of endowment and sealing privileges to Abel and James by Presidents Young, Taylor, and (mistakenly) Woodruff and argued for a “position without any reserve” that Black LDS people were not to be ordained, endowed, or sealed because they bore the “curse” of “Cainan” imposed by “the decree of the Almighty.” In October 1908, “The Committee’s proposals were introduced and approved at October General Conference, then at special priesthood conventions in November.”[35]

Why did Joseph F. Smith change his earlier testimony so dramatically, as to nullify the entire history of Black ordination? First, Smith belonged to a select cohort of LDS Church leaders who had been since 1852 affirming their relationships to one another through actions and decisions that upheld white interests over Black lives and white testimonies over Black testimonies. This “headquarters culture” was forged in and through white solidarity and white supremacy, and prophetic leadership in Mormonism had taken shape as the ability to command this consensus. Second, as his actions on polygamy show, Smith understood the necessity of winning acceptance to the mainstream. Reeve writes: “Their decisions regarding race, priesthood, and temples at the turn of the century are best viewed as efforts by Mormon leaders to facilitate Mormonism’s transition from charges of racial contamination to exemplars of white purity.”[36] Third, Smith was directly engaged in a project to consolidate and secure LDS institutions, especially the priesthood. It is at this point that “headquarters culture” is conveyed into priesthood organization Church-wide. It would have required an exceptional commitment to racial equality to advance Black ordination at this pivotal moment when the focus was on making priesthood association attractive to participation and commitment from young white Mormon men. It is critical to see Smith’s 1908 statements as part of the Priesthood Reformation and to recognize that Black exclusion was elemental to the formation of the modern LDS priesthood orders. Finally, it seems clear that President Smith found in the death of Jane Manning James freedom from accountability—from the discomfort of bearing false witness in the presence of someone who knew it was false—to the last living witness to the reality of Abel’s ordination.

Across these instances we see what historians have concluded about the formation of whiteness as a valued category of identification and belonging. As Noel Ignatiev, Karen Brodkin, and many others have observed, if their skin color allowed and if their conduct did not contest white supremacy, minority groups in the United States, even new immigrants like Irish and Jews who were the objects of deep prejudice, could “become” white and enjoy at least some measure of its privileges.[37] Thus developed what George Lipsitz has called a “possessive investment in whiteness.” He explains:

Whiteness has a cash value: it accounts for advantages that come to individuals through profits made from housing secured in discriminatory markets, through the unequal educations allocated to children of different races, through insider networks that channel employment opportunities to the relatives and friends of those who have profited most from present and past racial discrimination, and especially through intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations. . . . White supremacy is usually less a matter of direct, referential, and snarling contempt than a system for protecting the privileges of whites by denying communities of color opportunities for asset accumulation and upward mobility.[38]

Nineteenth-century Mormons, as historian Paul Reeve has convincingly shown, were on the “wrong side of white”: repeatedly racialized and marginalized in popular opinion, the press, and by political and legal institutions.[39] At nodes of political and economic pressure, to secure the welfare and advancement of the majority-white institutional Church, Mormon leaders staked out positions that although doctrinally incoherent, contradictory, and perverse nonetheless signaled Mormonism’s alignment with broader systems of white supremacy. More than that, what emerges across these three instances of reversal and discontinuity is active and intentional privileging of white relationships, loyalty, solidarity, and “rule” over Black lives and Black testimonies at the expense of theology, integrity, and ethics but to the benefit of institutional growth and dominion. This is the definition of white supremacy. White supremacy guided the formation of key LDS institutions—the theocratic territory of Utah, the modern correlated orders of the priesthood, even Brigham Young University, whose founding trustee and major funder bore false witness and influenced others to do the same in order to block Black Mormons from full access to priesthood and temple rites. The fact that each of these decisive moments takes shape around a reversal, a break, a contradiction underscores that these were not simply unintentional or unconscious concessions to dominant power structures. These were intentional decisions to advance white over black. 

To manage the theological incoherence of an anti-Black stance on ordination and temple ordinances, the Mormon movement developed not only a possessive investment in whiteness but a possessive investment in rightness—a commitment to prophetic infallibility or “unstrayability” that was implicitly cultivated in public statements by Church leaders and fully subscribed to by the post-correlation LDS Church. At key points, as LDS institutional hierarchies consolidated, Church leaders formed camps to support one another in unity around contested points of doctrine and to silence dissent among the leadership. Thus, we find, in 1931, Joseph Fielding Smith bearing witness in his book The Way to Perfection that the policy against Black ordination came not from the white supremacy of Brigham Young, not from collusion between Young’s friend and legacy caretaker Abraham Smoot and Zebedee Coltrin, not from surrender by Joseph F. Smith, not from Mormonism’s human history, but from time immemorial, from God himself.

Official Declaration 2 in 1978 removed the policy that was a product of Mormonism’s possessive investment in whiteness and its possessive investment in rightness but it did not change those investments. To this day, whiteness retains a privileged position in Mormonism, and white supremacy is maintained by a deeply ingrained discipline among white LDS people of defending prophetic inerrancy or opting to maintain silence rather than voice objection to racism and white supremacy in LDS Church settings, including Sunday meetings. This has created a context of non-dialogism wherein radical white supremacists who are LDS feel comfortable going public while Mormon anti-racists, feminists, LGBTQ advocates and allies, and heterodox Mormons harbor a deeply internalized fear that opening their mouths to express opinions or to reject the racism and sexism of LDS Church policies and institutions past or present will lead to informal shunning or excommunication. This fear supports the perseverance of pervasive systematic white supremacy. Professor Darron T. Smith, a scholar of race in LDS life, has observed that LDS people live this every day in 1) suppression of conflict in order to “avoid” the discomfort of confronting privilege and discrimination (and the growth that comes with it), 2) underrepresentation of people of color in leadership, and 3) evasion of direct talk on race.[40]

I would add that white privilege is maintained in LDS circles when white LDS people put responsibility on Black LDS people for doing the labor to address racism, when white LDS people correct people of color who present information, experience, or perspective in forums ranging from Sunday meetings to Facebook, when white LDS people maintain literal interpretations of Old Testament, Book of Mormon, and Pearl of Great Price scriptures on skin color and “racial identities,” and when white LDS people engage in uninformed and unnuanced celebration of LDS historical figures who openly espoused racist sentiments, held slaves, or opposed Black emancipation. 

The possessive investment in rightness that was developed to shore up Mormonism’s possessive investment in whiteness also served to manage its contradictory positions on issues like polygamy. It furnished the terms by which LDS Church leaders managed a series of accommodations that secured Mormonism’s survival and white Mormons’ access to the privileges of white American citizenship. It also utterly shaped twentieth- and twenty-first-century Mormonism. First, it has served as a tool for managing and transitioning from the incoherence and instability of early Mormon belief and practice to its modern institutional correlation. Second, it has helped Mormonism manage ongoing contradictions in its scripture, prophetic statements, and actions. Third, it has helped Mormonism maintain its internal differentiation, its coherence, its “optimum tension” (as Armand Mauss put it) with the white mainstream, while yet accessing white mainstream advantages.[41] But this has come at an expense. The possessive investment in whiteness and the possessive investment in rightness have put Mormons on the wrong side of many human struggles for dignity, autonomy, sovereignty, and well-being. They have allied the Mormon people with power structures that allocate life chances by race and made most Mormon people ignorant to the experiences of people of color. The possessive investment in rightness has stood in the way of engagement, conflict, and searching that lead to continuing revelation. It has put the LDS Church in the impossible position of defending the purity and literal veracity of our faith’s entire nineteenth-century record, and it has cut off from communion with the Church those who could not do the same. Most importantly, the possessive investment in whiteness and the possessive investment in rightness have corroded the theological integrity of Mormonism as a Christian-identified faith. 

Beginning to see that white supremacy was not just an egregious theological error but part of the building of Mormon institutions and communities, it is easier to makes sense of other facts and instances that seem at first startling and radically discontinuous with the faith professions of the Mormon people: 

Robert Dockery Covington, the leader of the Cotton Mission organized by Brigham Young in 1857 to establish a cotton industry in southern Utah and an LDS bishop, recounted to fellow settlers (according to a contemporaneous record) stories of his physical and sexual abuse (including rape) of African American men, women, and children. His statue stands today in downtown Washington, Utah, and the name of Dixie College in St. George commemorates the area’s ties to the American South.[42]

In 1863, Brigham Young preached at the Salt Lake Tabernacle that intermarriage between Blacks and whites was forbidden by God on penalty of blood atonement—death. Declaring himself opposed to both slavery as practiced in the South and its abolition, Young declared: “The Southerners make the negroes and the Northerners worship them.”[43]

In December 1866, Thomas Coleman, an African American man, was found murdered in Salt Lake City—stabbed and his throat cut, a method of killing resembling “penalties” affixed in early Mormon temple rituals. An anti-miscegenation warning was inscribed on a sheet of paper and “attached” to his corpse, as reported by the Salt Lake Daily Telegraph of December 12.[44]

On August 25, 1883, Sam Joe Harvey, an African American man, was arrested for allegedly shooting a police officer, then turned over to a Salt Lake City mob that hanged him and dragged his corpse down State Street. 

On June 18, 1925 in Price, Utah, a crowd estimated at one thousand, including families with children carrying picnic baskets, gathered to see Robert Marshall, an African American miner who was Mormon, hung. The event is now regarded by some historians as the last lynching of a Black man in the American West.[45]

In the 1940s and 1950s, LDS Church leaders including J. Reuben Clark advocated for the racial segregation of blood banks at hospitals so that white LDS people would not have their blood “mixed” through transfusions from Black donors and lose eligibility for priesthood, a practice that held in some areas in Utah through the 1970s.[46]

In the 1940s and 1950s, George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, and Mark E. Petersen encouraged local LDS leaders to join and support ordinances and organizations that would prevent Black citizens from moving into white neighborhoods in Utah and California.[47]

In the 1940s and 1950s, after abandoning the instruction to teach only Brazilians of European descent, Church leaders in Brazil developed “circulars” directing missionaries to screen potential converts for Black African lineage by scrutinizing phenotypic features—hair, skin, features—at the door when tracting and to avoid teaching potential converts of African descent. The missionary lessons as delivered in Brazil also included a special “dialogue” scripted to detect African lineage and to teach converts that “Negroes” were not eligible for priesthood. Con verts of African descent who persisted had their baptismal certificates marked with a “B” for Black, “C” for Cain, “N” for Negro, or similar, a practice that persisted into the 1970s.[48]

In the 1950s, high-ranking LDS Church leaders Mark E. Petersen and Bruce R. McConkie delivered remarks and published as authoritative “doctrine” anti-Black speculative theology supporting segregation, opposing interracial marriage, and claiming that African Americans were cursed by God and that white supremacy was God’s will. Their words were, in Petersen’s case, circulated in typescript among BYU religion faculty through the 1960s, and in McConkie’s case remained in print with only minor revisions in the book Mormon Doctrine until 2010.[49]

Brigham Young University sought to discourage applications and enrollments from Black students in the 1960s. Harold B. Lee wrote to Brigham Young University’s Ernest Wilkinson that he would hold him “responsible” if a “granddaughter of mine should ever go to BYU and become engaged to a colored boy there.”[50]

At the LDS Church’s April 1965 general conference, apostle Ezra Taft Benson (who became LDS Church president in 1987) encouraged members worldwide to oppose the civil rights movement: “President David O. McKay has called communism the greatest threat to the Church, and it is certainly the greatest mortal threat this country has ever faced. What are you doing to fight it? . . . I [have] warned how the communists were using the Civil Rights movement to promote revolution and eventual take-over of this country. When are we going to wake up? What do you know about the dangerous Civil Rights Agitation in Mississippi?”[51]

During the 1990s and 2000s, as research by Dr. Darron T. Smith has shown, Brigham Young University disciplined and expelled Black students for alleged violations of the university Honor Code at disproportionately high rates.[52]

White supremacist LDS people have used LDS scriptures and statements from General Authorities as support for contemporary “alt-right” white supremacy. In May 2017, Mormons who identified with the “alt-right” convened a #TrueBlueMormon conference featuring bloggers such as Ayla Stewart, who blogs and appears on social media as “Wife With A Purpose,” and in June 2017 LDS alt-right bloggers organized to attack and demean via Twitter Black LDS anti-racism advocates. In August 2017, Ayla Stewart was invited and scheduled to speak at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[53]

This is not a comprehensive list. 

Systems as pervasive as white supremacy do not just transform quietly: they must be recognized, investigated, understood, and intentionally abandoned or dismantled. The global growth of the LDS Church and generational turnover in its leadership have certainly created conditions that are more favorable to change. But given the critical role of the possessive investment in whiteness in the formation of key LDS institutions and the continuing power of its cultural sequel, the possessive investment in rightness, this change must be intentional. Recent Mormon history provides three models for intentional change in Mormonism.

Movement from the Top 

The first model would involve change effected “vertically” through statements and institutional changes made by LDS Church leaders. In the matter of racism, we see the following: 

In 2006, President Hinckley personally apologized First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles leader Cecil Murray and spoke out against racism in general conference.[54]

In 2012, after BYU professor Randy Bott offered racist justifications for the priesthood ban to The Washington Post, the Mormon Newsroom issued a statement indicating that such justifications did not represent “official doctrine.”[55]

In 2013, the LDS Church published a new Gospel Topics essay entitled “Race and the Priesthood” that offered a correct and fuller version of the histories behind the ban and the revelation.[56]

In 2017, the Mormon Newsroom issued clear and strong denunciations of the violence in Charlottesville, racism, and white supremacy. 

In 2018, the LDS Church hosted “Be One” commemorations of the fortieth anniversary of Official Declaration 2, centering around the testimonies and experiences of Black LDS people and featuring as well remarks by LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson and apostle Dallin H. Oaks modeling a more welcoming, reflective approach to race relations within the Church. 

In June 2017, Salt Lake Tribune religion reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack published a list compiled by Black LDS Church members of additional changes the LDS Church could make to effect “movement from the top”: 

Cast a Black Adam and Eve (or an interracial couple) in the film shown to faithful members in LDS temples. 

Use more African American faces in Church art and manuals and display more artwork depicting Christ as he would appear: as a Middle Eastern Jewish man. 

Pick more Blacks for highly visible leadership positions—if not an apostle, at least in the First Quorum of the Seventy (members of which are General Authorities) or in the general auxiliary presidencies. 

Repudiate and apologize for the faith’s past priesthood and temple ban on Blacks, which the Church lifted in 1978. 

Show the documentary film Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons to every all-male priesthood quorum, women’s Relief Society class, and Young Men and Young Women groups. 

Quote from the Church’s Gospel Topics essay “Race and the Priesthood” regularly at LDS general conference and translate it into all the languages that the Church uses to communicate with its global membership. 

Direct that the essay be read from the pulpit in every Mormon congregation and mission in the world. 

Have the Book of Mormon scripture found in 2 Nephi 26:33—“all are alike unto God”—be a yearlong Young Women or Primary theme and make it part of the curriculum to talk about the sin of racism. 

Bring more Blacks to LDS Church–owned Brigham Young University as students and faculty, while providing sensitivity training for all students about racial issues and interactions with people of color. 

Teach children about heroic Black Mormon lives, such as LDS pioneers Jane Manning James and Elijah Abel. 

Expand the LDS hymnbook to include more diverse songs and styles. Enlist more people of color in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 

Invite the choir from the Genesis Group—a longtime Utah-based support organization for Black Mormons and their families—to sing at general conference. 

Use the Genesis Group to assist in improving relationships with the African American community. 

Give the Genesis Group greater authority to exist in all states and to visit wards and assist lay bishoprics in how to avoid and overcome racism in their congregations. 

Create a Church-sponsored Mormon and Black website akin to the one found at mormonandgay.org. 

Treat the members of the Genesis Group’s presidency as an auxiliary, seating them on the stand with other high-ranking authorities during general conference—and invite at least one of them to speak during the sessions. 

Provide training on racial issues for newly-called mission presidents.

Include a mandatory class at missionary training centers that teach the “Race and the Priesthood” essay so missionaries are better prepared when they go out to preach. 

Other steps to address past wrongs committed by LDS people could plausibly follow the model of the Church’s response after 2007 to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which included collaborative efforts with descendants of massacre victims and local Paiute tribes blamed for the massacre, an explicit statement of responsibility and regret, and a physical memorialization of the wrongs at the massacre site, later designated a National Historic Landmark.[57] It is possible to imagine similar efforts including reparations to descendants of slaves owned and traded by LDS Church leaders and an incorporation of materials directly exploring the racist human origins of the ban and calling members to take responsibility for divesting from justifications for it in Church curricula and in general conference talks. It is also possible to imagine a rigorous, scholarship-supported conversation about LDS Church–owned institutional commemorations of individuals like Abraham Smoot who owned slaves and decisively and intention ally obscured truth to maintain the supremacy of white over black in Mormonism and exclude generations of Black people from what LDS people would understand as the blessings of temple rite participation, including ritual “sealings” that would have secured Black family relationships in the eternities. LDS Church–owned institutions like BYU could enter the national conversation about their history of institutionalized racism, privilege, accountability, responsibility, and restitution that can serve as a powerful learning experience for the thousands of future LDS Church leaders guided by trained historians who are committed Latter-day Saints. This might start by considering the way the institution honors men who were slaveholders or promoted racist views. For example, Brigham Young University has a building named after Smoot (the administration building) and Joseph F. Smith (the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences), who also obscured truth to secure Black priesthood exclusion, as well as other LDS Church leaders like J. Reuben Clark (law school), Harold B. Lee (library), David O. McKay (School of Education) and George Albert Smith (fieldhouse) who are on record as advocates of anti-Black racial segregation, along with Ezra Taft Benson (chemistry building) and Ernest Wilkinson (student center), who opposed the civil rights movement and sought to evade responsibility for institutional segregation. It would also place Brigham Young University among leading educational institutions who have elected to undertake productive scrutiny of their institutions’ formative historical intersections with slavery and white supremacy.

Movement from the Margins 

The second model involves efforts by LDS scholars, activists, and non LDS groups and individuals to organize small, specifically dedicated advocacy efforts to persuade LDS Church leaders to pursue theological and institutional change. Past examples include spiritual and political efforts in the 1960s and 1970s by Genesis Group founder Ruffin Bridgeforth, Darius Gray, and Eugene Orr; scholarship in the 1960s and 1970s by Armand Mauss and Lester Bush; subsequent writing by Gray, Margaret Young, Newell Bringhurst, Darron T. Smith, Janan Graham Russell, and others; and ongoing advocacy and education efforts by Tamu Smith, Zandra Vranes, and many others. It is possible to imagine a stronger role for direct activism on the model of Ordain Women to pursue specific institutional changes around race, but this has not been the chosen approach. 

Movement from the Middle 

Third, there is the possibility of movement from the middle, wherein rank-and-file Mormons organize to change not just the thinking of the people at the “top” but work directly with other rank-and-file Mormons to improve understanding and change conduct. Social media facilitates an unprecedented level of this “horizontal” communication among Mormons, and recent years have seen groups like Feminist Mormon Housewives and Mormons Building Bridges (a grassroots network focused on promoting love and acceptance for LGBTQI+ people) work diligently and effectively through online content, public gatherings, and retreats to support changemakers. Can grassroots organized “movement from the middle” work to change perspectives and conduct among LDS Church members? It seems important to consider that a key factor in driving Mormon LGBTQ+ ally “movements from the middle” has been the Mormon emphasis on family togetherness. Some—but not all—of the strongest voices in these movements emerged because a child, sibling, or other loved one came out as LGBTQ+. Because they refused to choose between their family and their faith, LDS LGBTQ+ allies organized to set the faith community right at the grassroots, persisting despite daunting theological and political initiatives from LDS Church leadership, such as the November 2015 ban on baptism of the children of LGBTQ+ families. It may be that white Mormons will move into action only when they feel that dismantling white supremacy is as critical to their own spiritual wholeness as losing a family member.

Mormons will have to choose to acknowledge the pivotal and pervasive role of white supremacy in the founding of LDS institutions and the growth of the Mormon movement. White LDS people will have to choose to see the possessive investment in whiteness and the possessive investment in rightness as a harm to spiritual wholeness and as corrosive to the faith—individual, collective, and institutional. Among the many fruits of this work may be a faith that is more resilient when confronted with its own enormous and inevitable humanness, a faith that need not be protected from its own history—a faith capable of surviving its failures and recognizing, renouncing, and repairing its wrongs.

---

[1] Alice Faulkner Burch, “Black Women in the LDS Church and the Role of the Genesis Group” (lecture, Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team Annual Breakfast, Mormon History Association conference, Snowbird, Utah, June 11, 2016, http://www.mormonwomenshistoryinitiative.org/mwhit-breakfast-2016.html).

[2] bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End Press, [1985] 2000). 

[3] This formulation reflects a consensus view of racism as a social system and also more specifically the influence of geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore, who defined racism as “the state-sanctioned and/or legal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerabilities to premature death, in distinct yet densely interconnected political geographies” in her essay “Race and Globalization,” Geographies of Global Change, 2nd ed., edited by P. J. Taylor, R. L. Johnstone, and M. J. Watts (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 261.

[4] One note about methodology seems important here: subaltern historiography is premised on the idea that the colonial archive and dominant historiography is structured to sustain the narratives of the powerful and that a different methodology is required to read the archive for insights that might disrupt the narratives of the powerful.

[5] William W. Phelps, “Free People of Color,” Evening and Morning Star 2, no. 14 (1833): 109.

[6] Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), 29. See also Martin B. Hickman, “The Political Legacy of Joseph Smith,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 3 (1968): 23; Richard D. Poll and Martin Hickman, “Joseph Smith’s Presidential Platform,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 3 (1968): 19–23. 

[7] Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), 335; W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 149.

[8] Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 32–35; Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 148–59; John Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge: Harvard Belknap, 2012), 225–26. 

[9] Orson Hyde, “Slavery Among the Saints,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 13, Apr. 15, 1851, 63, available at https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/ collection/MStar/id/2093.

[10] See Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks; see also, Nathaniel R. Ricks, “A Peculiar Place for the Peculiar Institution: Slavery and Sovereignty in Early Territorial Utah” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 2007); Christopher B. Rich, Jr., “The True Policy for Utah: Servitude, Slavery, and ‘An Act in Relation to Service,’” Utah Historical Quarterly 80, no. 1 (2012): 54–74; and Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 32–35. 

[11] Rich, “The True Policy for Utah,” 55. 

[12] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 155.

[13] “History of Brigham Young,” entry dated Jan. 5, 1852, Church Historian’s Office Records Collection, LDS Church Archives (quoted in Ricks, “A Peculiar Place,” 114).

[14] E. R. Snow, “The New Year 1852,” Deseret News, Jan. 10, 1852, 1, http:// contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/desnews1/id/171508/ rec/3; Jill Mulvay Derr and Karen Lynn Davidson, eds., Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry (Provo: BYU Press, 2009), 419–20. 

[15] Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, “The Eliza Enigma,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 11, no. 1 (1978): 40–43.

[16] “Brigham Young Address to Legislature,” Feb. 4, 1852, Box 1, Folder 17, Historian’s Office Reports of Speeches, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, https://archive.org/ details/CR100317B0001F0017.

[17] Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 335; Ricks, “A Peculiar Place,” 131. 

[18] “1860 Census: Population of the United States,” United States Census Bureau, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1864/dec/1860a.html.

[19] B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church, vol. 4 (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1930), 533. 

[20] Smoot fought in 1838 alongside Porter Rockwell among the Danites and served as a Nauvoo policeman. He migrated with his wife Margaret to Utah in 1847 as the leader of two companies of fifty; subsequently, Smoot captained three additional companies in 1850, 1852, and 1856, and also served a number of foreign missions. Brigham Young acknowledged his leadership by appointing him superintendent of one of the valley’s first sugar factories and bishop of the Sugar House ward, which set Smoot on a path to become alderman from the Sugar House district of Salt Lake City, then mayor of Salt Lake City from 1857 to 1866. It was Smoot who, in July 1857, discovered with Porter Rockwell the advance of US Army troops toward Utah and turned around from Missouri to ride back to Utah and personally warn Brigham Young. In 1868, at the instruction of Brigham Young, Smoot moved to Provo, where he became the region’s effective governor—simultaneously serving as Provo City mayor (1868–1881), Utah Valley stake president (1868–1881), and, as the first head of the Board of Trustees of Brigham Young University. Smoot played an elemental role in the creation and consolidation of key LDS institutions and in Utah’s early theocracy. See C. Elliott Berlin, “Abraham Owen Smoot: Pioneer Mormon Leader” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1955). 

[21] Jerry had been the property of David and Duritha Trail Lewis, fellow Kentucky-born converts to the Church. Jerry came to Utah in the company of migrants led by David Lewis in 1851. He remained with the family after David’s death in 1855, and on November 2, the Third District Court in Salt Lake County recorded three individuals among the “property” of the deceased: 

1 coloured man (35 years old) . . . $700 

1 “ woman (16 years old) $500 

1 “ girl (11 years old) $300 

On August 4, 1858 Duritha filed a record with the clerk of the Third Judicial District Court for the Utah Territory registering these same individuals as her property:

Duritha Lewis who being duly sworn, states on oath that she is the true and lawful owner of three persons of African blood, whose names and ages are as follows to wit; Jerry, Caroline, and Tampian, aged 38, 18, 14. That she said Duritha Lewis inherited them from her father Solomon Trail according to the laws of the state of Kentucky. That by virtue of such inheritance, she is entitled to the services of the said, Jerry, Caroline, and Tampian, during their lives, according to the [laws] of the said Territory. That she makes this affidavit that they may be registered as slaves according to the requirements, of the said [laws] of the said Territory, for life. 

As a widower who had initially been remarried but left that household, Duritha Trail Lewis was in a vulnerable economic position. On January 3, 1860, Brigham Young wrote to Duritha Lewis to encourage her to sell Jerry: Dear Sister Lewis: 

I understand that you are frequently importuned to sell your negro man Jerry, but that he is industrious an faithful, and desires to remain in this territory: Under these circumstances I should certainly deem it most advisable for you to keep him, but should you at any time conclude otherwise and determine to sell him, ordinary kindness would require that you should sell him to some kind faithful member of the church, that he may have a fair opportunity for doing all the good he desires to do or is capable of doing. I have been told that he is about forty years old, if so, it is not presumable that you will, in case of sale, ask so high a price as you might expect for a younger person. If the price is sufficiently moderate, I may conclude to purchase him and set him at liberty.

Your brother in the gospel, Brigham Young. 

Young’s letter is revealing in many respects. First, in noting that Duritha was “frequently importuned” to sell Jerry in Salt Lake City, it suggests that demand for slaves was greater than supply in Utah Territory. Second, it documents that Brigham Young was personally involved in exchanges or trades of slaves: he prevailed upon Duritha Lewis to advise her on the desirability of sale, to set pricing expectations, and to encourage her to sell him to another church member. Although Young offered to “purchase him and set him at liberty,” presumably at a cost discounted from his seven-hundred-dollar 1855 valuation, this sale never materialized. Instead, by June 1, 1860, Jerry (along with one other forty-year-old Black man) was in the possession of Abraham Smoot. Both were presumably freed in 1862, though Jerry moved with the Smoot household to Provo in 1868 (Amy Tanner Thiriot, personal correspondence with author, Nov. 10, 2017). See “David Lewis Company (1851),” Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, https://history.lds.org/overlandtravel/companies/185/david lewis-company; “In the Matter of the Estate of David Lewis,” Third District Court, Salt Lake County Probate Case Files, no. 39, Nov. 2, 1855, http://images.archives.utah.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p17010coll30/id/590; text of statement reprinted in “Duritha Trail Lewis,” Our Family Heritage (blog), July 3, 2011, http://ourfamilyheritage.blogspot.com/2011/07/duritha-trail-lewis.html; letter reprinted in Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray, Bound for Canaan (Provo: Zarahemla Books, 2013).

[22] Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (1973): 31–32; Calvin Robert Stephens, “The Life and Contributions of Zebedee Coltrin” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974), 53 n. 55; Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 196–97.

[23] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 196–97. 

[24] Stephens, “The Life and Contributions of Zebedee Coltrin,” 53–55.

[25] Ibid., 77–78 and 86–88.

[26] Ibid., 55. 

[27] Ibid., 55.

[28] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 202. 

[29] Ibid., 207. 

[30] William G. Hartley, “The Priesthood Reform Movement, 1908–1922,” BYU Studies 13, no. 2 (1973): 3.

[31] Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 58.

[32] Hartley, “The Priesthood Reform Movement,” 4. 

[33] Ibid. 

[34] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 209–10; Hartley, “The Priesthood Reform Movement,” 4–5.

[35] Ibid. 

[36] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 204.

[37] Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Verso, 1995); Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998). 

[38] George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), vii. 

[39] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 138.

[40] Darron T. Smith, “Unpacking Whiteness in Zion: Some Personal Reflections and General Observations,” in Black and Mormon, edited by Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2004), 148–66. See also Darron Smith, “The Persistence of Racialized Discourse in Mormonism,” Sunstone 126 (March 2003): 31–33.

[41] On optimum tension, see Armand L. Mauss, The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 7–11. On the value of folk belief in inerrancy to retrenchment, see especially Mauss’s “The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation and Identity: Trends and Developments Since Midcentury,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 27, no. 1 (1994): 129–49. See also John G. Turner, “‘All the Truth Does Not Always Need to be Told’: The LDS Church, Mormon History, and Religious Authority,” in Out of Obscurity: Mormonism since 1945, edited by Patrick Q. Mason and John G. Turner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 318–40.

[42] Brian Maffly, “Utah’s Dixie was Steeped in Slave Culture, Historians Say,” Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 10, 2012, http://archive.sltrib.com/article. php?id=55424505&itype=cmsid. 

[43] Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 43.

[44] Image sourced from Connell O’Donovan, “‘I Would Confine Them to Their Own Species’: LDS Historical Rhetoric and Praxis Regarding Marriage Between Whites and Blacks,” Mar. 28, 2009, http://www.connellodonovan. com/images/coleman.jpg. 

[45] Tammy Walquist, “Utah Lynching May Have Been Last,” Deseret Morning News, June 19, 2005, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/600142549/ Utah-lynching-may-have-been-last.html; James Brooke, “Memories of Lynching Divide a Town,” New York Times, Apr. 4, 1998, http://www.nytimes. com/1998/04/04/us/memories-of-lynching-divide-a-town.html. 

[46] Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 68.

[47] Ibid., 171. 

[48] Ibid., 103. 

[49] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958); Mark E. Petersen, “Race Problems—As They Affect the Church” (address delivered at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, Aug. 27, 1954, available at https://archive.org/details/RaceProblemsAsTheyAffectTheChurchMarkEPetersen); see also Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 68–69.

[50] Darron T. Smith, When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide: Black Athletes at BYU and Beyond (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), 90–91. 

[51] As quoted in Harris and Bringhurst, The Mormon Church and Blacks, 78–79. Note that Harris and Bringhurst refer to the unaltered version of Benson’s address as recorded in David O. McKay Scrapbook #79, David O. McKay Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. The latter half of the quoted passage, beginning with “I [have] warned,” was not printed in the official conference report (see Official Report of the 135th Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Apr. 5, 1965 [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, semiannual], 125). 

[52] Smith, When Race, Religion, and Sport Collide, see especially 101–16.

[53] Mary Ann, “Wife with a Purpose: Mormonism’s Alt Right Representative,” Wheat and Tares (blog), Aug. 15, 2017, https://wheatandtares.org/2017/08/15/wife-with-a-purpose-mormonisms-alt-right-representative. 

[54] Margaret Blair Young, “Pastor to Pastor: President Hinckley’s Apology for Racism in the Church,” Patheos (blog), Sept. 17, 2012, http://www.patheos.com/mormon/pastor-to-pastor-margaret-blair-young-09-18-2012. 

[55] Jason Horowitz, “The Genesis of a Church’s Stand on Race,” The Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-genesis-of-a-churchs-stand-on-race/2012/02/22/gIQAQZXyfR_story.html; Mormon Newsroom, “Race and the Church: All Are Alike Unto God,” Feb. 29, 2012, http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/race-church. 

[56] “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics, https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng.

[57] See Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Mountain Meadows Now a National Historic Landmark,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 5, 2011, http://archive.sltrib.com/article. php?id=52107971&itype=CMSID.

[post_title] => The Possessive Investment in Rightness: White Supremacy and the Mormon Movement [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 45–81
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Declaring the lineage of Black Latter-day Saints is a challenging problem for patriarchs in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons, like many Protestant Christians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, asserted that Black people were a cursed race. Mormons and Protestants believed that God placed a curse of dark sin on Black people as descendants of Cain, the biblical counterfigure who murdered his brother Abel, to distinguish them from God’s covenant people. The curse, carried on through the lineage of Noah’s son Ham, relegated Blacks to a lifetime of servitude and bondage to white people. The divine curse provided a rationale for early Americans to enslave millions of Africans and to impose harsh penalties on Blacks and whites who transgressed strict laws forbidding interracial intimacy, love, and sex.[1] For Mormons, the divine curse prohibited persons of African ancestry from holding the priesthood and participating in sacred temple rituals—a prohibition that lasted from 1852–1978.[2]

Somewhat quixotically, Mormons claimed to be the literal descendants of the House of Israel, in particular the lineage of Ephraim—the favored son of Joseph, the great grandson of the powerful Hebrew patriarch Abraham. As the self-appointed heirs of Ephraim, Mormon leaders theorized that Ephraim’s descendants would play a significant role in the restoration of ancient priesthood rituals foretold in Mormon scripture. Mormon scripture also affirms that Ephraim’s descendants would preach the gospel to the other tribes of Israel and lead the Church in the latter days.[3] By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mormon leaders articulated more fully what it meant to be God’s covenant people.[4] They tied their “chosen status” as Ephraim’s descendants through “assignment to a particular lineage that preceded birth itself.”[5] Lineage would be assigned by a patriarch, either from the Office of the Patriarch or from a local patriarch in one of the stakes of the Church. Patterned after Jacob’s blessings to his twelve sons in the Bible, Mormons accept these patriarchal blessings “as sacred words of instruction and promise.”[6] In these special blessings Mormons would learn their designated Israelite lineage, through which they would receive eternal blessings and salvation. As Michael Marquardt has shown in his compilation of patriarchal blessings, most Mormons claim lineage through the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, but other lineages are named too.[7] According to the Church Historian’s Office, which made a report to the Quorum of the Twelve in 1970, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel are represented in lineage pronouncements and as many as “fifteen other lineages had been named in blessings, including that of Cain.”[8]

The Church Historian’s report is not available, nor are the blessings themselves, which accounts for the dearth of scholarship on Blacks and patriarchal blessings.[9] Nevertheless, enough blessings are available through archives to make informed judgments about Blacks and lineage. Enriched by meeting minutes from the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, as well as firsthand accounts of patriarchs who gave the blessings, these valuable documents allow us to construct a rich narrative examining the complicated problem of declaring lineage to Black Latter-day Saints. 

In this essay, I argue that Mormon leaders created an inchoate, confusing, and unevenly applied policy. Some patriarchs pronounced “the seed of Cain” on Black members during their blessings; others the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; while still others no lineage at all. Not until the late twentieth century did Mormon leaders begin to address the inconsistent and haphazard manner in which patriarchs declared lineage on Black Latter-day Saints. Eldred G. Smith, the great-great grandnephew of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith and the eighth patriarch of the LDS Church, claimed that Blacks should not receive a lineage designation because God had cursed them, which placed them outside of the House of Israel. His teachings clashed with those of other General Authorities, who averred that persons of African descent should receive a lineage designation. The priesthood revelation of 1978 allowing Black men to receive temple and priesthood privileges only complicated matters.

This new policy change posed all sorts of theological questions for Mormon leaders, prompting them to declare that Blacks could now be “adopted into the House of Israel.” Yet, even as the priesthood revelation challenged previously accepted concepts of Mormon lineage theology, it failed to resolve the nagging question of whether or not Blacks had been—or still were—a cursed race. Indeed, after the priesthood revelation LDS leaders maintained a troubling silence regarding the lineage of Black Latter-day Saints. In 2018, some forty years after the priesthood and temple ban ended, Black lineage remains a vexing problem in the LDS Church.

***

The earliest known Black man to receive a patriarchal blessing was Elijah Abel, a faithful Latter-day Saint who joined the Church in 1832. Abel was one of a handful of Blacks who received the priesthood prior to Joseph Smith’s death in 1844. Early Church records indicate that Abel, Joseph T. Ball, and Walker Q. Lewis all held the priesthood, and possibly two other men of African descent, William McCary and Black Pete.[10] Available records indicate that during the Church presidencies of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young just five African Americans received their patriarchal blessings: Elijah Abel, Joseph Ball, Walker Lewis, Anthony Stebbins, a Black slave, and Jane Manning James. 

Abel was ordained to the office of an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood in 1836 and ordained to the Third Quorum of the Seventy some nine months later.[11] Also that year he received his patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Sr., whose appointment to the Office of the Patriarch was hereditary, as stipulated in Mormon scripture.[12] As the Church grew and requests for patriarchal blessings increased, Mormon founder Joseph Smith Jr. appointed local patriarchs to meet this demand.[13] Available records do not indicate if local patriarchs blessed early Black Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith Sr. most likely gave the first patriarchal blessing to an African American Latter-day Saint. Smith had few instructions to go on and fewer still on how to bless Blacks. There was not a lineage policy for them, despite Joseph Smith Jr.’s asserting that Black people derived from the “seed of Cain.”[14] Abel’s patriarchal blessing reads more like a “father’s blessing,” proclaiming him an “orphan”—a pointed reference signifying that Abel’s father was not a Latter-day Saint and could therefore not bless his son as the family patriarch. His blessing was full of warnings and admonitions. It also included blessings and promises. “Thou shalt be made equal to thy brethren and thy soul be white in eternity and thy robes glittering,” the elder Smith promised.[15] Abel’s blessing did not include a designated lineage.[16]

Following Joseph Smith Sr.’s tenure as presiding patriarch from 1834 until the time of his death in 1840, his son Hyrum succeeded him in that office, serving from 1840–1844. On March 6, 1844, Hyrum Smith gave a patriarchal blessing to a former slave named Anthony Stebbins assigning him the lineage of “Cainaan.”[17] Smith also blessed Stebbins’s sister-in law Jane Manning James, a faithful and loyal house servant to Joseph Smith Jr.[18] James, baptized in Illinois in 1842, later relocated to Nauvoo, where she received her patriarchal blessing on May 11, 1844. Familiarly known as “Aunt Jane” by her fellow Mormons, Hyrum Smith blessed her that God would reveal the “Mysteries of the Kingdom” according to her “obedience” to God’s “requisitions.” He assigned her lineage through “Cainaan the Son of Ham,” proclaiming that if she lived worthily, God would lift the curse and “stamp . . . his own lineage” upon her.[19]

If pronouncements from the lineage of “Cainaan” characterized Hyrum Smith’s patriarchal blessings on Black Mormons, William Smith, the son of Joseph Smith Sr., appears to have departed from the practice during his brief tenure as Patriarch to the Church. On July 14, 1845, he gave Joseph T. Ball, an African American from Boston, a patriarchal blessing. Ball joined the LDS Church in Boston in 1832 and was ordained an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood in the mid-1830s in Kirtland, Ohio. In 1844 he was ordained a high priest in the Melchizedek Priesthood and served as the branch president in Boston, making him the first African American ordained to that office and the first to preside over a Mormon congregation. In Ball’s blessing, Patriarch Smith told him that he was of “Royal Stock, to whom the blessings and promises were made, even Joseph[‘s] tribe whose blessing are of heaven.” Smith further proclaimed that Ball would be “called to a mighty Prophet, [a] minister of peace [and] righteousness,” promising that he would reveal “the great mysteries of the kingdom and the Salvation of Israel’s God to a dying world.” Ball was most likely the first African American to be assigned a lineage through Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons in the House of Israel, and the father of Ephraim and Manasseh.[20]

By the mid-nineteenth century when “Uncle” John Smith, brother of Joseph Smith Sr., became the fourth patriarch of the LDS Church, a position he occupied from 1849–1854, assignments from the lineage of Cain and Ham became more consistent. This change largely resulted from the priesthood restriction that Brigham Young implemented in 1852. Young declared that “A man who has the African blood in him cannot hold one jot nor tittle of priesthood.” According to Young, “if the children of God . . . mingle their seed with the seed of Cain it would not only bring the curse of being deprived of the power of the priesthood upon themselves but they [will] entail it upon their children after them.”[21]

Affected by Young’s pronouncement, Uncle John Smith proclaimed a cursed lineage on at least two Black Latter-day Saints according to available records. On August 18, 1850, he gave a patriarchal blessing to John Burton, a Black man, and informed him that he was of the “Blood of Cainnain.” On October 4, 1851, he gave a patriarchal blessing to Q. Walker Lewis, an African American man from Boston. Lewis was baptized into the LDS Church in 1843 and ordained an elder by William Smith, the brother of Church founder Joseph Smith by 1844. Smith declared that Lewis was of the “tribe of Canan,” following the same lineage that his nephew pronounced for Jane Manning James some seven years earlier.[22]

Uncle John Smith’s grandnephew John Smith also assigned Blacks lineage through the “tribe of Canan” after serving as the fifth patriarch of the Church from 1855–1911. The younger Smith, in fact, gave blessings to several Black Latter-day Saints declaring the “lineage of Cain and Ham,” though available records do not indicate who these recipients were.[23] Also instructive, on October 10, 1889, patriarch John Smith granted Jane Manning James a second patriarchal blessing without assigning a lineage. The omission can be attributed to two factors: Most likely he knew she already had a designated lineage or perhaps he was not inspired to declare a new one.[24]

Regardless, Manning’s cursed lineage was reaffirmed thirteen years later when she sought the First Presidency’s approval to be eternally sealed to the prophet Joseph Smith. Rejecting her request, LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith instructed that she would be sealed as a “servant” to Joseph Smith—this “done [in] a special ceremony having been prepared for that purpose.”[25] The servant designation, well known to the early leaders of the Church, followed the biblical injunction that descendants of “Canaan shall be . . . servant[s]” to non-cursed lineages. Joseph F. Smith and Brigham Young clearly accepted this passage of scripture, as did Southerners who appropriated it to justify slavery. Young explained, “The Lord put a mark upon [the Negro], which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race—that they should be the ‘servant of servants’; and they will be, until that curse is removed.”[26]

Well into the twentieth century, the ambiguous status of Black Latter-day Saints continued. This was complicated by the increased number of Blacks baptized into the Church. As Black and biracial Latter-day Saints trekked west and settled in Utah, they sought their temple and patriarchal blessings.[27] One of these converts, a man named “Church,” “inherited negro blood from his mother.” The patriarch informed him in his blessing that “he was of the lineage of Ephraim and that he should receive the priesthood and go on a mission.”[28] Cases like this prompted prolonged discussions within the Quorum of the Twelve. Apostles struggled with cases that came before them dealing with mixed-race members like Church. Could he hold the priesthood? Could he serve a mission? Was it appropriate to declare him the lineage of Ephraim? These and other questions increased after the American Civil War. In particular, the apostles were flummoxed by cases where a person with “a single drop of negro blood might be entirely white, yet one of his descendants might turn out to be a pronounced negro.” President Joseph F. Smith stated that the brethren should “determine each case on its merits,” but it was “his opinion that in all cases where the blood of Cain showed itself, however slight, the line should be drawn there.”[29]

Without firm rules to determine lineage, some patriarchs even questioned whether or not Blacks could receive patriarchal blessings. In a letter to LDS apostle David O. McKay in 1935, a patriarch asked “whether a person having negro blood in his or her veins might receive a blessing from a patriarch” and McKay answered yes, adding: “A patriarch may pronounce upon anybody’s head the blessing to which that person may be entitled.” McKay, however, did not tell him how to declare lineage—only that “privileges . . . accorded to negroes” were limited in the Church.[30]

The lack of direction from Church headquarters in declaring lineage created anguish for many patriarchs. Dozens of stories, both firsthand and anecdotal, illustrate the difficulty of pronouncing lineage on the Church’s relatively small but faithful Black population. For example, Orson Sperry, a patriarch from Utah, gave patriarchal blessings to an engaged couple who were soon to be married in the Salt Lake Temple. Sperry gave the young man “a very wonderful blessing,” but when he blessed the woman he put his hands on her head and struggled. He “paused,” then said, “‘I’m sorry, but there’s no blessing for you. You have the blood of Cain flowing in your veins and there’s no blessing for you.’ The young woman broke down and wept.” Sperry agonized over the incident, informing the couple that there would be no temple marriage because of her “negro lineage.” A similar incident occurred in Rexburg, Idaho, when a “handsome young man” requested a patriarchal blessing. A “Brother Knudsen” in the Patriarch to the Church’s office witnessed what happened. “The Church Patriarch, when he laid his hands upon his head, refused to give him a blessing. He told him that he had the blood of Cain flowing in his veins.”[31]

James Wallis, a traveling patriarch in the Canadian and Northern States mission, was similarly anguished about giving a blessing to a person of African descent and sought assistance from Church leaders in Salt Lake City. In 1934, the Duckworth family requested their patriarchal blessings, but they “had been accused of having negro blood in them.”[32] Wallis agonized over the request, receiving no guidance from his ecclesiastical superiors on how to assign lineage when he was called as a patriarch in 1932. Uncertain how to proceed, he contacted apostle Charles Callis, who had extensive experience around “colored members of the Church,” having presided over the Southern States mission for nearly three decades. Callis sympathized with Wallis but did not offer assistance. Wallis then contacted apostle John A. Widtsoe, who asked LDS Church President Heber J. Grant for instruction. Grant responded through Widtsoe that it would be “alright to bless them, but as to their status in the future, that is a matter that is in the hands of the Lord.”[33]

Why President Grant failed to provide a definitive answer on Black lineage can only be a matter of speculation. He clearly believed that Blacks had a cursed lineage. In private letters to Latter-day Saints and in private meetings with the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency, he made his views known.[34] Nevertheless, the LDS leader and perhaps his apostles recognized the pain that such declarations would cause Black members if patriarchs pronounced the lineage of Cain in their blessings. After all, one of the purposes of blessings was to provide comfort and guidance for one’s life and being associated with a cursed race, much less a figure linked with Satan, was less than reassuring.[35]

Apostle George F. Richards seemed to recognize the precarious position of Blacks when he noted in general conference in 1939: “The negro is an unfortunate man. He has been given a black skin. But that is nothing compared with that greater handicap that he is not permitted to receive the Priesthood and the ordinances of the temple, necessary to prepare men and women to enter into and enjoy a fulness of glory in the celestial kingdom.” His fellow apostle Joseph Fielding Smith put it even more bluntly in 1931: “Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race. A curse placed upon him and that curse has been continued through his lineage and must do so while time endures. Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with a black skin and have been denied the privilege of Priesthood and the fullness of the blessings of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain.”[36]

Grant’s ambiguous response to the question of Black lineage only heightened Wallis’s anxiety. Wallis agonized over “the problem of the Duckworth family,” stating in his journal that it “had caused me considerable anxiety and stress of mind, realizing as I sincerely do that with me rests the responsibility of declaring their lineage.” With little guidance from Church headquarters, Wallis attempted to trace the family’s genealogy to determine bloodlines. He also fasted and prayed hoping that God would reveal it to him. When that failed, he resolved to give them a blessing anyway, recording in his journal: “I am sure there is no objection to giving them a blessing of encouragement and comfort, leaving out all reference to lineage and sealing.”[37]

That same year Wallis was confronted with another challenging case when Herbert Augustus Ford, a light-skinned Black man, asked for his patriarchal blessing. Ford was originally from Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands, which had a long history of slavery and race-mixing.[38] According to his granddaughter, Patricia Ford, Herbert was denied the priesthood because “he was somewhat Negroid in appearance,” which was “supposedly linked to his dark-skinned grandmother Mary Carden,” although it was “unknown” if the grandmother had “negroid ancestry.” Patricia Ford recalled that these assumptions were enough for priesthood leaders to deny “Herbert Ford and his descendants the Priesthood,” which made her grandfather’s life in the LDS Church “difficult.” Wallis complicated the matter when he gave Ford his patriarchal blessing avowing that he was “of the blood of Abraham, through Ephraim and Manasseh.” This declaration confused Ford even further because it did not resolve his lineage. Rather, it placed him between two lineages, obfuscating the issue of whether or not he was eligible for the priesthood.[39]

Anguished over his uncertain status in the Church, Ford wrote to the First Presidency seeking guidance. Although the letter is unavailable, its contents can be gleaned from the First Presidency’s response. Joseph Anderson, the First Presidency secretary, replied that “The hearts of the Brethren bleed with sorrow over the lot of yourself and millions of others who find themselves in the same situation but for which neither the Brethren nor the Church is in any way responsible. I am directed by the Brethren to reply to you in the terms in which reply has been made to many others who find themselves in the same condition and who presented their cases to the Brethren with anguish equal to your own. Your statement is noted in which you say, ‘I hope for the day when things might change, maybe not in my day, that all the people who may have confronted you in your lifetime on the same trouble will be free.’”[40] Ford’s granddaughter Patricia experienced a similar fate. She was “denied a pronouncement of lineage by a patriarch aware of her situation” despite her protest that there was no evidence that she had “negro bloodlines.” Not accepting the decision, she spent many years researching her genealogy to prove that she was not of the “restricted lineage.”[41] (In 1976, she presented evidence to the First Presidency convincing them that her family did not have African ancestry. The First Presidency granted permission for her to receive a second patriarchal blessing, which stated that she was from the “lineage of Ephraim.” It is not clear if Herbert Ford received a second blessing, though the First Presidency, because of his granddaughter’s genealogical research, declared him eligible for the priesthood.[42]) 

As cases like these circulated throughout the Church, the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency began to discuss lineage more earnestly. Indeed, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of theories circulated among the Church leadership “about the significance of Israelite, Aryan, or Anglo-Saxon ancestry.”[43] Hyrum G. Smith, the presiding patriarch from 1912–1932, delivered a pointed sermon in general conference in 1929, in which he stated that at “the present time in the Church the great majority of those receiving their blessings are declared to be of the house and lineage of Ephraim, while many others are designated as members of the house of Manasseh; but up to the present time we have discovered that those who are leaders in Israel, no matter where they come, are of Ephraim.” In Smith’s judgement, “Ephraim seems to prevail in the greater blessings, in the greater responsibilities, and in faithfulness to the Lord’s work.”[44]

A year later, in a prominent Church publication called the Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, an author proclaimed that descendants of Ephraim hailed from white European countries like Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Germany. Descendants of Ephraim “are of the Anglo-Saxon race,” the author boldly asserted, “and they are upon the face of the whole earth, bearing the spirit of rule and dictation, to go forth from conquering to conquer.”[45] LDS lesson manuals reinforced a whiteness theology as well, extolling Anglo-Saxons as the “chosen seed” of Israel.[46] So too, did apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, whose 1931 best-selling book The Way to Perfection outlined in vivid detail a racial hierarchy consisting of “favored” and “less favored lineages.” The outspoken Mormon apostle asserted that some lineages were blessed because of their “valiance” in a pre-earth life, while others bore the mark of a divine curse “for some act, or acts, performed before they were born.” According to Smith, Blacks were not preassigned to a “nation or tribe” through “the lineage of Abraham.” Rather, their lineage—that of Cain and Ham—placed them outside of God’s covenant blessings.[47]

Smith’s teachings, couched in theological racism, echoed throughout the LDS Church, posing particular challenges for patriarchs when they gave blessings to African Americans, Black Africans, Australian Aborigines, Black Fijians, and Philippine Negritos.[48] Indeed, by the mid-twentieth century patriarchs had still received no guidance at all on how to address these “less favored lineages.” In 1942, apostle John A. Widtsoe affirmed in the Improvement Era, an official Church magazine, that patriarchal blessings “may declare lineage,” but he hinted that exceptions could be made for Black people. The following year the First Presidency made a similar statement, declaring that “Patriarchal blessings contemplate inspired declaration of lineage of the recipient.”[49] But the two statements were ambiguous with respect to Black lineage. Phrases like “may declare lineage” and “contemplate inspired declaration of lineage” left open the possibility that patriarchs could omit lineage altogether if they were not sufficiently inspired.

Allowing patriarchs to omit lineage resulted in Church leaders’ anxieties about determining who had “negro bloodlines” and who did not.[50] Such anxieties were rooted in the difficulties that Americans in general had in defining African ancestry following the American Civil War and continuing into the early twentieth century. Some states stipulated that one-sixteenth African ancestry qualified for “negro status,” while other states placed it at one-eighth or one-twenty-fifth.[51] Mormons, by contrast, followed the “one-drop” rule—based on lineage, not skin color.[52] Harold B. Lee, as Church president, affirmed that “skin color is not what keeps the Negro from the Priesthood. It is strictly a matter of lineage and involves only African Negroes,” he declared. Lee further noted that “dark or black islanders, such as Fijians, Tongans, Samoans, or Maoris are all permitted full rights to the priesthood” since they do not descend from African ancestry.[53] 

Various Church presidents, in fact, claimed that any mixed blood between whites and Blacks would classify them a “negro” and therefore restrict them from priesthood and temple rituals. To that end, Mormon leaders went to great lengths during the twentieth century to determine bloodlines. J. Reuben Clark, a counselor to three Church presidents, asked apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, the Church Historian at the time and a leading doctrinal authority, to research if dark-skinned peoples in the Pacific Islands were of the “seed of Cain.” After extensive research, Smith claimed he did not know.[54] In some cases, Clark tried to deter mine Black ancestry through scientific means, collaborating with Albin Matson, an LDS doctor, to learn more about “negro blood.”[55] In other instances, LDS leaders instructed missionaries and members to conduct genealogical studies and “lineage lessons” to determine ancestry, particularly in South Africa and Brazil—two countries with a long history of race-mixing. In lineage lessons, missionaries were instructed to discern ancestry by discreetly evaluating the person’s nose, face, lips, and other features that might reveal whether or not the person had “negro blood.” They would also ask suspected persons if they could review their family photo albums.[56]

Other leaders looked to patriarchs to solve the problem.[57] In Brazil, where lineage was difficult to determine, patriarchs became the final authority in determining priesthood eligibility. General Authorities instructed patriarchs that if they detected “the lineage of Cain,” they were to refrain from declaring lineage. If, on the other hand, they felt prompted to declare one of the tribes of Israel, then the recipient was cleared for the priesthood and, as was often the case, missionary service. As one scholar wrote: “It was a very simple method to dispose of the difficult administrative problem of determining lineage in questionable cases.”[58] Puerto Rico appeared to follow the same policy, as did other regions of the Church.[59]

The policy, by contrast, differed in South Africa. In 1949, South African mission president Evan P. Wright asked the First Presidency if “a patriarchal blessing is sufficient evidence for ordination to the priest hood” and the First Presidency replied no.[60] Nevertheless, in 1958, during a special meeting with patriarchs, Joseph Fielding Smith took a different position from the First Presidency. He instructed patriarchs that suspected “Negroes” could go to their patriarchs “who could declare lineage to see if they have the Negro blood.” Missionaries, in fact, were already doing just that. In 1953, a missionary in Chicago explained to apostle Spencer W. Kimball that a sixteen-year-old boy with “definite Negroid characteristics” received his blessing from a Patriarch Whowell. Members of the family showed “very definite Canaanite features,” the missionary reported. The family’s descendants “intermarried into many . . . other families,” making it difficult to determine the boy’s ancestry. So they sought the blessing of Patriarch Whowell, who confirmed their worst suspicion: “he could not give [the boy] the blessing of Israel because of his negro ancestry.”[61]

As one might suspect, patriarchs felt tremendous pressure to determine lineage. Oftentimes their declarations of lineage led to disappointment and confusion, as in 1962 when a patriarch told a newly-baptized convert, who looked “Hawaiian,” that he had “mixed lineage, which stemmed from dark-skinned people” in his family line. The patriarch explained in the blessing that “there is insufficient record or guidance for me to declare the certainty of your lineage.” The man, along with his wife who heard the blessing, was stunned, both because the missionaries told them that the patriarch could resolve the man’s priesthood eligibility and because it left his lineage in limbo. In protest, the wife wrote a blunt, angry letter to President McKay. “I think this church is bigoted, biased, and prejudiced,” she lashed out. “My husband joined the church to try and clear up this mess,” adding, “I don’t know what you can do, but please try to help us. We are a happier family because of the church, and if it wasn’t for this mess, we could be deliriously happy.”[62]

In some cases, local leaders resisted when patriarchs declared the lineage of Ephraim on dark-skinned Latter-day Saints. In 1961, Donald Hemmingway, a stake president in England, interviewed a “young man” who had “kinky hair and dark skin” and possibly even “Negro blood.” Yet the patriarch proclaimed in his blessing that he descended from “the lineage of Ephraim,” effectively clearing him for priesthood ordination. Hemmingway, troubled by the young man’s outward appearance, refused to ordain him, at which point LDS Church President David O. McKay intervened and allowed the ordination to move forward.[63]

By the 1950s and 1960s it was becoming clear that President McKay had a more progressive attitude about Black priesthood ordination than some of his more conservative brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve.[64] He asserted that “evidence of negro blood must be definite and positive,” not based on “rumor, surmise,” or innuendo. To that end, McKay instructed bishops and stake presidents to be generous in their judgement as long as the persons in question met worthiness standards. A “lack of evidence sufficient to sustain the presumption of negro blood is not enough to justify withholding the Priesthood from worthy and faithful men,” he averred.[65] McKay’s generosity of spirit manifested itself time and again in ad hoc cases that came before him. In 1954 he reversed a policy requiring South Africans to trace their genealogy back several generations to prove that they did not have Black ancestry.[66] He also encouraged bishops and stake presidents to err in favor of ordaining persons to the priesthood if there was insufficient evidence of Black blood.[67] He took the same liberal attitude with patriarchal blessings. When patriarchs blessed light-skinned people with “negro features” and declared them to be of the lineage of Ephraim, McKay let the persons in question advance in the priesthood.[68]

Addressing these cases on an ad hoc basis became even more difficult in the decades following World War II. During the post-war years as the LDS Church expanded throughout the Pacific Islands, Europe, and South America, determining lineage was nearly impossible as biracial, light-skinned, and dark-skinned Latter-day Saints joined the Church in these racially-mixed countries. Without proper guidance on how to handle these cases, patriarchs did not follow a consistent policy declaring lineage on persons with suspected African ancestry or persons whose African ancestry was unchallenged. Some patriarchs declared the lineage of Cain, some Ephraim, some Manasseh, some no lineage while others refused to grant blessings at all if they suspected them of having “negro blood.” 

Concerned about the problem, apostle Joseph Fielding Smith called for a Church-wide meeting of patriarchs on October 11, 1958. They met at Barratt Hall on the campus of the LDS Business College in Salt Lake City. Smith, Spencer W. Kimball, Mark E. Petersen, Delbert L. Stapley, and LeGrand Richards, all members of the Quorum of the Twelve, attended the meeting along with patriarch Eldred G. Smith and members of the First Council of the Seventy S. Dilworth Young and Bruce R. McConkie. An undetermined number of patriarchs also attended the meeting. Smith cut right to the heart of the problem. There was “a problem which to me is serious,” he cautioned. “A Patriarch gave a blessing to an individual who had Negro blood in his veins and said you are of the House of Israel and entitled to all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. A Negro cannot hold the priesthood and not holding the priesthood they cannot, until the Lord removes the restriction, enter into the exaltation of the Kingdom of God and that would not entitle them to all of the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is a very serious matter and we should be extremely careful to know the Lord is speaking to us because Negroes cannot receive the fullness.”[69]

Smith reiterated his hardline position during the question-and answer period when a patriarch asked about lineage. “We have a young man who joined the Church and there is a question as to his lineage. Is there any reason why they couldn’t call upon the patriarch to see if he could give it to them, to see whether or not they have colored blood?” Smith replied that when cases were questioned of “a person suspected of having Negro blood,” it was permissible to “go to a patriarch” to deter mine lineage. “He has a right to inspiration.” But Smith did not address the specific lineage in his answer, only that patriarchs have a right to declare lineage.[70] Later, Smith clarified Black lineage in an Improvement Era article that was republished in a volume called Answers to Gospel Questions. Smith removed any ambiguity about Black lineage when he emphatically stated that the “Negro may have a patriarchal blessing, but it would declare him to be of the lineage of Cain or Canaan.”[71]

Smith’s unambiguous position on the lineage of the Church’s small, but noteworthy, Black population was echoed by his son-in-law Bruce R. McConkie, who shared his father-in-law’s penchant for doctrinal certainty. In his best-selling book Mormon Doctrine, published in 1958, McConkie, then a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, expressed strong anti-Black views. “The negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned,” he pronounced, “particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow therefrom.” McConkie went on to state that “this inequality is not of man’s origin. It is the Lord’s doing . . . based on his eternal laws of justice.”[72] McConkie further elaborated his views in a series of lectures given in 1967 to Mormon students at the University of Utah. “You automatically got the Priesthood if you belonged to the right lineage,” he candidly explained. “Negroes . . . are Negroes because of [the] pre-existence. They were less valiant. They did not develop the talent for spirituality that some others did. The House of Israel is the House of Israel because of our pre-existence.”[73]

McConkie’s forceful views reflected the essence of Mormon lineage theology, underscoring a stark racism that consigned Black Latter-day Saints to the margins. Without fully understanding how his teachings affected people of color, the Mormon leader made it emphatically clear where Blacks stood in God’s racial order. A student asked McConkie if “a Negro [can] have a patriarchal blessing and the blessing tell him he’s adopted into the House of Israel” and McConkie replied no. “Negroes can’t go to the temple and . . . can’t have these blessings.”[74]

Eldred G. Smith, LDS church patriarch from 1947–1979, shared Joseph Fielding Smith’s and Bruce R. McConkie’s doctrinal views affirming Black inferiority. When Eldred Smith was ordained as the Patriarch to the Church in 1947, then–Church President George Albert Smith instructed him “to declare lineage of those who come under your hands.” For a period, Patriarch Smith declared the lineage of Blacks, though he was uncomfortable doing so. Nowhere was this more evident than with “Brother and Sister Hope,” a Black couple from Cincinnati, Ohio, who flew to Salt Lake City in the spring of 1947 to receive their patriarchal blessings. According to apostle Spencer W. Kimball, the Hope family were “black members of the Church who were ostracized by their LDS congregation at Cincinnati and were asked by the branch president not to come back, so they held their own Sunday services in their home.”[75] Feeling “somewhat perplexed” about how to declare lineage on the Hopes, Smith “spent the night in prayer and contemplation and finally felt impressed to indicate that they were ‘associated with the line of Manasseh.’”[76]

But as more Black people sought their patriarchal blessings from Eldred Smith, he began to rethink how he blessed them.[77] In a general conference sermon in 1952, he proclaimed that Blacks were not direct descendants from the House of Israel and therefore not entitled to the priesthood or a declaration of lineage. Declarations of lineage or “assignments,” he explained, were only reserved for persons of a certain ancestry, whether born into the covenant or adopted into it through baptism into the Church. Thus, he reasoned, Blacks could not be adopted into the House of Israel and assigned a specific lineage because they were a cursed race. In another general conference sermon eight years later, he opined that “The blessings of Israel are leadership blessings and leadership blessings are the blessings of the priesthood.”[78] In 1964, he told Mormon students at the University of Utah that “every baptized member of the Church is entitled to a blessing with this declaration [of lineage] with one exception. And that, of course, is a Negro who can’t hold the Priesthood.” Smith went on to explain, “He can be a member of the church and he can get a blessing from a Patriarch but until we get different instructions from the Lord, a Negro does not hold the Priesthood. And so,” Smith concluded, “Priesthood blessings are leadership blessings; leadership blessings are the blessings of Israel.”[79]

Smith refined and indeed expanded his views on race in a 1966 devotional address at Brigham Young University. In that controversial address, the outspoken Mormon patriarch reaffirmed his belief that “leadership blessings are not for the Negro,” but then added a twist: “His is to be a servant. So as a servant he cannot be a leader.” Smith further opined that since Blacks were not eligible for the “blessings of Israel” they could not receive a true patriarchal blessing. Theirs would be “not . . . much different than the blessing that any bishop or home teacher or anyone else holding the priesthood would give, except that they would have the right to have it recorded and these are recorded.” Smith also stated that patriarchs were to omit lineage during blessings to Black people.[80]

Patriarch Smith’s assertion that Blacks would be “servants” to whites eerily echoed the pro-slavery views that Brigham Young expressed in 1852 when he first announced the practice of restricting Blacks from the priesthood.[81] Smith’s frank opinions shocked even BYU president Ernest Wilkinson, who was known for his hardline views on race.[82] In response to Smith’s address, Wilkinson shared his concerns with apostle Harold B. Lee and Church President David O. McKay.[83] In the midst of the turbulent civil rights era, Wilkinson worried about a public backlash against Mormon racial teachings. This also concerned General Authorities. In 1965, apostle Joseph Fielding Smith refused to allow BYU religion professor James R. Clark permission to publish the controversial 1949 First Presidency statement affirming Black priesthood denial in his multi volume compilation Messages of the First Presidency, fearing it would bring undue critical attention to the Church.[84] At the same time, Church leaders reconsidered how they addressed letters from non–Latter-day Saints asking about “the Negroes holding the priesthood.” First Presidency counselor Hugh B. Brown stated “that since people do not believe in a pre-existence, such statements only lead to confusion,” and he recommended that they be stricken from letters explaining Church racial teachings. The First Presidency agreed with Brown and pledged to keep conversation about Black priesthood denial “clear, positive, and brief.”[85]

In the 1960s, the Church found itself under increased scrutiny for its treatment of Blacks. Michigan governor George Romney, a devoted Latter-day Saint and a leading contender for national office, became the target of intense criticism in the national news media.[86] Of equal concern were naysayers within the Church, who offered pointed criticisms of Mormon racial teachings. Included in this number were Sterling McMurrin and Stuart Udall, both high-ranking government officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, who published sharply worded statements condemning LDS racial doctrine. Apostle Spencer W. Kimball lamented such attacks, noting that “there are many letters from embarrassed people, much of it negative.”[87]

It was in this context that Patriarch Smith gave his controversial BYU address. President McKay, upset with Patriarch Smith for expressing such extremist views, “directed that no part of [Smith’s] address be printed.”[88] Apostle Mark E. Petersen experienced similar criticism twelve years earlier when he gave a controversial address to religion instructors at BYU. In it, he said that if a “Negro is faithful all his days he can and will enter the Celestial Kingdom,” but “will go there as a servant.”[89] Concerned Latter-day Saints condemned Petersen’s sermon as a “gross misreading of LDS scripture.” One critic labeled it as “reminiscent of the Klan.”[90] Of course, the teaching did not originate with Smith or Petersen. They had merely repeated what Joseph Fielding Smith, Joseph F. Smith, and Brigham Young had said before, as well as various pro-slavery Protestant ministers from the nineteenth century.[91] But Smith and Petersen said it at a time when the LDS Church was under siege for its racial teachings.

Patriarch Smith’s statements on Black lineage only heightened an already-tense problem within the Church. “We have these conditions by the thousands in the United States,” he candidly admitted, “and are getting more of them. If they have any blood of the Negro at all in their line, in their veins at all, they are not entitled to the blessings of the Priesthood, which would eliminate them from receiving these Patriarchal Blessings.”[92] In a 1968 document called “Instructions to Patriarchs,” the apostles tried to clarify how Black lineage should be handled. While they did not identify the specific lineage for persons suspected of having African bloodlines, they made it emphatically clear that Blacks were not to receive the blessings of “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and therefore patriarchs should not declare that lineage on persons with “Negro blood.” The statement was essentially lifted from the 1958 meeting minutes with Joseph Fielding Smith’s instruction to patriarchs. There was no new counsel—just a reaffirmation of what had been said earlier.[93]

Not surprisingly, the 1968 “Instructions to Patriarchs” did not clear up the matter. Arguably it created more confusion because it failed to address the uncertainty of Black lineage. To that end, the apostles convened a special meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve in March 1970 to resolve the issue. They reviewed the minutes from Joseph Fielding Smith’s 1958 meeting with patriarchs. Apostle Richard L. Evans correctly identified the problem when he said that the 1958 meeting “clearly says that the Negroes cannot receive all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but it does not tell the patriarch what lineage they should declare.” Evans said he “researched this with Earl Olson, Assistant Church Historian, and in only a few blessings over many years has the lineage of Ham been declared.” Apostle Gordon B. Hinckley “said he had some additional help on this matter” that he would share at another meeting.[94] The following week the Twelve met again. The meeting was focused exclusively on “the Negro and Patriarchal Blessings.” As promised, Hinckley shared his findings. He described “some of the blessings given by [Patriarch] John Smith, in May 1895, when he stated that the individual receiving the blessing was of the lineage of Ham.” Hinckley also “referred to a number of other blessings which had been given by various patriarchs in the Church in which the lineage of Ham was stipulated in their blessings.” The meeting minutes record that “It was discussed and it was the feeling of the Brethren that it is difficult to prescribe some of these lineages and some of the blessings, that this is a matter which should be left to the patriarch under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.” Apostle Ezra Taft Benson, who harbored negative views about Black people, reminded his colleagues that “one of the great purposes of a patriarchal blessing is to give the lineage and on many occasions when the lineage is not indicated, it becomes a real concern for the recipient of the blessing.” Unable to resolve their differences, the apostles decided to discuss it at another meeting in the Council of the Twelve.[95]

From these two quorum meetings it is clear that members of the Twelve could not agree on a lineage policy. Thus, the apostles placed the burden of determining lineage back on the patriarchs themselves. The meetings also revealed that certain members of the Twelve clashed with Patriarch Smith over his responsibilities in the Office of the Patriarch. Indeed, the differences between the apostles and Eldred Smith revealed deep fissures within Church leadership.[96] In 1971, Smith met with the apostles to resolve their differences. Apostle Spencer W. Kimball characterized the patriarch as “argumentative” during the meeting.[97] The tension between the members of the Twelve and Smith was palpable and perhaps irresolvable. Whereas Smith instructed that Black members should not receive lineage in their blessings, some apostles insisted they should. And whereas Patriarch Smith viewed blessings for Black Latter-day Saints as “father’s blessings,” certain apostles contested that characterization.

The apostles’ inability to reach a consensus on Black lineage with Patriarch Smith and within the Quorum of the Twelve posed further problems for patriarchs. At a patriarch’s meeting on April 6, 1973, some 114 patriarchs met in Salt Lake City with apostles Delbert L. Stapley and LeGrand Richards, along with Eldred Smith. The questions immediately turned to lineage. “In the immediate future I am going to have the opportunity of giving a blessing to a young Negro,” a patriarch asked. “I am very apprehensive about the declaration of lineage.” Stapley, seemingly unconcerned about Benson’s assertion that lineage should be stated, opined that he “wouldn’t declare the lineage in a case of that kind.” He instructed the patriarch to just tell them “they would obtain their blessings through the descendants of Abraham.” He admitted his counsel was “questionable,” but he felt he had no other choice.[98]

Patriarch Smith responded, reiterating his previously-stated views on race from his controversial BYU talk. “I have given a number of blessings to Negro members of the Church. But if you give them the declaration of the blessings of Israel, you are giving them the right to the priesthood because the blessings of Israel are leadership blessings, which is priesthood. So, you give them a father’s blessing or a blessing by a patriarch. You record it the same as a patriarchal blessing, but you cannot give them any blessings of Israel.” Smith reaffirmed that there should be “No declaration of lineage.”[99]

Stapley claimed that Smith did not interpret his position accurately and let him know. “I didn’t say they were descendants of Abraham. I said they receive blessings through the descendants of Abraham.” The exchange had an unnerving quality about it and revealed that Church leaders had different notions of lineage for Black Latter-day Saints. Complicating matters further, a patriarch asked if “lineage is not declared” could the patriarch add “an addendum to the blessing,” to which Stapley replied that he could, clearly revealing his differences with Smith. But the most pointed question focused on the precise lineage that patriarchs felt inspired to declare. “If the spirit is to indicate a lineage of Cain, is it not possible to stipulate that?” a well-intentioned patriarch asked. LeGrand Richards, who was known in Church circles for his volubility, had remained quiet up to this point. Richards responded, “I don’t think we ever ought to say anything that will discourage people. I wouldn’t tell them that they are a descendant of Cain. You can get around it easier than that, and then it won’t make them feel so bad.”[100]

The winds in the Church were certainly shifting. Richards understood that declaring the lineage of Cain would “discourage [Black] people.” Ezra Taft Benson said that omitting lineage made Black members uncomfortable. More to the point: the apostles had been informed about the damaging effects of LDS racial teachings. In a letter written in 1970, just a few months after the apostles discussed Blacks and patriarchal blessings in their quorum meeting, University of Utah graduate student Sharon Pugsley, a practicing Latter-day Saint, wrote a spirited letter to the apostles. “My primary concern about the teaching that Negroes have been cursed by God . . . is the incalculable potential it has for inflicting psychological damage on persons who are affected by it.” She continued: “I’m not saying that our position with regard to the Negroes is unconstitutional or illegal. I’m saying that it is immoral. It is immoral because it is degrading to certain human beings. I think it would be extremely difficult for a Negro to grow up in our country without being somewhat paranoid—regardless of the Mormon Church. But our Church, instead of being a help to him, is just one more hurt.”[101]

To underscore the point, Pugsley sent the apostles a copy of the Utah Daily Chronicle, the student newspaper at the University of Utah. In it, she highlighted an ad she placed that said “Attention L.D.S.” The statement called for a financial contribution to help Blacks: 

As a Mormon concerned about racial problems, I am contributing $____________ to ____________. Although a financial gift can never erase the psychological hurt a child may have suffered while growing up among people who believe and teach that he and all other members of his race have been cursed by God, perhaps this gesture will be serve as evidence of my hope that the above-mentioned belief with is accompanying attitudes and practices may be changed very soon. 

Pugsley urged Latter-day Saints to support a charity run by Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King’s widow.[102]

Meanwhile, as criticisms against LDS racial teachings persisted, the First Presidency continued to field questions about Black lineage. Some Church leaders, unaware that Blacks could even receive their blessings, queried LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball. In 1974, J. Duane Dudley, a stake president in Provo, Utah, interviewed a woman of “Negro descent” and wondered “if she can receive a blessing.” He asked if there are “any special instructions to the patriarch.” Specifically, Dudley wanted to know if there is “any particular statement that should be made about her lineage, such as using the words ‘adopted’ into one of the tribes of the House of Israel. Could she appropriately be promised all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?” he asked.[103] A few years earlier Kimball himself had already queried the First Presidency over these kinds of questions when he was the Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve. First Presidency secretary Joseph Anderson responded that “Negro members may properly receive patriarchal blessings,” noting that “the patriarch is entitled to inspiration in declaring the lineage of the one to whom the blessing is given.” But Blacks could not be adopted into the House of Israel, he affirmed. He was “directed to tell [Kimball] that this is not the doctrine of the Church.”[104]

Now, as Church president, Spencer W. Kimball fielded questions about Black lineage. He agonized over these questions and spent many hours in prayer contemplating the issue.[105] Kimball explained to President Dudley that “Negro members may properly receive patriarchal blessings and the patriarch is entitled to inspiration in declaring lineage of the one to whom the blessing is given.” He further noted that patriarchal blessings “should contain” a declaration of lineage, although he did not state what that lineage was.[106] Not surprisingly, the lack of direction from Church leaders continued to frustrate patriarchs who needed guidance from Church headquarters. Apostle L. Tom Perry recognized the problem and wrote a frank report after visiting a stake in Brazil in May 1976. Perry said that he “found a problem in interviewing . . . two patriarchs. One had been giving lineage from the line of Israel to the Negroes.” Other patriarchs, he was told, pronounced “lineage from many tribes.” The patriarchs he interviewed “suggested a study be made of the blessings on file in the Historians office to see if there is a problem which exists on declaring lineage in Brazil.” Perry concurred “that such a survey be made.”[107]

A survey was, in fact, already underway when Perry made his report to the First Presidency. Two months earlier in February 1976, apostle Boyd K. Packer asked the Church research department to examine “precedents for stake patriarchs’ giving blessings outside their stake boundaries; information on declaring lineage in patriarchal blessings; and information on whether fathers have the right to declare lineage in patriarchal blessings on their children.”[108] While the results of Packer’s request are unknown, the fact that lineage was still a concern for Church leaders as late as 1976 illustrates a troubling problem in the LDS Church. And that problem persisted even after President Kimball lifted the priesthood and temple ban in 1978. Most importantly, the priesthood revelation did not resolve the question of whether or not Blacks were of a cursed lineage. A new edition of “Information and Suggestions for Patriarchs” that the Church published in 1981 avoided the subject altogether.[109]

Nor did the apostles mend their differences with Patriarch Smith. The priesthood revelation only widened the gulf between them, culminating in President Kimball’s decision to place Smith on emeritus status and permanently abolish the Office of the Patriarch in 1979. While the patriarch’s son, Gary Smith, writes that it is “not known what dynamics might have combined to cause Spencer Kimball to retire the office of Church Patriarch,” a major cause appears to be the patriarch’s obstinacy over the lineage issue, which put him at loggerheads with other General Authorities.[110] Smith stubbornly insisted that Blacks should not receive an assignment of lineage despite the fact that they could now attend the temple and hold the priesthood. He also asserted that Blacks could not be adopted into the House of Israel, which contrasted sharply with the apostles’ teachings.[111]

For the apostles, however, the priesthood revelation changed the status of Blacks within the House of Israel, even as Church leaders remained steadfast in their belief that God had cursed them.[112] The revelation prompted the Church hierarchy to rethink the place of Blacks within the Church, particularly their status as God’s covenant people. After 1978, apostles proclaimed that Blacks could be “adopted into the House of Israel.” They could now experience all the rights and privileges that descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh enjoyed, including leadership in the Church. Theologically, this meant that whatever lineage Blacks had before 1978 no longer mattered: as bearers of the priesthood and participants in the sacred ordinances of the temple, they were now equal with God’s favored lineages.[113]

In a private memo to President Kimball, apostle Bruce R. McConkie provided a theological rationale for the change. “Negro blood,” McConkie reasoned, would be “purged out of a human soul by baptism [and] the receipt of the Holy Ghost and [by] personal righteousness.” Blacks would be adopted into the House of Israel as the “seed of Abraham,” thereby qualifying for the blessings of exaltation.[114] Apostle James E. Faust also addressed the point, asserting that “it really makes no difference if the blessings of the House of Israel come through the lineage or though the spirit of adoption.” All could be counted as the “blood of Israel,” whether figuratively or literally. A Church manual further explained: “Converts to the Church are Israelites either by blood or adoption.”[115]

Nagging questions about lineage persisted, however. “What lineage were the Blacks?” a high priest asked a patriarch just weeks after the priesthood ban ended. The patriarch responded that he “asked some general authorities and other patriarchs about it and they will only say ‘It’s between you and the Lord.’” Meanwhile, some patriarchs expressed trepidation about having “to discern a declaration of lineage for a black person.”[116] Other Latter-day Saints, insensitive to Mormon racial teachings, asked Blacks about their lineage. “So what’s your lineage?” a white Latter-day Saint queried Keith Hamilton, a newly-baptized Black convert. The “seed of Cain,” Hamilton sarcastically replied. “The brother looked at his embarrassed wife and triumphantly proclaimed, ‘See, I told you.’”[117]

In other instances, the priesthood revelation opened up new possibilities for Black Latter-day Saints who were denied lineage in their initial blessings. Ruffin Bridgeforth, Eugene Orr, and Darius Gray, the inaugural presidency of the Genesis Group, a Black Latter-day Saint support group, each experienced this. Orr and Gray, troubled over the omission, contacted Eldred Smith, the man who gave them their blessings. Orr demanded to know why he “was given no lineage” and Smith could only reply that he did not receive a “burning in his bosom” during the blessing. Smith’s less-than-frank response frustrated Orr, prompting him to ask the patriarch why he “denied [himself] the right to receive the burning in the bosom?”[118] Gray expressed frustration too. “When I received my patriarchal blessing in 1966 it did not include lineage,” Gray recalled. “That’s the purpose of a patriarchal blessing and you’re entitled to go back and get a second patriarchal blessing,” his friends explained. Gray asked for a second blessing, but Patriarch Smith demurred. “It isn’t time yet,” Smith replied cryptically, confusing Gray. “I didn’t know if it was because of my race or what,” Gray affirmed. He reported that “it took twenty some years to approach [Patriarch Smith] again at the urging of my then-Bishop and I received a second patriarchal blessing and my lineage [was] declared.”[119]

Other Black Latter-day Saints also received a declaration of lineage after the priesthood revelation. “My Bl[ack] LDS fam[ily], incl[uding] Darius Gray, Joseph Freeman, Sis Jeri Harwell [and] many others all went [and] got lineage after 1978,” declared Zandra Vranes, a Black Latter-day Saint, in 2017.[120] But lineage remained confusing and inconsistent for many Black Latter-day Saints despite the Church’s quasi-official teaching that Blacks could now be adopted into the House of Israel. During the 1980s, a patriarch noted that he received “a specific directive from General Authorities of the Church” on how to deal with Black lineage. “Any descendant of negroid ancestry receiving a Patriarchal Blessing as regarding the declaration of lineage the promises need not include the tribal lineage, but . . . include the ‘seed of Abraham’ as sufficient. Such confirms all the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant and that is sufficient. No greater blessing of lineage can be applied.”[121] In 1994, it was reported that “black church members” in South Africa “were to be assigned to the lineage of Ephraim as a matter of church policy.”[122] By contrast, a Latter-day Saint stated that he was “aware of black people in the United Kingdom whose patriarchs declared their lineage of ‘Ham’ even after the momentous and long overdue 1978 change” lifting the priesthood restriction.[123] Another Latter-day Saint, a biracial man, reported that his patriarchal blessing in 1987 “specifically [omitted] reference to belonging to any tribe but [offered] him blessings ‘by reason of adoption into the House of Israel.’” Confused, the young man sought another blessing in 1991 prior to his LDS mission, and the patriarch explained that his lineage “was that of Cain and that he would be entitled to the blessings of Israel only by way of adoption into the House of Israel.” This lineage designation disturbed the young missionary who “lived believing he was truly a descendant of Cain.” He grew weary trying “to prove himself worthy of the fullness of the Lord’s blessings.”[124]

These stories and more underscore the difficult experience that many Black Latter-day Saints undergo when they receive their patriarchal blessings. Indeed, some Black Mormons feel uncomfortable and ashamed when denied lineage or given vague promises through “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”[125] Insensitive patriarchs are only part of the problem, though. The other is the Church handbook, which neither addresses nor repudiates the Cain and Ham lineage designations. The handbook stipulates that patriarchs do not have “to declare lineage from a particular tribe,” but instructs patriarchs to assign “blessings through [Israel].”[126] Recognizing the problem, Darius Gray has forcefully explained that this is a deficiency that needs to be addressed. As Gray ruefully noted to an apologetic Mormon group in 2012, “We have Patriarchs who still aren’t aware that lineage can and should be declared, regardless of race or ethnicity.” He bore testimony affirming that “we can do that, get there, [and] get to be what [God] would have us be.” But Gray was cautiously optimistic. He believed that Latter-day Saints “have a long way to go.”[127]

From Gray’s experience and those of the participants in this story it is clear that lineage for Black Latter-day Saints has been applied unevenly and inconsistently throughout Mormon history. But the problem goes deeper than just omitting lineage. In teaching that Blacks derived from Cain and Ham, Church leaders boxed themselves into a theological corner. They discouraged patriarchs from declaring the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on Black Latter-day Saints because those were priesthood and temple blessings; but neither did they encourage patriarchs to declare lineage through Cain or Ham, notwithstanding Joseph Fielding Smith’s statement that a “Negro may have a patriarchal blessing, but it would declare him to be of the lineage of Cain or Canaan.”[128] The priesthood revelation of 1978 eased some of the tension when the apostles affirmed that Blacks could now be “adopted into the House of Israel” as full participants in Mormon liturgical rites. But this doctrinal shift did not resolve the vexing question of whether or not Black people derived from the “seed of Cain.” The current Church handbook states that “some church members may not have any of the lineage of Israel.”[129] This is a startling admission given a recent Church statement that “disavows” that Black people are cursed.[130] In the years to come, the Church will undoubtedly align the antiquated Church handbook with the new “Race and the Priesthood” essay. This will be an important task, especially as the Church continues to baptize and proclaim patriarchal blessings on people of color. 

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The author wishes to thank Darron T. Smith, Newell G. Bringhurst, H. Michael Marquardt, Stirling Adams, Gary Bergera, Boyd Jay Petersen, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on this article.

[1] Stephen R. Haynes, Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Molly Oshatz, Slavery and Sin: The Fight against Slavery and the Rise of Liberal Protestantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006); David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003); and David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 

[2] Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015); W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Newell G. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981); Russell W. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830–2013 (Draper, Utah: Kofford, 2014); and Lester E. Bush Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68. 

[3] Abraham 2:9; Doctrine and Covenants 133:30–34, see also 64:36. For an expression of these duties, see Spencer J. Palmer, The Expanding Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), 26.

[4] Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 18–26.

[5] Terryl L. Givens, People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 55; and Mauss, All Abraham’s Children, chap. 2.

[6] John G. Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 48. For Jacob’s blessings to his twelve sons, see Genesis 49:1–27. For the notion that patriarchal blessings were part of a series of rituals inspired by the Book of Mormon and Bible, see Jonathan A. Stapley, The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 6. 

[7] H. Michael Marquardt, comp., Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007); H. Michael Marquardt, comp., Later Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2012). Marquardt provides an updated list of blessings on his website: https://user.xmission.com/~research/mormonpdf/additionalpb5c.pdf.

[8] As cited in Irene M. Bates, “Patriarchal Blessings and the Routinization of Charisma,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 4. 

[9] Of the rich body of scholarship on Mormons and race, surprisingly little has been written about Blacks and patriarchal blessings. One exception is Bates, “Patriarchal Blessings,” 3–8. Two seminal studies on Mormons and patriarchal blessings both skirt questions of race and lineage. See Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch, 2nd ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018); and Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd, Binding Earth and Heaven: Patriarchal Blessings in the Prophetic Development of Early Mormonism (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012). Mauss’s All Abraham’s Children also ignores patriarchal blessings in his discussion of Black and Native American lineage within Mormonism.

[10] Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 109–10, 112, 128, 131; Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 37–38; and Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness, 6–7, 210–12, 230–31, 248–49. For William McCary’s experience in the Mormon Church see Angela Pulley Hudson, Real Native Genius: How an Ex-Slave and a White Mormon Became Famous Indians (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 65–68; and Angela Pulley Hudson, “William McCary, Lucy Stanton, and the Performance of Race at Winter Quarters and Beyond,” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 3 (2015): 97–130. 

[11] Kirtland elders’ certificates, 1836–1838, Mar. 31, 1836, CR 100 401, 61, Church History Library, Salt Lake City and name listed among ministers of the gospel in “Kirtland, Ohio, June 3, 1836,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2 (June 1836): 335. See also Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness, 211–12. For insightful studies on Abel’s life, consult Newell G. Bringhurst, “Elijah Abel and the Changing Status of Blacks Within Mormonism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12, no. 2 (Summer 1979): 22–36; W. Kesler Jackson, Elijah Abel: The Life and Times of a Black Priesthood Holder (Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort, 2013); Russell W. Stevenson, “‘A Negro Preacher’: The Worlds of Elijah Abels,” Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 2 (Spring 2013): 165–254; and Russell W. Stevenson, Black Mormon: The Story of Elijah Ables (Afton, Wyo.: self-pub., PrintStar, 2013).

[12] Doctrine and Covenants 124:91–93.

[13] Bates and Smith, Lost Legacy, 39–40. For the office of local patriarch in Mormon scripture, see Doctrine and Covenants 107:39. 

[14] “History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834],” 83, The Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/ history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30-august-1834/89; Joseph Smith Jr., History of the Church, 7 vols., 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 4:445–46; Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 288–89; and Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 41–43, 86–87. 

[15] Blessing of Elijah Abel by Joseph Smith Sr., c. 1836, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, courtesy of Lester Bush. Also in Marquardt, Early Patriarchal Blessings, 99. 

[16] H. Michael Marquardt has published many of Smith’s blessings in Early Patriarchal Blessings. See also Marquardt’s website, which includes blessings from Joseph Smith Sr.: https://user.xmission.com/~research/mormonpdf/blessingsbyjssr.pdf.

[17] According to Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 101, n. 14. Unfortunately, not much is known about Stebbins. 

[18] For an insightful study of James’s life, see Max Perry Mueller, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). See also Quincy D. Newell, “The Autobiography and Interview of Jane Elizabeth Manning James,” Journal of Africana Religions 1, no. 2 (2013): 251–91; and Quincy D. Newell, “‘Is There No Blessing for Me?’: Jane James’s Construction of Space in Latter-day Saint History and Practice,” in New Perspectives in Mormon Studies: Creating and Crossing Boundaries, edited by Quincy D. Newell and Eric F. Mason (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013), 41–68. 

[19] Blessing of Jane Manning James by Hyrum Smith, May 11, 1844, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, courtesy of Max Perry Mueller. Mueller notes that “Aunt Jane” was beloved by Latter-day Saints “for her indefatigable faith in Mormonism and for her memories of Mormonism’s first prophet” (Race and the Making of the Mormon People, 119). Reeve comments that when James died in 1908 she was “remembered as a well-respected person within the Mormon community” (Religion of a Different Color, 211). LDS apostles also referred to Jane Manning James as “Aunt Jane.” See Council of Twelve minutes, Jan. 2, 1902, in “Compilation on the Negro in Mormonism,” compiled by Lester Bush, 192, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. This moniker, however, was deeply racist. According to historian Eric Foner, after the American Civil War many slaves rejected being called “boy,” “auntie,” or “uncle.” These former slaves wanted complete “independence from white control,” including from names that racist whites assigned to them (Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction [New York: Alfred Knopf, 2005], 83). Fellow Mormons called Jane Manning James “Aunt Jane” as a term of endearment signifying her advanced age and beloved status within the Mormon community. Nonetheless, as Quincy D. Newell has argued in her forthcoming work on James, the term was rooted in white supremacy and the slave culture of nineteenth-century America. See Your Sister in the Gospel: The Life of Jane Manning James, a Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 

[20] Blessing of Joseph T. Ball by William Smith, July 14, 1845, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, courtesy of H. Michael Marquardt. Also in Marquardt, Early Patriarchal Blessings, 320. For more on William Smith and patriarchal blessings, see Christine Elyse Blythe, “William Smith’s Patriarchal Blessings and Contested Authority in the Post-Martyrdom Church,” Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 60–95. Blythe does not discuss Smith’s views on lineage for Black Latter-day Saints.

[21] Brigham Young address to the Utah Territorial Legislature, Feb. 5, 1852, box 48, folder 3, Brigham Young Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. See also Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 144–61; and Turner, Brigham Young, 218–29. 

[22] Blessing of John Burton by John Smith, Aug. 18, 1850, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, courtesy of Melvin C. Johnson. Not much is known about Burton. Walker Lewis blessing quoted in Connell O’Donovan, “The Mormon Priesthood Ban and Elder Q. Walker Lewis: ‘An example for his more whiter brethren to follow,’” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 26, no. 1 (2006): 48–100 (quotations on 91–92); see also Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 101, n. 14. 

[23] In 1970, Assistant Church Historian E. Earl Olson researched lineage assignments. He specifically noted that John Smith, son of Hyrum Smith, gave blessings assigning the lineage of “Cain and Ham” to several Black Latter-day Saints. His findings are recorded in the Council of Twelve minutes, May 21, 1970, box 63, folder 3, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. My thanks to the late Edward L. Kimball for facilitating access to his father’s papers at the Church History Library. 

[24] Blessing of Jane Elizabeth Manning Perkins by John Smith, Oct. 10, 1889, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, courtesy of Max Perry Mueller (James’s married name was Perkins). In Lost Legacy, Bates and Smith affirm that it was not uncommon during the early days of the Church for Latter-day Saints to receive second patriarchal blessings. As of 2018, the Church handbook allows for a second blessing, providing the recipient receives permission from the Quorum of the Twelve (“Information and Suggestions for Patriarchs,” rev. ed. [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016], 6). 

[25] Council of Twelve minutes, Jan. 2, 1902, in Bush, “Compilation on the Negro,” 192.

[26] Genesis 9:25–27; and Brigham Young, Oct. 9, 1859, Journal of Discourses, 7:290–91. For more on the biblical justification of slavery, see Haynes, Noah’s Curse, chaps. 4–5. 

[27] For Blacks requesting their temple endowments and patriarchal blessings, see Council of Twelve minutes, Jan. 2, 1902, in Bush, “Compilation on the Negro”; Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 193–210; and Mueller, Race and the Making of the Mormon People, 150–52. When the First Presidency denied permission for Black Latter-day Saints to receive their temple endowments, they sought to participate in other temple ordinances. For this point, see Tonya Reiter, “Black Saviors on Mount Zion: Proxy Baptisms and Latter-day Saints of African Descent,” Journal of Mormon History 43, no. 4 (2017): 100–23. For early Blacks and their devotion to the LDS church, see Kate B. Carter, The Story of the Negro Pioneer (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1965). Precise estimates are unknown, but probably fewer than two hundred Blacks were Mormon in 1900. See also Ronald Coleman, “Blacks in Utah History: An Unknown Legacy,” in The Peoples of Utah, edited by Helen Z. Papanikolas (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1976), 115–40.

[28] Council of Twelve minutes, Mar. 1, 1900, in Bush, “Compilation on the Negro,” 188.

[29] Council of Twelve minutes, Jan. 2, 1902, ibid., 191–92. See also Council of Twelve minutes, Aug. 22, 1895, ibid., 187. 

[30] David O. McKay to Henry H. Hoff, Jan. 24, 1935, in Minutes of the Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1910–1951, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2010), 4:336.

[31] Sidney B. Sperry, who recorded patriarchal blessings for his grandfather Orson Sperry, recounted this experience to apostles Joseph Fielding Smith and Mark E. Petersen in the Salt Lake Temple, Oct. 7, 1954, “Discussion after a talk on Racial Prejudice,” 28, box 4, folder 7, William E. Berrett Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. For Knudsen’s experience, see ibid., 29. 

[32] Wallis journal, Oct. 16, 1934, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[33] Ibid. See also Gloria Wallis Rytting, James H. Wallis: Poet, Printer and Patriarch (Salt Lake City: R & R Enterprises, 1989), 185–86. 

[34] Heber J. Grant diary, Oct. 1, 1890, 447, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; Heber J. Grant to L. H. Wilkin, Jan. 28, 1928, box 63, folder 11, Leonard J. Arrington Papers, Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University; “Minutes of a Special Meeting by President McKay,” recounting President Grant’s refusal to ordain to the priesthood a “negro man” because he was cursed (in McKay journal, Jan. 17, 1954, box 32, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah). 

[35] For the linkage of Blackness with Cain and Satan in Mormon discourse, see my essay “Whiteness Theology and the Evolution of Mormon Racial Teachings,” in The Mormon Church and its Gospel Topics Essays: The Scholarly Community Responds, edited by Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, forthcoming). 

[36] George F. Richards, in Report of the Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Apr. 1939 (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, annual), 58–59 (hereafter cited as Conference Report); and Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection: Short Discourses on Gospel Themes, 5th ed. (1931; repr., Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1945), 101–02.

[37] Wallis journal, Oct. 16, 1934.

[38] See “An Interview Between Brother and Sister Herbert Augustus Ford and Brother Kelvin Thomas Waywell, High Councilman Advisor to the Stake President on Genealogy for the Hamilton Ontario Stake,” taped on Oct. 21, 1973, Welland, Ontario, Canada, copy in box 32, folder 4, David John Buerger Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

[39] Blessing of Herbert Augustus Ford by James H. Wallis, July 18, 1934, in “Herbert Augustus Ford Family” family history. See also “Letter from Patricia Ford outlining her research investigations,” ibid.

[40] Joseph Anderson to Herbert Ford, Apr. 10, 1951, copy in First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve minutes, 1951, in Bush, “Compilation on the Negro,” 256. 

[41] Patricia Ford, “Herbert Augustus Ford and the LDS Priesthood,” May 31, 1978, box 32, folder 4, David John Buerger Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

[42] Ibid. See also Theodore M. Burton, president of the Genealogical Society, to Ford’s stake president, Elden Clark Olson, Feb. 6, 1975, and Theodore M. Burton and Grant Bangerter to President Elden Clark Olson, Sept. 30, 1976 (affirming that LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball lifted the restriction).

[43] As perceptively noted in Mauss, All Abraham’s Children, 26. 

[44] Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Day of Ephraim,” in Conference Report, Apr. 7, 1929, 122–25; reprinted in Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 20 (April 1929): 123–26 (quotes on 124). 

[45] Archibald F. Bennett, “The Children of Ephraim,” Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 21 (January 1930): 69. According to Mauss, Bennett was the executive secretary of the Utah Genealogical Society (All Abraham’s Children, 28). 

[46] “Our Lineage,” lessons 1 to 10 of the Course for First Year Senior Genealogical Classes (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1934); “Children of the Covenant,” A Lesson Book for Second Year Junior Genealogical Classes (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1937); “Youth and its Culture,” Manual for the Gleaner Department of the Y.W.M.I.A. (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1938); and “Birthright Blessings: Genealogical Training Class,” Sunday School Lessons for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Board, 1942).

[47] Smith, Way to Perfection, 43, 46, 48, 105–06, 109–10. See also Joseph Field ing Smith, “The Negro and the Priesthood,” Improvement Era 27 (April 1924): 564–65; Alvin R. Dyer, “For What Purpose,” address to a missionary conference in Oslo, Norway, Mar. 18, 1961, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; and Melvin J. Ballard, “Three Degrees of Glory,” discourse in the Ogden Tabernacle, Sept. 22, 1922, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. For background and context to The Way to Perfection, see Reid L. Neilson and Scott D. Marianno, “True and Faithful: Joseph Fielding Smith as Mormon Historian and Theologian,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 1 (Winter 2018): 38–40. For a nuanced account of Mormon teachings on “the premortal world,” see Boyd Jay Petersen, “‘One Soul Shall Not Be Lost’: The War in Heaven in Mormon Thought,” Journal of Mormon History 38, no. 1 (Winter 2012): 1–50.

[48] In the 1950s, the First Presidency cleared Negritos and Fijians for priesthood ordination and “reclassified [them] as Israelites.” For this point, see Armand L. Mauss, “The Fading of the Pharaoh’s Curse: The Decline and Fall of the Priesthood Ban Against Blacks in the Mormon Church,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14, no. 3 (Fall 1981): 12. See also R. Lanier Britsch, Unto the Islands of the Sea: A History of the Latter-day Saints in the Pacific (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1986), 502. For Australian Aborigines, see Marjorie Newton, Southern Cross Saints: The Mormons in Australia (Laie, Hawaii: Institute for Polynesian Studies, 1991), 209–10. For Black Africans, see Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness, 55–57, 75–91. Joseph Fielding Smith wrote The Way to Perfection during a time of intense racism in the United States. Some theologians used science, particularly eugenics, to justify racism. Others, like Smith (and other Mormon leaders), couched their racism in theology by appealing to scripture. Three books address these issues in some detail: Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010); Grace Elizabeth Hale, Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890–1940 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998); and David L. Chappell, A Stone of Hope. 

[49] John A. Widtsoe, “What is the Meaning of Patriarchal Blessings?,” Improvement Era 45 (January 1942): 33, 61, 63. Also published in John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1943), 234. For the First Presidency statement, “Suggestions for Stake Patriarchs,” May 25, 1943, see James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–1975), 6:194–96 (quotation on 194).

[50] For an excellent expression of this problem, see Jeremy Talmage and Clinton D. Christensen, “Black, White, or Brown?: Racial Perceptions and the Priest hood Policy in Latin America,” Journal of Mormon History 44, no. 1 (January 2018): 119–45; Richard E. Turley Jr. and Jeffrey G. Cannon, “A Faithful Band: Moses Mahlangu and the First Soweto Saints,” BYU Studies Quarterly 55, no. 1 (Winter 2016): 9–38; and William Grant Bangerter, These Things I Know: The Autobiography of William Grant Bangerter (Salt Lake City: Voices and Images, 2013), 170. Bangerter, a mission president in Brazil in the 1950s, explained: “I very earnestly sought the guidance of the Spirit of the Lord, and because of the mixture of African ancestry among Brazilian people, it was always very difficult to determine who would be eligible to hold the priesthood” (ibid.). Apostle David O. McKay explained to a mission president in Brazil that determining who had “negro blood” in South America “is not an easy problem to handle” (David O. McKay to Rulon S. Howells, June 29, 1935, Dorothy H. Ipsen Collection of Rulon S. Howells’s Missionary Papers, 1934–1949, Church History Library, Salt Lake City). First Presidency Secretary Hamer Reiser expressed a similar concern about South Africa (Reiser oral history interview with William G. Hartley, Oct. 16, 1974, ibid.). 

[51] Ariela J. Gross, What Blood Won’t Tell Us: A History of Race on Trial in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), chaps. 3–4; Peter Wallenstein, Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry: Loving v. Virginia (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014), 42–43, 56–60; and Peggy Pascoe, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), chaps. 3–4. 

[52] For the “one-drop” rule, see Smith, Way to Perfection, 106; Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, chap. 7; and Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness, chap. 10. Several states also followed the “one-drop” rule. For this point, see Pascoe, What Comes Naturally, 118–19, 140–54; and Wallenstein, Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry, 42, 55, 58.

[53] Harold B. Lee, quoted in John Keahey, “LDS Head Says Blacks to Achieve Full Status,” Standard-Examiner (Ogden, Utah), Sept. 24, 1973. 

[54] See J. Reuben Clark office diary, Mar. 19, 1960, box 22, folder 3, J. Reuben Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; First Presidency (Stephen L. Richards and J. Reuben Clark) to Joseph Fielding Smith, May 29, 1951, and Joseph Fielding Smith’s reply, June 8, 1951, both in box 17, folder 13, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[55] In the 1950s, Clark and Matson exchanged several letters in which they discussed ways to “differentiate the blood of Negroes and other peoples by means of hereditary factors in human blood.” See Matson to Clark, July 2, 1954 and Clark’s reply, July 22, 1954, box 391, folder 7, J. Reuben Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; Matson to Clark, Oct. 20, 1958, Clark’s reply, Nov. 7, 1958, Matson to Clark, Dec. 16, 1958, Clark’s response, Jan. 9, 1958, all in “Clarkana” box 295, “Negro” folder, ibid. See also D. Michael Quinn, Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 350–51.

[56] This practice took place in South Africa and Brazil. See South African Proselyting Plan (December 1951), compiled by Elder Gilbert G. Tobler, Mowbray, C. P. South Africa, discussion 13, 45–46, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. For Brazil, see “Lineage Lesson,” Brazil North Mission, 1970, ibid. See also Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 102. 

[57] J. Reuben Clark acknowledged privately that in these racially-mixed countries there was no way to accurately determine bloodlines. He feared that bishops and stake presidents were conferring priesthood ordination on persons of African descent. For this point, see Council of Twelve minutes, Jan. 25, 1940, box 64, folder 5, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; also in box 78, folder 7, George Albert Smith Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

[58] Mark L. Grover, “Religious Accommodation in the Land of Racial Democracy: Mormon Priesthood and Black Brazilians,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 17, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 32.

[59] Talmage and Christensen, “Black, White, or Brown?,” 122–23. See also J. Reuben Clark office diary, Aug. 18, 1939, box 10, folder 5, J. Reuben Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; and David O. McKay journal, Nov. 1, 1963, box 55, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

[60] Evan P. Wright to First Presidency (George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, David O. McKay), Mar. 31, 1949 and First Presidency’s response, Aug. 31, 1949, both in box 64, folder 6, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[61] Digest of the minutes of the meeting of patriarchs of the Church with the General Authorities held in Barratt Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, Saturday, Oct. 11, 1958, at 8:00 a.m. with President Joseph Fielding Smith, President of the Quorum of the Twelve, box 64, folder 4, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; and Elder Grant Farmer to Spencer W. Kimball, Sept. 12, 1953, box 64, folder 8, ibid. 

[62] An identified bishop to an unidentified stake president, Dec. 26, 1962, and the recipient’s wife to President David O. McKay, May 17, 1963, both in Matt Harris files (courtesy of Newell G. Bringhurst). She included long segments of her husband’s patriarchal blessing in the letter to McKay. First Presidency Secretary A. Hamer Reiser responded on behalf of President McKay. He told the woman that the matter would be referred to her stake president. See Reiser to unidentified sister, May 29, 1963, ibid. President McKay also instructed the woman’s stake president to investigate the matter to determine if her husband had “negro blood.” The results of the stake president’s investigation is not known. See McKay to unidentified stake president, June 3, 1963, ibid. 

[63] Donald William Hemmingway interview by Christen L. Schmutz, July 16, 1980, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[64] For this point, see Newell G. Bringhurst, “David O. McKay’s Confrontation with Mormonism’s Black Priesthood Ban,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 37, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2017): 1–11. 

[65] David O. McKay to an unidentified stake president, June 3, 1963, Matt Harris files (courtesy of Newell G. Bringhurst). 

[66] “Minutes of Special Meeting by President McKay,” Jan. 17, 1954, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; also in box 32, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah; and box 64, folder 8, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[67] For McKay’s overlooking Latter-day Saints suspected of having “negro lineage,” see Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), 78–79; and Mary Lythgoe Bradford, Lowell L. Bennion: Teacher, Counselor, Humanitarian (Salt Lake City: Dialogue Foundation, 1995), 165–66. 

[68] See, for example, First Presidency (David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, N. Eldon Tanner) to Bishop Bernard J. Price of Idaho Falls, Idaho, Apr. 16, 1964, Matt Harris files (courtesy of Newell G. Bringhurst) 

[69] Digest of the minutes of the meeting of patriarchs of the Church with the General Authorities held in Barratt Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, Saturday, Oct. 11, 1958, at 8:00 a.m. with President Joseph Fielding Smith, President of the Quorum of the Twelve, box 64, folder 4, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[70] Ibid. 

[71] Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957–1966), 5:168. See also Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, compiled by Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954–1956), 3:172. 

[72] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958), 477. 

[73] See McConkie’s religion lectures, “Patriarchal Order” and “Pre-Mortal Existence,” University of Utah Institute, 1967, AV 191, CD 1–3, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. See also McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 102, 314, 476–77, 530–31. 

[74] McConkie, “Patriarchal Order.” 

[75] Eldred G. Smith’s ordination blessing is included in Minutes of the Meetings of the First Presidency and Twelve, Apr. 10, 1947, in Minutes of the Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4:333. Biographical information on the Hopes can be found in Spencer W. Kimball journal, Oct. 20, 1947, reel 5, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[76] Ibid. Patriarch Smith also related this experience to BYU religion professor Roy W. Doxey, as recounted in James R. Clark’s letter to his father, June 1, 1956, box 90, folder 5, Paul R. Cheesman Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. 

[77] Smith affirmed that he had “given blessings to a number of Negroes who are members of the Church” (in Eldred G. Smith BYU devotional address, “A Patriarchal Blessing Defined,” Nov. 8, 1966, 10, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; copy also in box 211, folder 6, Ernest L. Wilkinson Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University). 

[78] Joseph Fielding Smith, “Patriarchal Order of the Priesthood,” Improvement Era 55 (June 1952): 425; and Joseph Fielding Smith, “Your Patriarchal Blessing,” Improvement Era 63 (June 1960): 417. 

[79] Eldred G. Smith to the LDS Student Association, University of Utah Institute of Religion, “Patriarchal Blessings,” Jan. 17, 1964, 3, copy in box 6, folder 10, H. Michael Marquardt Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

[80] Eldred G. Smith, “A Patriarchal Blessing Defined,” 9–10. William E. Berrett, BYU Vice President and Church Education System administrator, also taught that Blacks could not be given true patriarchal blessings since they could not receive “the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (“Race Problems,” Church History and Philosophy 245—Advanced Theology, July 10, 1956, Church History Library, Salt Lake City). 

[81] Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks, 125–26; and Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 148–52. 

[82] Wilkinson’s racism was manifest most poignantly during the BYU athletic protests in the late 1960s. For Wilkinson’s reaction to the protests, see J. B. Haws, The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), chap. 3; Darron T. Smith, When Race, Religion and Sport Collide: Black Athletes at BYU and Beyond (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), 85–91; Gary James Bergera, “‘This Time of Crisis’: The Race-Based Anti-BYU Athletic Protests of 1968–1971,” Utah Historical Quarterly 81, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 204–29.

[83] As recorded in David O. McKay journal, Nov. 13, 1966, box 63, folder 7, David O. McKay Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 

[84] Smith instructed Clark not to publish any statements the First Presidency issued “during controversial periods in Church history since they would probably be misunderstood today” (in Clark’s “Memorandum on a trip to see President Joseph Fielding Smith,” June 29, 1964, box 7, folder 9, James R. Clark Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University). 

[85] First Presidency Minutes, Mar. 1, 1968, box 67, folder 3, David O. McKay Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 

[86] For criticisms of Romney and Mormon racial teachings, see J. B. Haws, “When Mormonism Mattered Less in Presidential Politics: George Romney’s 1968 Window of Possibilities,” Journal of Mormon History 39, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 114; Haws, Mormon Image in the American Mind, 38-40; and Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 75, 79.

[87] Spencer W. Kimball to Edward L. Kimball, June 1963, box 63, folder 6, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Sterling M. McMurrin served in the Kennedy administration as the Commissioner of Education. Stewart L. Udall served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as the Secretary of the Interior. For their criticisms of Mormon racial teachings, see McMurrin’s addresses to the NAACP, Mar. 8, 1960, box 220, folder 2 and June 21, 1968, box 289, folder 2, both in Sterling McMurrin Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah; Udall to First Presidency, Sept. 18, 1961, box 209, folder 3, Stuart L. Udall Papers, Special Collections, University of Arizona; and Udall letter to the editor, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 2, no. 2 (Summer 1967): 5–7. 

[88] McKay journal, Nov. 13, 1966. Wilkinson informed Eldred Smith that President McKay did not want the address published “because of the present turmoil over the Negro question.” See Wilkinson to Smith, November 25, 1966, box 378, folder 3, Ernest L. Wilkinson Presidential Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. 

[89] Mark E. Petersen, “Race Problems As They Affect the Church,” address given to religious educators at Brigham Young University, Aug. 17, 1954, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. 

[90] LDS Bishop J. D. Williams condemned Petersen’s sermon as a “gross misreading of LDS scripture” in “Analysis of ‘Race Problems—As They Affect the Church,’” 1954, box 24, folder 2, J. D. Williams Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. LDS sociologist O. Kendall White linked the talk with the Klan (in White, “Mormonism’s Anti-Black Policy and Prospects for Change,” Journal of Religious Thought 29, no. 4 [1972]: 44. For more on the backlash against Petersen, see Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 68–69, 172–73, n. 38–39. 

[91] Smith, Way to Perfection, 109–10; Joseph F. Smith, Council of Twelve minutes, Aug. 18, 1900, in Bush, “Compilation on the Negro,” 191–92; Brigham Young, Feb. 18, 1855, Journal of Discourses, 2:184. On pro-slavery Protestant ministers, see generally Haynes, Noah’s Curse; Kidd, Forging of Races; Oshatz, Slavery and Sin; Goldenberg, Curse of Ham. 

[92] Smith address to the LDS Student Association, University of Utah Institute of Religion, “Patriarchal Blessings,” 8.

[93] “Instructions to Patriarchs,” 1968, copy in box 6, folder 10, H. Michael Marquardt Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 

[94] Council of Twelve minutes, May 14, 1970, box 63, folder 3, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[95] Council of Twelve minutes, May 21, 1970, ibid. For Benson’s anti-Black views, see my article “Martin Luther King, Civil Rights, and Perceptions of a ‘Communist Conspiracy,’” in Thunder from the Right: Ezra Taft Benson in Mormonism and Politics, edited by Matthew L. Harris (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming). 

[96] There had been a longstanding tension between Eldred Smith and various apostles over many issues over many years. For this point, see D. Michael Quinn, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997), 116–31; Smith and Bates, Lost Legacy, chaps. 8–9; and Marquardt, Later Patriarchal Blessings, xxxi–liv.

[97] Spencer W. Kimball journal, May 21, 1971, reel 35, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[98] “Patriarchs’ Meeting Minutes,” Apr. 6, 1973, copy in box 4, folder 3, Irene Bates Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 

[99] Ibid.

[100] Ibid. 

[101] Sharon Pugsley to the Quorum of the Twelve, Aug. 20, 1970, box 9, folder 7, Joseph Fielding Smith Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[102] Utah Dailey Chronicle, Nov. 19, 1969, copy in ibid. 

[103] J. Duane Dudley to First Presidency (Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney), May 13, 1974, box 32, folder 2, David John Buerger Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 

[104] Joseph Anderson to Spencer W. Kimball, May 28, 1971, box 64, folder 2, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[105] For two excellent studies depicting President Kimball’s views on Blacks, priesthood, and lineage, see Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood,” BYU Studies 47, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 5–85; Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball (Working Draft) (Salt Lake City: Benchmark Books, 2009), chaps. 20–22. My research in the Kimball papers reveals his sensitivity to Blacks and lineage. 

[106] First Presidency (Spencer W. Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney) to J. Duane Dudley, May 17, 1974, box 32, folder 2, David John Buerger Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. Kimball was remarkably consistent in this position. In 1956, he counseled patriarch George E. Jorgensen “that the matter of lineage for such a person would have to be left to the inspiration of the patriarch” (as quoted from a conversation that BYU religion professor James R. Clark had with Patriarch Jorgensen, June 1, 1956, box 90, folder 5, Paul R. Cheesman Papers, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University). 

[107] L. Tom Perry, “Quarterly Stake Conference Report by General Authorities of the Santo André Stake Conference,” May 15–16, 1976, Matt Harris files (courtesy of Mark Grover of BYU).

[108] Bates and Smith, Lost Legacy, 214, 220, n. 49. 

[109] See “Information and Suggestions for Patriarchs,” in Marquardt, Later Patriarchal Blessings, 565–66. On the question of the priesthood revelation not resolving Black lineage, see Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 118. 

[110] President Kimball “retired” the Office of the Patriarch in 1979 and named Eldred Smith “Patriarch Emeritus.” Bates and Smith indicate that it is “not known what dynamics might have combined to cause Spencer Kimball to retire the office of Church Patriarch” (Lost Legacy, 216). They speculate that “perhaps it was the desire to end more than a century of tension over the proper parameters of authority for the office and to finally put to rest the question of lineal rights of succession.” For an insightful discussion of the matter, see Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride (Working Draft), 406–09.

[111] The ideas expressed in this section were conveyed to me in an email on February 18, 2018, by a person with direct knowledge of Patriarch Smith’s views. Because of the sensitivity of the matter, I have chosen not to identify this person. 

[112] Books promoting the divine curse continued to circulate in the Church well after the priesthood revelation. This includes Smith, Way to Perfection; Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions; and McConkie, Mormon Doctrine. It was not until 2013 that the Church officially renounced its long-standing teaching that Blacks bore the mark of a divine curse. For two expressions of this statement, see “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics, Dec. 2013, https://www. lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng; and Matthew L. Harris, “Mormonism’s Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 33, no. 1 (2013): 90–114.

[113] Two sermons both with the same title illustrates this point. See Bruce R. McConkie, “All Are Alike Unto God,” address given at a Book of Mormon symposium for Seminary and Institute instructors at Brigham Young University, Aug. 18, 1978, Church History Library, Salt Lake City; and Howard W. Hunter, “All Are Alike Unto God,” devotional assembly address at Brigham Young University, Feb. 4, 1979, available at https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/howard-w-hunter_all-alike-unto-god.

[114] Bruce R. McConkie memo to Spencer W. Kimball, “Doctrinal Basis for Conferring the Melchizedek Priesthood Upon the Negroes,” March 1978, box 64, folder 3, Spencer W. Kimball Papers, Church History Library, Salt Lake City. The context for this memo is important. In the months leading up to the priesthood revelation, President Kimball asked the apostles to prepare written memorandums justifying priesthood ordination on Black people. See Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride (Working Draft), 345; and Joseph Fielding McConkie, The Bruce R. McConkie Story: Reflections of a Son (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 374–75. McConkie’s assertion that Gentile “blood” could be purged by baptism echoed Joseph Smith’s teachings. See Smith’s writings of June 27, 1839, in “History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842],” 8, Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838- 1856-volume-c-1-2-november-1838-31-july-1842/543. Smith applied the term “Gentile blood” more broadly; McConkie associated it with “Negro” converts. 

[115] James E. Faust, “Patriarchal Blessings,” Brigham Young University devotional, Mar. 30, 1980, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/james-e-faust_patriarchal-blessings; and Gospel Principles (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2009), 273. See also Daniel H. Ludlow, “Of the House of Israel,” Ensign, Jan. 1991, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1991/01/of-the-house-of-israel?lang=eng.

[116] As related in LDS Church Historian Leonard J. Arrington’s journal, June 25, 1978, box 33, folder 4, Leonard J. Arrington Papers, Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University. Keith N. Hamilton, Last Laborer: Thoughts and Reflections of a Black Mormon (Salt Lake City: Ammon Works, 2011), 68 (my thanks to Hamilton for sharing a copy of his book). 

[117] Ibid., 69. 

[118] Eugene Orr interview with H. Michael Marquardt, Nov. 14, 1971, box 6, folder 3, H. Michael Marquardt Papers, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. Also in Harris and Bringhurst, Mormon Church and Blacks, 90–91.

[119] Darius Gray and Margaret Young, “No Johnny-Come-Lately: The 182-Year Long BLACK Mormon Moment,” address at FairMormon conference, August 2–3, 2012, https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2012/no-johnny come-lately-the-182-year-long-black-mormon-moment. Gray also discusses his patriarchal blessing in an oral history interview with Dennis and Elizabeth Haslem, Dec. 4, 1971, box 1, folder 7, African American Oral History Project, 1971–1973, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah. 

[120] Sistas in Zion (@SISTASinZION), “It was church policy,” Twitter, June 7, 2017, 1:19 p.m., https://twitter.com/SISTASinZION/status/872548570087301120.

[121] As quoted in Joseph Stuart, “Patriarchal Blessings, Lineage, and Race: Historical Background and Survey,” Juvenile Instructor (blog), June 8, 2017, http://juvenileinstructor.org/patriarchal-blessings-lineage and-race-historical-background-and-a-survey. 

[122] Mauss, All Abraham’s Children, 40, n. 32; Armand Mauss, email message to author, Feb. 2, 2018.

[123] As quoted in Stuart, “Patriarchal Blessings, Lineage, and Race” and confirmed in an email message to author, Feb. 14, 2018. Due to the sensitivity of the subject, I have chosen to keep the person’s identity anonymous.

[124] John Dehlin, “Dustin Jones and the Lingering Legacy of the LDS Negro Doctrine,” Mormon Stories (podcast), May 31, 2011, http://www.mormonstories.org/256-258-dustin-jones-and-the-lingering-legacy-of-the-lds-negro-doctrine. 

[125] A point conveyed to me by numerous Black Latter-day Saints. After 1978, many Black Latter-day Saints claim lineage through Ephraim and Manasseh by adoption into the House of Israel—this according to persons knowledgeable on the subject. Because of the sensitivity of the matter, I have agreed not to identify them. Also instructive is that Black Mormons who have written about their conversion to the LDS Church have not discussed lineage in their books. See, for example, Alan Gerald Cherry, It’s You and Me, Lord! (Provo: Trilogy Arts Publication, 1970); Wynetta Willis Martin, Black Mormon Tells Her Story (Salt Lake City: Hawkes Publications, 1972); Joseph Freeman, In the Lord’s Due Time (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1979); and Darron Terry Smith, What Matters Most: A Story of Human Potential (Salt Lake City: Scribe Publishing, 1999). Apologetic works by Black Latter-day Saints also omit lineage and dis cussions of patriarchal blessings. See Luckner Huggins, A Son of Ham: Under the Covenant (Salt Lake City: Noah’s Family Publishing, 2005); and Marcus H. Martins, Setting the Record Straight: Blacks and the Mormon Priesthood (Orem, Utah: Millennial Press, 2007). Two exceptions discussing patriarchal blessings in their books include Black LDS authors Mary Sturlaugson Eyer, A Soul So Rebellious (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 66–67; and Wain Myers with Kelly L. Martinez, From Baptist Preacher to Mormon Teacher (Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort, 2015), 64. Neither discuss lineage, however. 

[126] “Information and Suggestions for Patriarchs,” 4. 

[127] Gray and Young, “No Johnny-Come-Lately.”

[128] Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:168. 

[129] “Information and Suggestions for Patriarchs,” 4. See also Dallin H. Oaks, “Patriarchal Blessings,” Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting (Jan. 8, 2005): 8 (my thanks to Mike Marquardt for this reference).

[130] “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics, Dec. 2013, https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng.

[post_title] => Mormons & Lineage: The Complicated History of Blacks & Patriarchal Blessings, 1830–2018 [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 83–129
The priesthood revelation of 1978 eased some of the tension when the apostles affirmed that Blacks could now be “adopted into the House of Israel” as full participants in Mormon liturgical rites. But this doctrinal shift did not resolve the vexing question of whether or not Black people derived from the “seed of Cain.” [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => mormons-and-lineage-the-complicated-history-of-blacks-and-patriarchal-blessings-1830-2018 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 19:47:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 19:47:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19139 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

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 . . . in my experience, our efforts as Mormons to join with others in civil rights actions and to build bridges and respond positively to black aspirations will bring special kinds of misunderstanding and pain and will sometimes make the cross harder to bear. 

Eugene England[1]

I think you are the greatest living American, Dr. King, a true disciple of Gandhi and Jesus. Don’t let public opinion turn you from the way you know to be right. 

Edris Head[2]

Introduction 

Scholars, from various humanities and social science disciplines, have debated the dilemma cultural diversity presents to Western societies and religions. One part of the problem is tackling implicit and explicit forms of ethnocentrism and Eurocentrism by reimagining a world that affirms the difference of the Other.[3] Since the middle of the twentieth century, there has been a particular debate within Mormonism about the form, content, and whether there needs to be further discussions about what many perceive as the legacy of racism in the Church’s history and theology. 

On one hand, Church officials, leaders, and the rank-and-file of the community—including prominent figures such as President Gordon B. Hinckley, President Ezra Taft Benson, President David O. McKay, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, and Mormon theologian Robert Millet—have contributed, though perhaps unintentionally, to a palpable culture of silence regarding “race talk” with those both within and outside of the Church. Many assume, for instance, that the ban prohibiting men of African descent from becoming priests was properly dealt with forty years ago with Official Declaration 2.[4] Armand L. Mauss, a sociologist of Mormonism, explained that to most white Mormons, the race problem was resolved in 1978, despite the Church’s not offering a coherent explanation of the origins and the timing for the removal of the ban.[5] In the aftermath of Official Declaration 2, President Hinckley said that the revelation speaks for itself and, therefore, nothing more needs to be done.[6] Millet added that non-Mormon faiths who criticize the Church because of past teachings should ask themselves if they are prepared to

apply the same standards of judgment to their own tradition.[7] On the other hand, a cohort of Mormon studies scholars and Latter-day Saint activists—such as Darrell Campbell, Joanna Brooks, Boyd Petersen, Mark L. Grover, Brian Birch, and many members of the Sunstone community—have encouraged more robust dialogue on multicultural issues with those within and outside of the Church.[8] Margaret Toscano maintains that LDS members should admit that the 1978 revelation was not about God changing his mind but the correction of human prejudice.[9] Additionally, Darron Smith has claimed that there is a reluctance among Church officials to engage in serious race discussions, which reinforces the falsehood that racism is no longer a significant social problem.[10]

This essay approaches intrafaith dialogue within Mormonism by examining Martin Luther King Jr.’s perspective on dialogue and race—including his acts of civil disobedience and his studies of the comparative philosophy of religion. He has been a vital resource for Mormon scholars, leaders, and laity to readdress cultural, political, and religious concerns within their tradition. The essay begins by discussing the sources and norms of King’s rhetoric of inclusion in Black Atlantic (post)colonial culture and his ideas regarding cosmopolitanism—to take seriously the lives and works of people of African descent living in a pluralistic age. Then, Mormon responses to King’s public theology are considered, focusing primarily on Eugene England’s thought and Edris Head’s letter addressed to King. While England wrote extensively about the ethics of diversity in the Church,[11] Head’s personal letter to King has received limited scholarly attention. 

This methodology is significant because it presents and assesses King’s ideas about religious and racial diversity within the context of “Mormon outsiders.” This can help scholars better ascertain his broader vision of theology and its purpose. This approach also adds to the studies of “Mormon agitators” who seek to make the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a more culturally sensitive and diverse ecclesiastical body in the modern era. 

King’s Hermeneutical Account of Race and Dialogue in Black Atlantic Culture 

To discuss Christianity without mentioning other religions would be like discussing the greatness of the Atlantic Ocean without the slightest mention of the many tributaries that keep it flowing. 

Martin Luther King Jr.[12]

As Paul Tillich argued about theology in general, the theologian must answer a series of questions about any theological system: What are the sources? What is the medium in which those sources are received? What is the norm that determines the use of those sources?[13] The major norms that informed King’s approach to dialogue about race were shaped largely by three sources: the African diaspora experience, which becomes evident in his language of “exodus”; the southern African American prophetic Christian tradition, where he stood in the line of ministers all the way back to slavery; and his higher education experience and interest in the comparative philosophy of religion, which included Eastern thinkers like Mahatma Gandhi and Western philosophers like Georg Hegel.[14]

A central theme of King’s ethnic and religious pluralism was how deeply entangled it was in his African diaspora experience of exodus. He possessed a religious consciousness rooted in an African diaspora experience—a consciousness that is much more than a doctrine. It is an ethos and an attitude. It is a philosophy. Anyone familiar with King will know that he was explicit about the need for continued dialogue about race within the context of one’s ethnic and religious heritage. In fact, King exclaimed, “I have come to hope that American Negroes can be a bridge between white civilization and the nonwhite nations of the world, because we have roots in both. Spiritually, Negroes identify . . . with Africa.”[15] King understood how under the conditions of white supremacy, the colonized (Black) identity and (Black) consciousness become alienated from themselves. Yet he believed that the relationship between African and African American cultural and religious identity was not severed due to the African slave experience. Specific geopolitical hot spots that resonated with King’s fight for social justice included Africa, India, South America, and the Caribbean—the places most affected by Western (post)colonialism and societies made up of people of color.[16]

Thus, “exodus” became an impetus for King’s message of universal ism. To counter the lingering effects of colonialism and racism, King referred to an interrelatedness of life using the image of a “single garment of destiny” to highlight the fact that we are all caught in a network of mutuality.[17] He instilled a sense of community whereby the African American sense of anomie—as Émile Durkheim would put it—or twoness—as W. E. B. Du Bois would put it—was abated partly because of God’s love. King concluded that African Americans have come to feel that they are “somebody” because their religion revealed to them that God loves all of his children.[18] King drew upon the cultural formations to envision a global “beloved community.”[19] In his most famous address, “I Have a Dream,” King ended with a slave song: “And when this happens . . . we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”[20] African retentions, such as the singing of slave spirituals, enabled King to nurture the aesthetic resources to resist oppression.

King’s insistence on the need for more dialogue to eradicate racism emerged during the twentieth century—a particular stage of African American religio-cultural development in North America.[21] During this epoch of new market forces and the process of globalization, African Americans were turning to multiple sources for insights within and beyond Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to inform their worldview. King sought resources wherever he could, to create transnational intra and inter-religious alliances to fight against racism, materialism, and war—issues that hindered justice, freedom, and peace. For example, King jostled his private and public acumen—knowing both the established Western (white-male) scholarly canon while studying, knowing, and preserving his own African diaspora history.[22] White North American and European thinkers heavily influenced King. As a student, King learned about and adopted Hegel’s dialectical method of reconciling opposing positions into a coherent one. He used Hegel to help him respond to social dilemmas. As a seminarian, King studied non–African American religions. He traced anthropological and sociological arguments for the origins of religion, concluding that truth exists in various religious and ethical traditions.[23] He followed truth wherever it was found and did not base his openness on the stature of the religious leader. Mentors introduced King to Eastern religious teachers, including Gandhi, and he made Gandhian nonviolence a central feature of the civil rights movement.[24] Despite being raised as a fundamentalist, King did not downplay his formal education. He, instead, would use his extensive training to broaden his pluralistic preaching style. 

King criticized racist and fundamentalist theologies that sought to diminish discourse(s). He did not want to hamper the flourishing, for example, of an open-minded society, where care for others was essential. As an illustration, King disagreed with Back-to-Africa movements and the Nation of Islam’s monolithic conception of Black culture.[25] King’s conviction that there are no superior and inferior races was an act of resisting the temptation to create an essentialized consciousness that reifies identity—Black or otherwise. King wrote, “An individual has value because he has value to God. Whenever this is recognized, ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness’ pass away as determinants in a relationship and ‘son’ and ‘brother’ are substituted.”[26] For King, agape, or unwavering godly love—as opposed to philos, friendship, and eros, eroticism—toward all others, irrespective of their racial makeup, stood at the center of his spiritual belief. 

King argued that interfaith dialogue should be a humble art form, slowly winning over—and never punishing—the Other. In “Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change,” he taught about using grace, humor, and intelligence to translate antagonisms between groups into opportunities for mutual respect. King assisted parties with different viewpoints to reach a “higher universality.” For example, civil rights marches included people from different parts of the country who belonged to different faiths.[27] King viewed African American prophetic Christianity on par with other socially-conscious faiths that contributed to the furthering of global social justice. He commented positively on the vitality of other faith traditions such as Indian spirituality.[28] Focusing on the plight of African Americans, King sought to usher in an era of justice through concerted dialogue—especially for religious and ethnic identities that were deemed Other. 

The genius of King’s rhetoric that all human beings belong to a shared humanity was that it was not just a theory but also a praxis. King emphasized that ideas have their value relative to their impact on oneself and on the world. He preached sermons like “Paul’s Letter to American Christians” at the United Presbyterian Church’s Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations and participated in marches, travels, and events to be in solidarity with the Other. He renewed a call for new foundations of intrafaith relation by emphasizing ecumenical social thought and action. Along with Hegel, Gandhi was King’s premier role model, which enabled him to expand his theological horizon toward a commitment to global praxis. King exclaimed, “Gandhi not only spoke against the caste system but he acted against it.”[29] King insisted that abstract notions of truth and love are insufficient to change the status quo and must become grounded in the real world. He exclaimed, “unarmed truth and unconditional love . . . have the final word in reality.”[30] This is a reason why King was so dismayed with fellow white clergymen in his “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”: men who supported civil rights with their words but not via their actions. From King’s perspective, dialogue about racism by itself does not translate into material freedom. 

Therefore, a major driving force determining King’s commitment to dialogue about race was his African American Christian diaspora identity. His ministerial lineage and seminary training led him to become concerned about discussing the relationship between Christianity and other religions. King’s confidence in God’s grace helped him respond creatively to legacies of Western hegemony and colonialism, with its history of racial and religious oppression. Ultimately, King should not be interprested narrowly as a Southern civil rights minister alone, but as a public theologian of inclusion who successfully constructed a universally appealing message, which led to his becoming a national and international icon—a living legend. 

King’s Hermeneutical Account of Race and Dialogue as a Resource for Mormon Theology and Culture 

. . . the allegation of an unspecified act or choice in the pre-existence which blacks cannot know about or repent of . . . essentially states that the most noble black man who has ever lived (choose your own example: Elijah Abel, Martin Luther King, Ralph Bunche) is in some crucial sense not up to the level of—is, in a word, inferior to—the most depraved white man (Hitler, Stalin, Charles Manson). 

Eugene England[31]

I used to be a Mormon, and my first doubts about the Church were on [the priesthood] subject. 

Edris Head[32]

Max Stackhouse, scholar of public theology, argues that a serious dialogue that is not simply political posturing will recognize the validity of many possible sources and norms that could contribute to the general welfare of all.[33] Mormons have used King’s views of dialogue and race as a constructive resource for themselves to counter what they perceive to be inconsistencies contradictions, and paradoxes within Mormon theology and history. King enabled England and Head to respond to their traditions in three interrelated ways: (a) nurturing a critical self consciousness of one’s cultural identity within the context of one’s religious identity to help transform social awareness, (b) recognizing the fallible nature of fundamentalist perspectives, seeing that claims to religious knowledge could be incorrect and, thereby, seeing value in other viewpoints that contribute to liberationist frameworks, and (c) clarifying how discourse(s), viewpoint(s), and ideologies are not separable from but constitutive of praxis and power. 

England, a Mormon scholar, and Head, once a lay Mormon, share similar attitudes about Mormonism. England’s “The Mormon Cross” was written as a response to Lester Bush’s seminal essay on the history of the race ban. Head wrote King a brief letter, summarizing the key features of Mormon belief and practice (e.g., missionizing, baptism, women’s roles, Church hierarchy, genealogies, priesthood ban), particularly in light of the Church’s support of the presidential candidacy of George Romney, a Mormon.[34] Head saw that there was a lot of misinformation published by Mormon news outlets about the faith and there had not been any rebuttal by African American leaders. Head believed that a direct critique of Mormonism by King would transform the Church for the better. Indeed, King had condemned the Nazism of Hitler’s Germany, the fascism of Mussolini’s Italy, the apartheid and colonialism of Great Britain’s India and South Africa, and American white supremacists like those of the White Citizens’ Councils. As a member of the LDS Church since youth, Head felt a moral responsibility to educate King and elicit his help. It seems that, for Head as well as for England, remaining silent to injustice would have been a form of complicity.

England and Head both presented a critical overview of Mormonism and the United States at a time when King preached about the need for a nonviolent revolution because of militarism, poverty, and racism.[35] England himself confessed, “When I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s in Utah, I was a racist in what appeared to be a thoroughly racist society. In the 1960s, as the forces that produced black theology—the Civil Rights and Black Power movements—gained in strength, there was criticism, both from without and within the [Church], of the priesthood ban and racist Mormon teachings.”[36] England wrote about and Head wrote to King, whom they both personally admired, during a time when not everyone agreed with his messages.[37] England’s and Head’s comments about King and the civil rights movement were a departure from what other LDS leaders had said (and had not said) about him and the freedom cause. President Benson connected the civil rights movement to communism as a means of discrediting the movement.[38] The majority of white Southern fundamentalists at the time supported white supremacist laws and disagreed with King’s pronouncements on the Christian gospel. King taught, “I do not feel that a man can be a Christian and a staunch segregationist simultaneously.”[39] King hoped that Christians would (re)define themselves in truth and love. England and Head positioned themselves against Mormon customs by publicly challenging the aspects of LDS racial animus. They wanted to eradicate the individual and institutional racism that they saw in the Church. Therefore, they stressed how the Church’s race ban was indicative of and central to understanding Mormon culture.

Brigham Young and other Mormon prophets (e.g., John Taylor, Wil ford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Harold B. Lee) originally denied African descendants from becoming priests for a handful of reasons, including the so-called biblical reasons. Some ideas advanced included the notion that they were not “valiant enough” in heaven[40] and that they bore the curse of Cain.[41] Like Mormons, King believed that a loving God revealed himself through prophets and scripture. Yet King recalled that there was a time when people tried to justify racial supremacy based on the biblical witness: “Strange indeed how individuals will often use, or should I say misuse, the Bible to crystallize the patterns of the status quo and justify their prejudices. So from some pulpits it was argued that the Negro was inferior by nature because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham.”[42] King’s method of biblical hermeneutics challenges instances where sacred texts, such as the Bible, are used to justify the racial inferiority of others. 

While Head requested that King directly respond to the Mormon community, England concluded that King’s social justice efforts already helped liberate the LDS Church. England credited oppressed people for helping the “true Zion community”[43] to emerge. To be sure, the Black Church, under King’s leadership, was at the forefront of ending segregation laws in the South. A decade after King’s assassination, President Kimball declared, on June 8, 1978, that all the worthy male members of the LDS Church might be ordained to priesthood without any regard for race or color because the conditions had changed.[44] King’s message regarding social justice was understandable to those within his own tradition as well as those outside of it. He had preached as an insider in his African American religious community and as an outsider to non–African American religious people, which enabled him to work successfully in the American religious mainstream domain as well as with American religious outsiders. King said to Cesar Chavez, for example, that “our separate struggles are really one—a struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity.”[45] King’s race leadership did transform the African American civil rights campaign into a worldwide struggle for peace and justice. 

England and Head envisioned a Mormonism that was more dialogical, in the sense of having a self-critical orientation, and less dogmatic, in the sense of having a closed-minded attitude.[46] They were puzzled that “many Mormons [were] still in denial about that [race] ban, unwilling to talk in [Church] settings about it.”[47] Older versions of the Church Educational System’s seminary textbook on the topic of Church history did not mention the race ban.[48] King spent paragraphs at a time in Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? on African American contributions to the West because “[the] history books . . . have almost completely ignored the contribution of the Negro in American history . . .[49] England and Head praised King as one of the greatest preachers and leaders for social change of his time partly because of his dialectical thinking. Head mentioned that King embodied the best ideals of both Jesus and Gandhi. Indeed, King cultivated a spirit of critical inquiry. All ideas were, for him, subject to scrutiny. Despite ideological differences, King appreciated, for example, Malcolm X’s contribution to the Black civil rights cause: “I don’t want to seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some answers.”[50] King listened to all the viewpoints before proclaiming word and action. 

That is, King looked to not only the African American heritage and the Christianity for inspiration, but he also used the ideologies of all the theologians and philosophers that were available to him—like Reinhold Niebuhr, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Paul Tillich. He effortlessly fused Georg Hegel, Immanuel Kant, and Mahatma Gandhi into the civil rights campaigns, centering their thought on African diaspora pain and struggle. King rejected binary propositions like racial reasoning (e.g., “all white people are bad”), fatalist notions (e.g., “there is no escape from systemic oppression”), or revenge models (e.g., “the oppressed should become the oppressor”). For instance, King claimed: “We do not wish to triumph over the white community. That would only result in transferring those now on the bottom to the top. But, if we can live up to nonviolence in thought and deed, there will emerge an interracial society based on freedom for all.”[51]

In her letter to King, Head explained that she renounced her own Mormon faith after learning about the history of the priesthood ban. Yet, from a Kingian logic, religious adherents can stay within their ethically and theologically flawed, imperfect tradition while seeking to challenge the ignoble aspects within them. England chose King’s path. King criticized his own fundamentalist religious upbringing because of its absolutizing tendencies,[52] the racism imbued and neutrality displayed by white people who belonged to churches,[53] and the emotionalism and classism exemplified in African American Christianity.[54] Nonetheless, King never rejected his African American Christian faith but instead sought to improve it. He articulated ethical and theological principles that resulted in groups acting out of moral conviction within their traditions.[55] In other words, intrafaith dialogue does not mean abandoning all of one’s personal convictions but rather expanding those commitments to seek out higher forms of justice. It is through dialogue that one enters the process of becoming more self-aware. 

England and Head insisted that in order for the best version of the LDS Church to emerge the community needs to communicate openly and frankly about vital issues of the Church and of the day without fear of negative reprisals. Threats of excommunication and the incessant need to always “follow the prophet” do not allow for independent-minded dialogue. England asserted that the problem of racism was inseparable from the problem of sexism in the Mormon community.[56] In her letter, Head raised the issue of the priesthood ban and the fact that women in the LDS Church do not have the same authority as men. Although King stressed that “people should be judged not by their skin color but by the content of their character,”[57] he omitted many qualified Black women from prominent leadership positions in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[58] King accepted the gender norms of the day. England and Head saw racial equality as being connected to gender equality, which King had overlooked. 

African descendants, despite the priesthood ban’s idiosyncrasies, have still found a home in Mormonism. The Genesis Group is one clear example.[59] Darius Gray, former president of Genesis, maintained that God did not put the race ban in place but instead removed it.[60] Technically, the priesthood ban was not official, canonical doctrine.[61] Regardless of whether the ban was official doctrine or not, from a Kingian perspective, any church that endorses a theological or philosophical precept cannot be assessed in abstraction or isolation, disregarding its social function.[62] Because of the ban, Black Mormons have experienced, and in many ways continue to experience, a “triple jeopardy,” possessing three “counter-identities”: one religious, one racial, and the other class-based. To mainstream Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christianity, Mormon remains a heterodox community.[63] Black Mormons are treated as the Other not only because of their religion and race but also because they have not achieved the “upward [mobility] and [economic success][64] that many white people suppose black persons should have reached at this point in history.[65] It is no wonder, then, that Black Mormons still experience “special kinds of misunderstanding and pain”[66] because they do not feel fully integrated within the Church or the larger society.[67]

King inspired African American Christians and non–African American Christians to embrace their ethnic and religious identities. His assertions like “Africa is our Home” and “I am a Black Man” were not mere rhetorical embellishments. They provided cultural meaning for himself and others. While in London, Eugene England applauded the culturally affirming effects that lifting the ban had on minority communities: “I went each Sunday to the Hyde Park Ward and saw the congregation gradually deepening and brightening in color as the 1978 revelation giving blacks the priesthood began to produce more and more dark-skinned converts from London and the West Indies and Africa, some who came in flamboyant native dress.”[68] African diaspora humanity was reinforced using the projection of African symbols. 

England and Head felt that the priesthood ban was far more consequential than many realized, as it affected Mormons of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. They suggested that many Mormons of European descent living in the United States—as practitioners of many other white fundamentalist, evangelical, and revelatory-based Christian traditions— view the world and their religion too optimistically. England wrote, “I grew up feeling that because I was Mormon, I was different from other humans. I was special, even ‘peculiar,’ separate, better than they: I sang, ‘I might be envied by a king, for I am a Mormon boy.’”[69] Such a perspective of the world can add justification for superiority between groups, thereby legitimatizing the good fortunes of “the few” over “the many.” The Mormon community might be too quick to assume that the goodness of their tradition more than compensates for its problematic past.

England and Head intimated that “Mormon optimism” as an extension of “whiteness” is a privileged status that people from European descent enjoy and employ in the Church and in society. It shields white LDS members from experiencing and seeing racial discriminatory attitudes and practices, which others of a different ethnic heritage do not benefit from. Throughout his life, King remained a guarded optimist on race relations improving. He was not colorblind. He was not a fatalist either. George Santayana’s famous proclamation that “those who ignore history are bound (or doomed) to repeat it” became a truism for King. King chose to use nonviolence to resolve social conflict. King knew that achieving Black liberation was not inevitable, at least not for himself. In his final address, King preached, “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know . . . that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”[70]

Conclusion 

King’s hermeneutical account of dialogue and race presents Mormon scholars, leaders, and laity with enduring sources and norms for reinterpreting him in the light of their own struggles for moral liberation. Overall, the people who were influenced by King insisted that the LDS Church not forget its past nor be crippled by it. The priesthood ban need not be rationalized or whitewashed but fully explored and wholly accepted, acknowledging where things went wrong and how the Church made amends or did not. Likewise, the stories focusing only on King’s civil rights successes are far easier to ruminate about than his particular failures. Neither King nor the LDS Church was perfect. In the Christian community, confession and forgiveness are closely aligned: “If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9) 

Examining England’s and Head’s intrafaith dialogue from a Kingian view also serves to shift LDS life and thought toward a distinctive and courageous theological tradition: demotheology. Robert Tapp, a religious studies scholar, defined demotheology as “religion on the ground.” The assumption that theological systems and religious organizations—after the demise of the founder—are developed and deployed entirely by head leaders (e.g., presidents, apostles) of those institutions, and then simply taught to and followed by the practitioners is a misguided notion of how theology actually works. In fact, both ordained and lay figures—many without formal rank and stature—have altered and added to the existing dogma and doctrine, including the way these teachings are interpreted. England, Head, and King are all such examples. England and Head are “Mormon agitators” who share in the process of religious self-renewal by critiquing the elements of the established order that need to be changed in the Church. Head and England imitated King by not remaining silent to institutional sins but speak “truth to power,” empowering the people of faith. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the Book of Mormon both proclaim that “all are alike unto God” (2 Nephi 26:33). 

In future areas of Mormon studies as well as King studies, scholars need to continue to include more histories, more persons, and more cultures—plus more religions—into their discourse. The Black community should also increase its knowledge of Mormonism, as Africans and African Americans are part of Mormon history and theology too.[71] It should be noted that the LDS Church has recently installed two new apostles, one of Chinese descent, Gerrit W. Gong, and the other of Brazilian descent, Ulisses Soares, which signals possibilities for the expansion to new horizons. 

---

[1] Eugene England, “The Mormon Cross,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 85. 

[2] Edris Head, “Letter from Edris Head to [Martin Luther King Jr.] about [Mormons] and the Presidential Election,” May 20, 1967, The King Center, http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/ letter-edris-head-mlk-about-mormans-and-presidential-election.

[3] Jarich Oosten, “Cultural Anthropological Approaches,” in Theory and Method in Religious Studies: Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Frank Whaling (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995), 232; Robert Wuth now, “Responding to the New Religious Pluralism,” CrossCurrents 58, no. 1 (2008): 43–50; Risto Saarinen, “After Rescher: Pluralism as Preferentialism,” in Theology and the Religions: A Dialogue, edited by Viggo Mortensen (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003), 409; David W. Wills, “The Central Themes of American Religious History: Pluralism, Puritanism, and the Encounter of Black and White,” in African-American Religion: Interpretive Essays in History and Culture, edited by Timothy E. Fulop and Albert J. Raboteau (New York: Routledge, 1996), 7–20; and Reid B. Locklin and Hugh Nicholson, “The Return of Comparative Theology,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78, no. 2 (2010): 477–514. 

[4] Official Declaration 2, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, available at https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/od/2; and Armand L. Mauss, “Casting Off the ‘Curse of Cain’: The Extent and Limits of Progress since 1978,” in Black and Mormon, edited by Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 82.

[5] Mauss, “Casting Off the ‘Curse of Cain,’” 91; Armand L. Mauss, All Abra ham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003).

[6] Gordon B. Hinckley, What of the Mormons?: A Brief Study of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger, 2004), 20; and Mauss, “Casting Off the ‘Curse of Cain,’” 82, 92. 

[7] Robert Millet, “What Do We Really Believe?: Identifying Doctrinal Parameters within Mormonism,” in Discourses in Mormon Theology: The Philosophical and Theological Possibilities, edited by James M. MacLachlan and Loyd Ericson (Sandy, Utah: Kofford, 2007), 272; Richard J. Mouw, Talking with Mormons: An Invitation to Evangelicals (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2012). 

[8] Boyd Petersen, “The Continuing Importance of Dialogue,” Dead Wood and Rushing Water (blog), Apr. 21, 2016, https://boydpetersen.com/2016/04/21/ the-continuing-importance-of-dialogue.

[9] Margaret Toscano, “Is There a Place for a Heavenly Mother in Mormon Theology?: An Investigation into Discourses of Power,” in Discourses in Mormon Theology, 212.

[10] Darron T. Smith, “Unpacking Whiteness in Zion: Some Personal Reflections,” in Black and Mormon, 150; and Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Mormon and Black: Grappling with a Racist Past,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 8, 2008, https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=9497769&itype=NGPSID;

[11] Eugene England, “Are All Alike unto God?: Prejudice against Blacks and Women in Popular Thought,” Sunstone 15, no. 2 (1990): 21–31; Eugene England, “Becoming a World Religion: Blacks, the Poor–All of Us,” Sunstone 21, no. 2 (1998): 49–60; Eugene England, “‘No Respecter of Persons’: A Mormon Ethics of Diversity,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 27, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 79–102; and Eugene England, “On Being Mormon and Human,” Sunstone 118 (2001): 76–78. 

[12] Martin Luther King Jr., “The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ influence-mystery-religions-christianity. 

[13] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973). 

[14] David J. Garrow, “King’s Intellectual Development: Influences and Commentaries,” in Martin Luther King Jr.: Civil Rights Leader, Theologian, Orator (Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, Volumes 1–3), edited by David J. Garrow (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1989), 437–52; James H. Cone, “The Theology of Martin Luther King Jr.,” in Martin Luther King, Jr.: Civil Rights Leader, Theologian, Orator, edited by David J. Garrow (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1989), 216–18; and Martin Luther King Jr., “An Autobiography of Religious Development,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/ documents/autobiography-religious-development. 

[15] Martin Luther King Jr., “A Testament of Hope,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James M. Washington (New York: HarperCollins), 318. 

[16] Martin Luther King Jr., “The Negro is Part of That Huge Community Who Seek New Freedom in Every Area of Life,” Feb. 1, 1959, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ negro-part-huge-community-who-seek-new-freedom-every-area-life.

[17] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Apr. 16, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https:// kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/letter-birmingham-jail. 

[18] Martin Luther King Jr., “Address at the Freedom Rally in Cobo Hall,” June 23, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ address-freedom-rally-cobo-hall. 

[19] Joshua F. J. Inwood, “Searching for the Promised Land: Examining Dr. Martin Luther King’s Concept of the Beloved Community,” Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 41, no. 3 (2009): 487–508. 

[20] Martin Luther King Jr., “‘I Have a Dream,’ Address Delivered at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” Aug. 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute. stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/i-have-dream-address-delivered-march washington-jobs-and-freedom. 

[21] Caleb Oladipo, “Confession, Tradition, and Perspectives: Response and Reflection of Afro-Americans to the Age of Religious Pluralism,” in Theology and the Religions, 73, 82; and Viggo Mortensen, “For All God’s People: Being Church in Multireligious Societies,” in Theology and the Religions, 465.

[22] Chester M. Hedgepeth, “Philosophical Eclecticism in the Writings of Martin Luther King Jr.,” in Martin Luther King Jr.: Civil Rights Leader, Theologian, Orator, 541–48. 

[23] Martin Luther King Jr., “The Origin of Religion in the Race,” Feb. 9, 1951, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ origin-religion-race.

[24] Martin Luther King Jr., “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Apr. 13, 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https:// kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/pilgrimage-nonviolence. 

[25] Martin Luther King Jr., “To Edward H. Page,” June 12, 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kingin stitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/edward-h-page. 

[26] Martin Luther King Jr., “The Ethical Demands for Integration,” in A Testament of Hope, 122; and Howard Thurman, A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life, edited by Walter Earl Fluker and Catherine Tumber (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), 256.

[27] Hans Jochen Margull, “The Ecumenical Movement in the Churches and at the Parish Level,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement, Volume 2: 1948–1968, edited by Harold E. Fey (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1968), 366. 

[28] Martin Luther King Jr., “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi,” July 1959, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https:// kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/my-trip-land-gandhi. 

[29] Ibid. 

[30] Martin Luther King Jr., “Acceptance Address for the Nobel Peace Prize,” Dec. 10, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ acceptance-address-nobel-peace-prize. 

[31] England, “The Mormon Cross,” 80.

[32] Head, “Letter from Edris Head to [Martin Luther King Jr.].” 

[33] Max L. Stackhouse, “General Introduction,” in Religion and the Powers of the Common Life, edited by Max L. Stackhouse and Peter J. Paris (Norcross: Trinity Press International, 2000), 7. 

[34] Stephen H. Webb, Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn from the Latter-Day Saints (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1.

[35] Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–63 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989). 

[36] Eugene England, “Response to Professor Hopkins,” in Mormonism in Dialogue with Contemporary Christian Theologies, edited by Donald W. Musser and David L. Paulsen (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2007), 372. 

[37] Thomas R. Peake, Keeping the Dream Alive: A History of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from King to the Nineteen-Eighties (Bern: Peter Lang, 1988); and Marshall Frady, Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Life (New York: Penguin, 2005).

[38] Report of the Semi-Annual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, September 29–October 1, 1967 (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, semiannual), available at https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1967sa; and Ezra Taft Benson, “A Witness and a Warning,” Oct. 1979, https://www.lds.org/ general-conference/1979/10/a-witness-and-a-warning?lang=eng. 

[39] Martin Luther King Jr., “Advice for Living,” Sept. 1957, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute. stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/advice-living-0. 

[40] Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City: Book craft, 1954), 65–66.

[41] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1958), 109. 

[42] Martin Luther King Jr., “1966 Ware Lecture: Don’t Sleep through the Revolution,” Unitarian Universalist Association, https://www.uua.org/ga/ past/1966/ware. 

[43] England, “Response to Professor Hopkins,” 377. 

[44] Ibid., 373; and Rodney Stark, The Rise of Mormonism, edited by Reid. L Neilson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 135–36. 

[45] Martin Luther King Jr., “Telegram to Cesar Chavez,” Sept. 22, 1966, available at http://remezcla.com/culture/1966-mlk-cesar-chavez-telegram.

[46] Boyd Petersen, “Eugene England and the Future of Mormonism,” Dead Wood and Rushing Water (blog), Jan. 28, 2016, https://boydpetersen.com/2016/01/28/ eugene-england-and-the-future-of-mormonism; and Smith, “Unpacking Whiteness in Zion,” 148. 

[47] England, “Response to Professor Hopkins,” 371. 

[48] Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise (New York: HaperCollins, 1999), 102. 

[49] Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, in A Testament of Hope, 581. 

[50] Martin Luther King Jr., “Chapter 25: Malcolm X,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/ king-papers/publications/autobiography-martin-luther-king-jr-contents/ chapter-25-malcom-x. 

[51] Martin Luther King Jr., “Our Struggle,” Apr. 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute. stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/our-struggle. 

[52] Martin Luther King Jr., “The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https:// kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/humanity-and-divinity-jesus; Martin Luther King Jr., “What Experiences of Christians Living in the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/what-experiences-christians-living early-christian-century-led-christian; and Martin Luther King Jr., “How to Use the Bible in Modern Theological Construction,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford. edu/king-papers/documents/how-use-bible-modern-theological-construction. 

[53] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” in A Testament of Hope, 295–96. 

[54] Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, in A Testament of Hope, 501. 

[55] Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Paul Ricoeur: Tradition and Innovation in Rhetorical Theory (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), 15. 

[56] Eugene England, “Combatting Racism and Sexism at BYU: An Open Letter to Faculty and Students,” The Student Review 4, no. 3 (1989): 10; England, “‘No Respecter of Persons,’” 79–100; and Eugene England, “We Need to Liberate Mormon Men: The Evidence of Mormon Literature,” Exponent II 9, no. 3 (Spring 1983): 4–5. 

[57] England, “Response to Professor Hopkins,” 373. 

[58] Rufus Burrow Jr., “Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Doctrine of Human Dignity,” Western Journal of Black Studies 26, no. 4 (2002): 230; Rufus Burrow Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Theology of Resistance (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2014), 213; Dwight N. Hopkins, Shoes that Fit Our Feet: Sources for a Constructive Black Theology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1993), 192; and Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, Achieving Our Humanity: The Idea of the Postracial Future (New York: Routledge, 2001), 178.

[59] The Genesis Group, www.ldsgenesisgroup.org; and Mauss, “Casting Off the ‘Curse of Cain,’” 104. 

[60] Carrie A. Moore, “Black Mormons Say Life Better since 1978,” Deseret News, May 25, 2003, https://www.deseretnews.com/article/985698/Black-Mormons say-life-better-since-1978.html; and Ken Driggs, “‘How Do Things Look on the Ground?’: The LDS African American Community in Atlanta, Georgia,” in Black and Mormon, 142. 

[61] Moore, “Black Mormons Say Life Better since 1978”; and Craig L. Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson, How Wide the Divide?: A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 140.

[62] Aasulv Lande, “Creative Dialogue,” in Theology and the Religions, 406–07. 

[63] Aleksandra Sandstrom and Becka A. Alper, “6 Facts about U.S. Mormons,” Pew Research Center, Sept. 30, 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact tank/2016/09/30/6-facts-about-u-s-mormons; and Scott Keeter and Gregory Smith, “Public Opinion About Mormons: Mitt Romney Discusses His Religion,” Pew Research Center, Dec. 4, 2007, http://www.pewresearch.org/2007/12/04/ public-opinion-about-mormons; and Webb, Mormon Christianity, 16–17, 111–25.

[64] Smith, “Unpacking Whiteness in Zion,” 150. 

[65] Ibid. 

[66] England, “The Mormon Cross,” 85. 

[67] Jessie L. Embry, “Separate but Equal?: Black Branches, Genesis Groups, or Integrated Wards?,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 23, no.1 (1990): 11–37.

[68] England, “On Being Mormon and Human.” 

[69] Ibid. 

[70] Martin Luther King Jr., “‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,’ Address Delivered at Bishop Charles Mason Temple,” Apr. 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/ ive-been-mountaintop-address-delivered-bishop-charles-mason-temple. 

[71] E. Dale LeBaron, “All Are Alike Unto God”: Fascinating Conversion Stories of African Saints (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1990).

[post_title] => Martin Luther King Jr. and Mormonism: Dialogue, Race, and Pluralism [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 51.3 (Fall 2018): 131–153
This essay provides an outline for how to have a more robust intrafaith dialogue about race among members of the LDS church. Using principles from Martin Luther King, Jr. about dialogue on race, Whitaker argues for the need for greater dialogue to overcome the past. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => martin-luther-king-jr-and-mormonism-dialogue-race-and-pluralism [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-24 18:12:33 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-24 18:12:33 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=19138 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 9356 [post_author] => 1705 [post_date] => 2018-03-14 02:28:54 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-14 02:28:54 [post_content] =>

Good morning, brothers and sisters. It’s my pleasure today to speak about something that absolutely distinguishes Mormonism from other religious traditions—namely, the book from which it takes its name. Say it with me now: the Book of Mormon. To put the cart ahead of the horse, let me simply state the main point I hope to get across today: among the many important functions often ascribed to the Book of Mormon—whether validating Joseph Smith’s prophethood or providing “another testament of Jesus Christ”—one of its most important functions may be to invite us to rethink entirely our practices of reading scripture and, more broadly, our sense of how revelation works. In what follows, I hope to begin to substantiate this claim.

I should begin by disclosing that I may bring a somewhat unique perspective to the Book of Mormon. I am an English professor who studies nineteenth-century American literature and religion, and I regularly teach the Book of Mormon in a course called American Bibles that examines nineteenth-century texts that were biblical in their inspirations, aspirations, and proportions. One of the things we talk about in that course is how the Book of Mormon interacted with the intensely Bible-focused culture of early nineteenth-century American Protestants, who, in the era of the Book of Mormon’s publication, went “all-in” on the Bible as perhaps no group before ever had. They took Martin Luther’s Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura—Latin for “by Scripture alone”—to a whole new level. Many American Protestants, especially those swept up in the evangelical revivals that Joseph Smith describes in his personal history, came to believe that the Bible was the literal word of God—that “every direction contained in its pages was applicable to all men at all times”—and that the Bible was sufficiently legible that any person, regardless of his or her learning, was capable of discerning those directions and living his or her life accordingly in the confidence that he or she was “good with God,” so to speak. Many American Protestant traditions today maintain these positions or variations thereof, as some of you in this congregation may well know, whether through missionary encounters or as former or current devotees of those traditions. 

Now I want to suggest that one of the reasons that American Protestants felt empowered to read the Bible as a text whose meanings were self-evident and whose words were absolutely binding is the way the biblical narrative typically works. Literary critics see in the most ancient portions of the Bible an especially powerful formal innovation—namely, a third-person omniscient narrative voice. Now please don’t tell the English professor that you’ve forgotten these terms from your English classes! You remember, right? Here’s a quick refresher on the off-chance you have forgotten. In a narrative written from a third-person point of view, the characters in the story are viewed entirely from without—referred to by the pronouns he, she, they. If the narrative point of view is, further, an omniscient one, then the narrator of the story has total access to the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters and, really, everything else about the narrative world. Such a narrative voice often sounds matter-of-fact and seems authoritative. For the reader, it can be easy to trust such a knowing voice that seems to float impersonally above the events—however dramatic—that are related. Take the first few verses of Genesis 1 as an example: 

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” 

These words—about nothing less than the creation of the world—come at us from nowhere. It is not stated by whom or whence or why this information is relayed. And these words may be compelling in part precisely because they seem to come at us from nowhere, from something like the very formless void mentioned in these verses. One might even see an analogy between the way God is depicted as creating the world—by simply stating what he wishes to be—and the way the narration works here—bringing a coherent narrative world into being through the abrupt assertion of a no-nonsense impersonal point of view. The point is: Even though the subject matter is about as grandiose as one can imagine, the manner in which the events are narrated is so forceful and forthright as, perhaps, to foreclose our asking any questions about who, when, where, and why.

Now compare this to the first few verses of the Book of Mormon: 

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. 

What’s different about the narrative voice here? In technical terms, this is a narrative written from a first-person rather than third-person point of view—we are confronted with Nephi’s “I” right from the get-go; the pronouns “I” and “my” appear eight times in this single verse. The reader is placed inside Nephi’s perspective rather than privileged to stand outside it with an omniscient narrator. Whereas in the Genesis passage any trace of the author or narrator is rigorously effaced, here we are bombarded with particulars about the individual—Nephi—who has written and/or narrated what we are reading. We know precisely where this story is coming from.

What do we do with this striking difference? What is different or should be different about reading a scripture written in a magisterial third-person perspective that strikes such an authoritative posture as to presuppose readerly confidence, consequently causing some to hear it as the literal word of God, as opposed to reading a scripture written from an unabashed first-person perspective that both openly admits and also not-so-openly reveals its human limitations? At the time the Book of Mormon “came forth” in 1830, American Protestants were struggling with what Harvard historian David Holland—who also happens to be Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s son—calls the problem of “revelatory particularity.” What does he mean by this term—revelatory particularity? Well, in the eighteenth century, as textual criticism of the Bible and historical understanding of the ancient near East became more advanced, some people began to realize what the Book of Mormon itself clearly sets out—that the Bible was composed and translated over long periods of time by many hands and that it was substantially transformed as a result. This view posed a real challenge to any naïve notion of the Bible as seamless word of God—it became clearer and clearer that particular people at particular times and places for particular reasons had written down ancient stories in the particular manner that they did. The question was: What happens to the status of divine revelation when it is itself revealed to issue from historically and culturally particular circumstances that inevitably produced certain blind spots?

For some, this realization became the basis for rejecting the Bible as the source of theological authority: if the Bible, the argument went, had the fingerprints of particular individuals and cultural groups all over it, then it seemed problematic to make it the first and last word about a god who ostensibly created and loved all people. Some of these people touted what they called natural rather than revealed religion as the basis of a sound faith—the better source of information about God’s character was “the book of nature” rather than one of many books of scripture; it was in the universal workings of natural law rather than the particular commandments enshrined by one cultural group that one could get the best idea about who God was and what he expected of his creatures. By Joseph Smith’s time, as I suggested before, many American Protestants tended to evade this problem of revelatory particularity by suggesting that the words of the Bible were the literal word of God, applicable in all times and places and accessible in its universal meaning to any right-minded person. These folks papered over the cracks the textual critics of the Bible had noticed, in part by hewing to the slick surface created by that remarkable third-person narrative voice of the Bible that I described a moment ago. They happily succumbed to the power of that narrative voice.

So the Book of Mormon comes onto this scene of struggle with the problem of revelatory particularity, and what does it do? It not only confronts the problem of revelatory particularity; it fairly rubs the reader’s nose in it. It gives us a series of first person prophet-narrators—Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, etc.—who, on the one hand, self-consciously apologize for their “faults”—that is, admit their human fallibility—and, on the other, maintain their divine inspiration. How are we to approach such a scripture? And how does this scripture, which we regard as uniquely “written for our day,” instruct us as “latter-day saints” to interact with scripture in general?

The first thing to say is that the Book of Mormon discourages us from reading it—and any other text—as the literal word of God in the way that some American Protestants came to read—and still read—the Bible. For instance, the book of 1 Nephi, it is impressed upon us as readers, is not written by God but very much by Nephi, who reminds us at every turn that the words we are reading are his words, as inscribed by his own hand on plates he himself made. By foregrounding rather than downplaying the extent to which particular human beings mediate the transmission of the divine word, by going so far as to emphasize that the text contains “the mistakes of men,” as Mormon puts it, the Book of Mormon asks us to read it—and other scriptures—with what I might call critical discernment. That is to say, the Book of Mormon itself suggests that we cannot take it or any other text, scriptural or otherwise, purely at face value as “God’s own truth,” so to speak. The Book of Mormon underscores for us that what we are reading when we read scripture is the word of God “given unto [his] servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language,” to borrow the terms of D&C 1:24.

So what does this mean for how we think about scripture? Does such a view necessarily lessen the authority of scripture? Is it inherently irreligious to read scripture as partial—in both the senses of that word as incomplete and biased? No, I hasten to say! A literalist, deferential reading of scripture is not the only way to read scripture devotionally. The most profound meanings, by definition, may not lie right at the surface in what the words themselves explicitly state. If scripture—as the Book of Mormon suggests—cannot be treated as a well of truth undefiled—as the literal word of God, unmediated by particular, fallible human beings—that does not mean it does not have saving truths to teach us. It simply means that our way of accessing those truths may not always be as straightforward or simple as we might want them to be. It means that rather than treat scripture as a repository of timeless truths just waiting there right on the page to be picked up, we might instead need to treat scripture as a wrestling partner with whom—and against whom—we grapple and so develop our spiritual strength. “Searching the scriptures” may not simply mean devising an elaborate system of cross-referencing that happily harmonizes the standard works as though they were but a single, self-reinforcing text, as I tended to think on my mission, but rather engaging the revelations to particular human beings the scriptures contain with our own and others’ revelations as particular human beings. The scriptures may not be meant to supply us with the easy certainties we crave as so-called “natural” men and women as much as to push us toward hard spiritual self-discovery.

Let me conclude with an example of how such a reading practice might proceed, one I think is apropos in light of the recent statement on “Race and the Priesthood” issued on the Church’s website, which I’d strongly encourage all of you to read if you haven’t already. I’ve already shown how Nephi never allows us as readers to forget for a moment that he is the one writing the words we are reading in 1 and 2 Nephi. What are the implications of this narrative fact for how Nephi and his descendants describe Laman and Lemuel and their descendants? I would draw your attention in particular to 2 Nephi chapter 5, which contains the following verses. First, verses 21 and 24:

And he [the Lord] caused the cursing to come upon them [Laman and Lemuel and their associates and progeny], yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delight some, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them . . . And they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey. 

Now verses 11, 17, and 27:

And the Lord was with us; and we did prosper exceedingly; for we did sow seed, and we did reap again in abundance. And we began to raise flocks, and herds, and animals of every kind . . . And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cause my people to be industrious and to labor with their hands . . . And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. 

How are we to reconcile Nephi’s quite cold-blooded relation of the curse of his brothers with his fulsome account of the blessing of what he pointedly calls “my people”? How are we to take the fact that the first-person plural pronoun “we” now emphatically excludes his brothers and nephews and nieces, etc.? Under a literalist, deferential reading, we have no other choice but to accept Nephi’s account of things. As morally retrograde or politically suspect as it may seem to us for Nephi to espouse such blatant theological racism, we just have to say: I guess that’s what the Lord in his wisdom saw fit to do, and maybe I don’t understand it, but that’s just how it is. What I, by contrast, want to submit for your consideration is that the Book of Mormon—by foregrounding the human mediation of scripture—invites us as readers to consider the possibility that Nephi’s “faults” as a human being have in this case—quite literally—colored his account of events. After all, patently and quite pointedly, we don’t have Laman and Lemuel’s side of the story, now do we? The question I want to pose is: What if the spiritual “message,” as it were, of these verses does not necessarily consist of the explicit pronouncement made by Nephi here—God cursed the Lamanites for their wickedness? Might it be possible, in light of the Book of Mormon’s particular narrative construction, that these verses instead or at least also provide an example of how even the seemingly best of us might be subject to the tendency of excluding others to the extent that we can’t even see them as being like ourselves, that we banish them to the margins or cast them as villains in the stories we tell about ourselves? 

That such a reading might be supported by the Book of Mormon, I conclude by drawing your attention to an interesting episode during Christ’s visit to the Americas in 3 Nephi. In chapter 23, Christ asks another Nephi, a descendant of the original, to bring all their records for him to peruse. And he immediately notes a glaring absence: “Verily, I say unto you, I commanded my servant Samuel, the Lamanite, that he should testify unto this people, that at the day that the Father should glorify his name in me that there were many saints who should arise from the dead, and should appear unto many, and should minister unto them. And he said unto them: Was it not so? And his disciples answered him and said: Yea, Lord, Samuel did prophesy according to thy words, and they were all fulfilled. And Jesus said unto them: How be it that ye have not written this thing, that many saints did arise and appear unto many and did minister unto them?” (23:9–11).

How be it, indeed, that they did not write this thing? Is there laid bare here a reluctance on the part of the Nephite prophets to include in their narrative something they themselves recognize as true prophecy, because, perhaps, it came from a Lamanite who had excoriated the Nephites for their wickedness? What does it mean that the literal voice of God in the text singles out for distinction precisely the voice the Nephite narrative does not, at least not willingly, include—the prophetic voice of the Lamanite? It seems to me the Book of Mormon here makes a vital distinction between the voice of God and the voices of the Nephite narrators who claim inspiration from God. Implicit in this arrangement is the question of how capable the Nephite narrators are of faithfully transmitting the message of Lamanite exaltation that Jesus himself has just expounded in the preceding chapters. Is the “scripture,” so to speak, in the Book of Mormon not entirely co-extensive with the narrative of the Book of Mormon? Does the Book of Mormon at this point and others unravel its white Nephite narrative in order to reveal a god who has no patience for white supremacism in particular and simplistically takes things at face value in general? This—to me—deep and deeply relevant spiritual truth can be unlocked only if one is willing to accept the invitation the Book of Mormon itself extends: to read it and, by extension, all scripture in an earnestly interrogative spirit. Read boldly, I say; in my experience, the scriptures can take it. And they will take you to “an infinity of fulness.” 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

[post_title] => Learning to Read with the Book of Mormon [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 48.1 (Spring 2015):169–177
In this “From the Pulpit,” Jared Hickman discussed the self-confessed weaknesses of multiple authors in the Book of Mormon, indicating that the text is not the literal word of God. He observes that it still has sacred truths to teach us including on racism. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => from-the-pulpit-learning-to-read-with-the-book-of-mormon [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-18 14:32:06 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-18 14:32:06 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.dialoguejournal.com/?post_type=dj_articles&p=9356 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => dj_articles [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) 1

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 11070 [post_author] => 2301 [post_date] => 2018-03-31 14:39:03 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-03-31 14:39:03 [post_content] =>

The teacher of the Sunday school class for 15-year-olds was fairly new to our ward, so he did not anticipate the danger when he brought up the topic of the Priesthood recently. For lurking within that collection of tranquil and lethargic minds was a young proto-feminist, ready to pounce on his first unwitting profession of patriarchy. The budding liberal was, in fact, my daughter. I am not sure how she became such a radical thinker in the bosom of our conventional Mormon family. My wife was a stay-at-home mother until the kids were all in school, has served as a Relief Society president, and has never burned her bra. For my part, none of the women in my life has ever accused me of being the sensitive, nurturing type. I have consistently resisted becoming a house-husband, even for some brief periods of unemployment. (Okay, I did do the shopping at times, but the kids hate it when I buy the food). What's more, I drive a pickup truck. 

So how did my daughter—I'll call her "Katy"—come to this heretical state of mind? It seems to me that she has always been tainted with feminist doubts. I can only conclude that it is either a congenital defect or something she picked up in the pre-existence. For as long as I can remember, she has been miffed whenever a Boy Scout camp-out or fathers and sons outing was announced. She could not fathom what was so special about boys that only they could pass the sacrament. She noticed that in almost any class—church or school—more attention would be given to, and more slack cut for, the boys than for the girls. And why were church leaders so insistent that she sacrifice her career aspirations to an early and preferably fertile marriage? She has no intention of giving up her name to some guy just because they might be getting married. And why shouldn't she pray to Heavenly Mother as well as Heavenly Father? For a while, she did. Maybe she still does, although not openly. Ironically, she is the only one of my children who has ever stood up to bear her testimony in Fast Meeting. I had thought she had weathered the worst of the crisis and was learning to endure, at least, the gender inequality so often flaunted in church. 

But on that Sunday, her consciousness rose to a new field of injustice. By the end of the class, she was in tears, feeling she had been ambushed and beaten up. It was not the subordination of women that upset Katy in this discussion. This she knew about and could deal with after her fashion. No, when the unsuspecting teacher was telling them about how all worthy male members could now receive the Priesthood, his focus was on race, not gender. Solemnly he related how, against all expectation, the Lord in 1978 had revealed to the prophet Spencer W. Kimball that black males should no longer be denied ordination on account of their race. Now, I don't believe that this is the first time my daughter had ever heard of this change, but it may be the first time it really struck her. Why was the Priesthood ever withheld from anyone because of race, she wondered out loud. How could the true church practice such blatant, racial prejudice? 

The teacher, however, was prepared. He explained how the Priesthood had often been restricted to certain groups of people, including at various times only the prophets, Hebrews, Jews, or Levites. During the Dark Ages of the Apostasy, it had been removed altogether from the earth. Of course, it had never been available to the unworthy or to women. Katy ignored the foot in his mouth. Yes, but, she insisted, that was back then when the Israelites were the exclusive chosen people. But wasn't the Gospel of Jesus Christ supposed to go out to all nations, and especially when it was restored? Why should we single out blacks to discriminate against? 

Ah! the teacher replied, there are good reasons for that, which he proceeded to explain at length. Perhaps he thought of this as a "teaching moment." He reminded them of the war in heaven in the pre-existence, how we all chose up sides, and how some spirits, even though they had voted for Christ's plan against Lucifer, were less valiant in the cosmic struggle than others. Our circumstances and conditions of mortality, he continued, are dependent on our actions and our stage of progression in the pre-existence. This was obviously only just and right. Therefore, we know that those of us in the Lord's church today, whether by birth or by being in a position to hear and willing to accept the missionaries, were those who were valiant and had reached a higher state of progression in the pre-existence. Those who were least valiant in the pre-existence and, presumably, were at the bottom of the class, eternal progression-wise, were not ready to receive the Priesthood, and thus the Lord in his mercy had decreed they must wait until he declared they were ready, which he did in 1978. How blessed we are to have a living prophet to receive that revelation! 

Katy sat stunned, hardly able to process this information. If what she understood her teacher was saying was correct, Mormons officially believed that blacks were inferior to every other race, and especially to Mormons. Her religion was racist. Could this really be true? In desperation she glanced around at her classmates. Surely they would share her shock. To her dismay, they were all smiling and nodding in agreement, apparently well versed in the logic and divine justice of this earthly hierarchy. "But. . . but, how do we know this about blacks? And, I mean," she stumbled, "how did we decide whose skin is really black? And how dark did they have to be?" 

"Ah, good question," he replied. "Actually, it's based on lineage, de scent from Cain. You've heard of the curse of Cain? When Cain killed his brother Abel, the Lord cursed him and his posterity as to the Priesthood. The black skin is really only the mark of the curse. Here, let me read about this to you from Mormon Doctrine." 

Mormon Doctrine? my daughter wondered. This stuff is in the official book of Mormon doctrine? 

The teacher turned to the entry on "Cain" and read as follows: 

As a result of his rebellion, Cain was cursed with a dark skin; he became the father of the Negroes, and those spirits who are not worthy to receive the priesthood are born through his lineage.[1]

There was a cross reference to "Negroes," which the teacher duly looked up: 

In the pre-existent eternity various degrees of valiance and devotion to the truth were exhibited by different groups. . . . Those who were less valiant in the pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the Negroes. . . . Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty (Abr. 1:20-27). . . .

The present status of the Negro rests purely and simply on the foundation of the pre-existence. Along with all races and peoples he is receiving here what he merits as a result of the long pre-mortal probation in the presence of the Lord. . . . 

The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are [sic] concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow therefrom, but this inequality is not of man's origin. It is the Lord's doing. . .[2]

"So, you see,” the teacher smiled, "when you understand the plan of progression, it is obvious that the church is not really racist, despite what outsiders may say. Is that clear to everyone now?" 

Alas, the Norman girl's hand was up again. "But you just read, 'the Negroes are not equal to other races.' How is that not racism?" "As Brother McConkie explains," the long-suffering teacher replied, "this is not man's doing ..." 

"Yeah," Katy interrupted, "he blames it on God. Who is this McConkie guy, anyway?" 

The teacher described the late apostle, what an authority he was on the scriptures, and how inspiring his talks and books were. People all over the church benefitted from Mormon Doctrine, which was an inspired and invaluable reference tool. He related how the first edition had contained some errors, but, at the request of the First Presidency, had been modified for subsequent editions. His was a second edition copy, he pointed out, so it could be relied upon. Anything objectionable had been removed. This was, in fact, Mormon doctrine. 

Unfortunately, my daughter was still having trouble with the association of skin color and cursing by the Lord. However, both the teacher and other class members cited passages from the Book of Mormon, which explicitly state that the Lord cursed the Lamanites with a dark skin. For example: 

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity . . . wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.[3]

Further: 

And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion.. . . 

And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction. 

And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.[4]

"I hope you caught that reason for the curse of a dark skin,” the teacher noted. "It was to prevent intermarriage between the races, which would likely result in the apostasy of the Nephites. Now listen to this: the curse could be removed." He read: 

And it came to pass that those Lamanites who had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites; And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites;[5]

"But couldn't that just be the prejudice of the Nephites who were writing about their enemies?" Katy objected. 

"Oh, no, the Book of Mormon is inspired. The Lord would not have allowed his prophets to make such mistakes in writing scriptures." On this point the class was in firm agreement against my daughter. The equation was clear: dark skin = wickedness and divine cursing; white skin = highly favored of the Lord. 

Katy was distraught, unable to hold back her tears. "That just can't be right," she protested. Some of the other girls tried to comfort her. Their advice, in line with that of the teacher, was that she should pray about it, so that her mind could be enlightened and she could understand and accept these truths. But she didn't want to accept them. Despite the loving arms and concerned words of her classmates, she felt very alone. She realized that she must be very wicked to be resisting the combined testimonies of the scriptures, the express doctrinal pronouncements of a General Authority, her teacher, and her classmates. 

A short while later, as Priesthood opening exercises were breaking up, the long-suffering teacher accosted me in the halls, briefly to explain the problem my daughter was having and suggest that I might want to talk to her about it. I'm afraid he was not expecting the reaction he got from me. Let's just say I did not side with the majority in his class. 

In reflecting on this incident, I realize that I have been somewhat naive in my assumptions about where the church is on the issue of race. I had supposed that the 1978 revelation on the Priesthood had not only changed our practice, but had moved us beyond the speculative rationalizations we had been repeating to each other about it. But the apparent fact that every other adolescent in our ward freely espouses those same teachings implies that this theoretical racism is what they are being taught in their homes by my peers, their parents. A couple of years earlier, one of the adults I home taught expressed dismay over this very situation: that despite the fact that we would now ordain blacks, the previous policy, combined with our doctrine of the pre-existence, still means we are racist. Just in the past few weeks I had a similar discussion with a fairly well-read adult ward member. She had never heard of any doctrinal correction or re-interpretation on the reason the priesthood had been withheld from blacks. 

I do not think my ward is atypical or radically right wing, at least on the Mormon spectrum, a suspicion bolstered by my son, who is currently serving a mission in the bosom of the church—Salt Lake City South. There, he has run into a number of both members and missionaries who share the doctrinal assumptions and understanding my daughter encountered here in the wilds of Ohio. In fact, Jessie Embry cites several black members who reported being taught the Cain/pre-existence ration ales even after the church began to ordain blacks.[6] And a web page entitled "Blacks and the Priesthood" maintained on the internet by an amateur Mormon scholar uses selective quotes from the 19th century to try to establish the priesthood ban's origin in revelation to Joseph Smith.[7] I suspect most members assume that the 1978 revelation is similar to the Manifesto: it is a change in practice only, and does not affect the underlying doctrine. So just as we apparently still believe in plural marriage in heaven, we seem bound to accept the ultimate inferiority of the black race. The church's silence on this issue loudly supports the assumption that the change has been in practice only, not theory. 

I believe that, for historical, doctrinal, moral, and practical reasons, the church needs to officially and emphatically repudiate the pre-1978 rationalizations for withholding priesthood ordination from blacks. However, the church recently declined to do just that in response to rumors that we would observe the 20 anniversary of the change by disavowing previous racist explanations of the priesthood ban. The 1978 official declaration, according to President Hinckley, "continues to speak for itself." Unfortunately, the news story did not include the declaration; rather, the headline included the summary, "racial statements part of doctrine."[8] I suppose it is unrealistic to expect a PR-wary bureaucracy to publicly proclaim our past ignorance, but the consequences of not doing so may hurt us more in the long run. Without such a disavowal, not only will the press continue to assume the worst, but our own ill-considered doctrinal speculation will continue to infect our faith with racial prejudice. To overcome this block, we need to re-establish and clarify the principle of progressive revelation, as opposed to the notion of prophetic infallibility, which seems to have become so widely assumed if not precisely articulated. It is time that, at least individually, if not yet as a Church, we repent in our minds and in our hearts of esteeming our brothers and sisters less than ourselves. Otherwise, we can scarcely claim to be disciples of Christ, much less saints. 

Our culture places little value on historical studies or understanding. For too many of us, our attitude toward the past is summed up by the dismissive phrase, "You're history!" History is about dead or irrelevant people; history is dead. Except for a few genealogists and Mormon history buffs, most of us in the church are blissfully ignorant of our past outside the anecdotes and panegyrics we encounter in correlated lessons. We have little or no sense of the development of Mormon doctrine and practice or its relationship to the environment in which it grew. Change is controversial and potentially disturbing, particularly when it concerns religious beliefs. As this applies to the racial restrictions on the priesthood, all but a few courageous dissidents assumed that this was taught by Joseph Smith as it was revealed to him. Apparently, most of us still believe that. Fortunately, history decidedly refutes that version. 

I remember when I first came home from my mission—it was the late '60s in the full flower of the civil rights ferment—a former companion was telling me about a class he was taking at the Institute at the University of Utah. Lowell Bennion was explaining to them how the ban on priesthood ordination of blacks originated in political and social difficulties faced by the early Mormons, and was not a revealed principle. I was aghast at such impudence and rebuked my wavering friend accordingly. He was obviously on the road to apostasy to entertain such thoughts. And who was this Lowell Bennion character, anyway? I was thankful I would soon be returning to BYU where such heresies were not countenanced. 

A few years later Lester Bush's article came out in Dialogue laying out the historical evidence point by point with ample documentation.[9] By now I was in graduate school back east, besieged by activist fellow students, and had moved to a more open-minded or, at least, wishy-washy position. Bush documented Joseph Smith's sanction of the ordination in March, 1836, of Elijah Abel, a free black, to the office of Elder and later in the same year to Seventy. Abel continued to exercise his priesthood even after the church stopped ordaining other blacks.[10] Bush demonstrated that the church's pull-back from extending full fellowship to blacks originated as an attempt to defuse the charges of abolitionist sentiment against the Mormons in Missouri by their slave-holding neighbors during the volatile period following the Missouri Compromise of 1820.[11]

There was no worse charge against someone in that part of ante bellum America than that of abolitionism. Mark Twain portrays this ethos in the agonizing guilt of Huck Finn over his failure to turn in his raft-mate Jim, who was attempting to escape from slavery. But when Jim is betrayed by someone else, Huck has to face what he is doing. Realizing he is incapable even of praying because of his sinful compliance in a slave's escape, Huck gives in to his conscience and writes a note to Jim's rightful owner, revealing his whereabouts. 

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell.[12]

Unfortunately for Huck's peace of mind, he kept on thinking. After re-calling all the good times and troubles they had shared and Jim's gratitude for saving him from capture, he reconsidered the piece of paper he had signed. 

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"—and tore it up. 

It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again, and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.[13]

Raised in that culture, Huck could not justify abetting Jim's escape from slavery; he knew he was a moral degenerate and a coward for doing so. To demonstrate that the Mormons were not abolitionist troublemakers and, thus, that they were being unjustly persecuted or threatened, William W. Phelps, the editor of the local Mormon newspaper, declared in 1833 that blacks would not be admitted into the Church, not even free blacks.[14] Later, Joseph Smith himself published the objections to abolitionism, alluding to the biblical curse pronounced on the presumed ancestor of the Negro race: "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."[15] In his article Joseph specified that these were "the views and sentiments I believe, as an individual";[16] he did not claim to be speaking as a prophet. His assumptions about blacks carrying a divine curse were common coin in nineteenth-century America and, in fact, extend hundreds of years back in Christian tradition. Only secondarily was the curse on blacks linked to Cain in an interpolation also picked up by Mormons, tracing the lineage of Canaan back to the first murderer through the wife of Ham, one of Noah's three sons who was also the father of Canaan. This latter point is important because, whereas the curse on Cain was ambiguous in the biblical text, that on his supposed descendant Canaan, recorded in Genesis 9:25 (just cited), was specifically understood to doom his posterity to slavery. Defenders of that view could, therefore, declare the enslavement of blacks to be God's will and decree. 

In this context, it is striking that during all of this discussion, there was no suggestion that the curse pertained to the priesthood. Many years later Zebedee Coltrin claimed that the prophet had instructed him as early as 1834 not to ordain Negroes as he was preaching to them in the south. But since Coltrin is the same man who ordained Elijah Abel to be a Seventy two years later, this proscription, if genuine, cannot have been generally applicable to the race. It was an expedient to reassure slave owners suspicious of Mormon motives in proselytizing in their midst.[17] In fact, persons of every color were officially invited to worship in the Kirtland Temple in 1836, and later in the Nauvoo Temple.[18]

In fact, by the time the church had established itself in Nauvoo, there was no more rhetoric in support of slavery by Joseph Smith or the Mormon press. In 1844 the prophet boasted that there were no slaves in Nauvoo and included in his short-lived presidential campaign a plan for emancipation which was vigorously disseminated by missionaries throughout the country.[19] Bush concludes his review of this era with the statement that: 

There is no contemporary evidence that the Prophet limited priesthood eligibility because of race or biblical lineage; on the contrary, . . . he allowed a black to be ordained an elder, and later a seventy, in the Melchizedek priesthood.[20] 

Although Joseph Smith can be described as a progressive in the area of race relations,[21] his survivors were not so liberal. Brigham Young revived the idea that the Hamitic curse justified Negro slavery, and the 1860 census listed Utah as the only western territory with slaves.[22] President Young stated privately in 1849 that "the Lord had cursed Cain's seed with blackness and prohibited them from the Priesthood," and published the prohibition in the Deseret News in 1852.[23] In that same year, in an address to the Territorial legislature, he declared, "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the Priesthood, and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now. . . ."[24] It seems clear from the historical record that it was indeed Brigham Young, in contrast to Joseph Smith, who decreed that blacks were to be categorically excluded from ordination to the priesthood. This was based on the popular view of biblical genealogy, to which Young interpolated his idea that Cain and his posterity were being punished for depriving his brother Abel of the possibility of having any descendants. 

This punishment of the sons for the sins of the fathers was clearly at odds with the Mormon rejection of original sin on the principle that men should be punished only for their own sins and not for another's transgression. Speculation about a connection of racial restrictions to worthiness in the pre-existence began as early as 1844 with Orson Hyde and was elaborated upon by Orson Pratt in 1853. Initially this was in reference to slavery, not the priesthood.[25] The later interpretation came about toward the end of the 19 century by various church authorities, notably George Q. Cannon and B. H. Roberts. Roberts was also apparently the first to cite the Book of Abraham from the Pearl of Great Price: 

Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood. Now, Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of the Priesthood, notwithstanding the Pharaohs would fain claim it from Noah, through Ham, therefore my father was led away by their idolatry.[26] 

This passage is confusing in several ways, not just syntactically. In the initial verse Pharaoh, although righteous, was cursed by Noah "as pertaining to the Priesthood," but in the following verse the priesthood restriction is due to his lineage. Even more striking, there is no mention of race or color here. Bush details a number of other problems in making this the scriptural linchpin of the church's policy. But by the time this citation came into vogue around the turn of the century, the belief that blacks were descended from Cain via the wife of Ham, Noah's son, had become well established and was assumed to be the background for this scriptural passage.[27]

Additional discussion ensued among church leaders over how much "Negro blood" a person had to have to be considered tainted and how this was to be determined. Eventually the brethren reverted to the opinion of Brigham Young and ruled that "no one known to have in his veins negro blood (it matters not how remote a degree) can either have the priesthood in any degree or the blessings of the Temple of God; no matter how otherwise worthy he may be."[28]

As President Hinckley pointed out to Mike Wallace, all that is in the past. But it is our past, and it is not a pretty sight. Can anyone seriously deny that we as a church and as a people, however innocent our intentions, have been racist? The real question is: where do we go from here? For it is past time to move on. If we had been listening carefully to our leaders, not to mention the Spirit, we would have long since done so. 

Already in 1969, the First Presidency issued a statement that the priesthood restriction concerning blacks was "for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully known to men."[29] In 1978, a few weeks before President Kimball announced the change, a church spokesman declared to the press that "[a]ny reason given . . . [for priesthood denial] . . . except that it comes from God, is supposition, not doctrine."[30]

However, the most explicit statement to come from a church leader about the error of our past doctrinal speculations was from Bruce R. McConkie himself. Two months after the announcement of President Kimball that priesthood ordination would henceforth be "without regard for race or color," Elder McConkie spoke to a gathering of Seminary and Institute teachers as follows: 

There are statements in our literature by the early brethren which we have interpreted to mean that the Negroes would not receive the priesthood in mortality. I have said the same things. . . . All I can say to that is that it is time disbelieving people repented and got in line and believed in a living, modern prophet. Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited under- standing and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world . . . We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness, and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don't matter any more. It doesn't make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before. ... It is a new day and a new arrangement, and the Lord has now given the revelation that sheds light out into the world on this subject. As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them.[31]

When Brother McConkie admonished us to forget everything that he or any other authority has said on the subject contrary to the new revelation, I think he meant "everything": an unequivocal repudiation of the long history of speculations on race, lineage and the pre-existence. Our new knowledge erases "all the views and all the thoughts of the past." 

Unfortunately, this statement has not been widely or officially publicized. Nor did Elder McConkie bother to revise his printed views on "Negroes" in order to correct his own admitted errors on the subject when Mormon Doctrine was reprinted in 1979. The book is commonly and disparagingly referred to as "McConkie Doctrine," but it remains oft cited and popularly authoritative, as my daughter recently discovered. His retraction seems to have died with him. And it is very difficult to document any other statements supporting a non-racist doctrinal revision. I recall reading or hearing early on that President Kimball had counseled members in a stake conference that we should stop speculating about the pre-existent status or earthly curse on blacks, since we now knew that they were only speculations and that they were in error. But I have been unable to track this down.[32]

The church's reticence to speak out in a way that would expose past error is understandable, given our claim to be guided by the Lord through revelation to a living prophet. But we ask too much of this doctrine. We want to be more Catholic than the Papists. Consider the irony: Roman Catholic doctrine proclaims the pope to be infallible, but most Catholics don't really believe it; whereas Mormon doctrine rejects the idea of infallible leaders, but we Mormons refuse to accept that. The Lord's Anointed, we insist, will never lead us astray; and by this we seem to mean that there is no room for learning through their mistakes or expressing flawed personal opinions. To be fair, the Catholics have the disadvantage of a longer history to dampen their zeal regarding their leaders' virtues. With our fresher perspective, we can view our entire history as an unwavering march toward fulfillment and perfection. 

Unfortunately, this folk belief does not stand up to scrutiny. The so-called "New Mormon History" has shown our historical progress to have been a complex weaving and tacking, trial and error, that the sanitized official histories obscure. Some examples: the failure of the Missouri prophecies; the devious and free-wheeling beginnings of plural marriage, including pre-Manifesto prophecies that we would never relinquish it, and equally devious post-Manifesto attempts to perpetuate polygamy; the Adam-God doctrine; and, more recently, the largely failed Indian Placement Program and the general disappointment in the Lamanite missions in spite of Book of Mormon prophecies to the contrary.[33]

Joseph Smith had to remind his followers that "a prophet was only a prophet when he was acting as such";[34] he was obviously not always sure when that was until after the fact. Brigham Young warned that one of his greatest fears was that the Saints would "settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders" without thinking or praying for their own confirmation and un derstanding.[35] Despite our fervent desire for infallible leaders, the Lord has given us human ones, who, although they are undeniably good men and occasionally transcend the usual limitations of the veil over mortality, mostly struggle to cope with ambiguity along with the rest of us. They grow up with cultural biases, and their thinking is structured by human language. When God speaks to them, he must do so "in their weakness, after the manner of their language," as the Doctrine & Covenants tells us.[36] We should not be surprised that Joseph Smith, although himself a progressive on race, did not question the American cultural mythology about the descent of Negroes from Cain, or that Brigham Young amplified the curse they supposedly inherited from skin color to exclusion from the priesthood, or that subsequent Mormon leaders elaborated on these themes. But neither should we attribute such bias to God, who has repeatedly insisted on the equality and eternal value of every person in his sight. The truth was there before us; we did not have ears to hear. 

Although there are hints of universalism in the Old Testament, for the most part the focus is on Israel as the chosen race. Jesus combated such a birthright mind set in the parable of the Good Samaritan, as well as in his repudiation of the Jewish attitude that they were righteous by virtue of being descended from Abraham.[37] But elsewhere Jesus indicated that his mission was limited to the House of Israel,[38] and it was not until after his death that Christianity moved decisively beyond racial exclusivism. 

The realization that "God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him" came as a revelation to Peter, literally and figuratively.[39] Even after that experience, Peter struggled to implement the incorporation of Gentiles into the body of Christ. The most radical exponent of universalism, and at times an adversary of Peter on that score, was Paul, who stated emphatically that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."[40] The Gospel obliterates all such temporal distinctions. 

Ironically, it is the Book of Mormon which applies this principle to skin color, already implicit in Paul's statement. The Lord, declares Nephi, 

. . . inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.[41]

One could scarcely imagine a more explicit repudiation of racism. But what about all the other passages in the Nephite scripture, which seem so clearly condemnatory with regard to dark-skinned people. Were the Book of Mormon writers racist, as my daughter suggested? There is plenty of evidence to support the charge, and if it is true, they share this sin with the vast majority of the human race. Perhaps we ought to forgive them for it and move on. 

But is it possible that we are reading our own racism into the Book of Mormon text? In 1981, the First Presidency changed 1 Nephi 30:6, which had read, "and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delightsome people," so that it now reads "pure and delightsome people." This is in accordance with a correction made for the 2nd edition of the Book of Mormon in 1840, but the change did not make it into the third and subsequent editions. Douglas Campbell recently analyzed this change and the usage of words implying skin color such as "black," dark," and "white" in the Book of Mormon text. He notes that Lamanite skin is no more black than it is red, as our culture has categorized Native Americans, nor is Caucasian skin actually "white," at least not until it is time to call the undertaker. Campbell concludes that the Nephites used the color white and white skin as a metaphor for purity and righteousness, and black or dark skin as metaphors for depravity. He cites particularly Mormon 9:6: "ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb."[42] This symbolism should not be hard for us to grasp, with our baptismal and temple clothes, not to mention the white and black hats for those of us who remember cowboy movies. I believe that when our hearts are purified of racism, we will read the Book of Mormon with non-racist eyes and hearts, despite any remnants of racism that may remain in the text. I am not convinced that Campbell succeeds entirely in exonerating the Nephite prophets, but the 1978 revelation to President Kimball reaffirms that God is not a racist. Any indications to the contrary, whether in scripture or from the pulpit, are, in Book of Mormon terminology, "the mistakes of men."[43] Any group which proclaims itself to be a chosen people, set apart and favored of the Lord, faces the temptation to look upon those outside the group as less valued or worthy, and therefore deserving of whatever lower status or ill fortune they are called upon to endure. The rationale for denying blacks the priesthood, particularly with regard to the pre-existence, is a classic example of this tendency. I once had a small taste of what this might be like for them. A few years ago I read a paper at a Sunstone Symposium about the need for some changes in the temple ceremony.[44] I had few illusions about the obscurity and futility of my presentation. Imagine my surprise when I learned that those very changes, along with some others, were being implemented that same weekend. (Naturally, I took this as a confirmation of the inspiration of the Brethren). Shortly thereafter, I, along with several others, was contacted by the national media for comments regarding the changes. I was quoted favorably with respect to what the church had done, as were the others. Eventually, all of us were called in by local authorities for varying degrees of reprimand or discipline. In my case, my bishop, who had read my Sun stone paper before I delivered it, and found nothing objectionable, now informed me that my temple privileges would be revoked for a year, but could be restored after that time if I repented. When I asked him what I needed to repent of, he said he didn't know, but that he would ask the stake president. When he did, he was told only that "the decision has been made; there will be no discussion." I was left to conjecture about what I had done wrong and what repentance was needed.[45]

Now imagine you are a black person converted to the LDS church prior to 1978. You soon learn that the priesthood is absolutely necessary to attain the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom, for which every Latter-day Saint should strive. Then you are told that your skin color indicates that you were born into a lineage which cannot hold the priesthood or receive temple endowments or eternal marriage because of something you either did or failed to do in the pre-existence. Of course, because of the veil you cannot remember in what way you sinned or neglected your duty, nor can anyone else, and there is no revelation to enlighten you on your past failing. The Atonement, which otherwise removes all guilt from every child born into this world up to the age of accountability,[46] somehow does not fully apply to you. You are anxious to grow and progress, willing to forsake all your sins, but it is impossible for you to repent since you do not even know of what to repent. You are stuck with the consequences indefinitely, and have only the vague prospect that in the Millennium or the next life, after everyone else has had the chance, you might get yours. 

Amazingly, a few of those souls endured the worst of that era and remained with us. Thankfully, they did not have to endure to the end in that state of Mormon limbo. But the question remains, why did they have to wait so long? If, as history indicates, the Lord did not dictate the policy of withholding the priesthood from blacks, why didn't he inspire the leaders of his church to restore those privileges sooner—say, after the Saints had left Missouri? 

I believe the scriptures, mingled again with history, provide the answer. Mormonism subscribes to the principle of continuing and progressive revelation, as stated in the 9th Article of Faith: "We believe all that God . . . does now reveal, and that he will yet reveal many . . . important things. . . ." The Lord unfolds his word to us through his prophets, line upon line and precept upon precept, only as we are able to receive it.[47] Until recent years, we as a people were not prepared to accept full racial equality. As we have noted, the early Saints, even those sympathetic to abolitionism, shared most of the racial prejudices of their age. Elijah Abel stands out precisely because he was an exception, and not just regarding ordination. If Joseph Smith's views were ahead of his time, they are nevertheless anachronistic, judged by today's standards. And Brigham Young's ideas on race, a considerable step back from his predecessor's, were probably much more representative of the Mormon people as a whole. The Saints, concerned with establishing a civilization in the western wilderness and then surviving the anti-polygamist onslaught, were hardly concerned with pioneering racial egalitarianism. In their isolation, improving race relations was not high on anyone's agenda. Even after Little Rock, we Mormons, at least those of us in Utah, were still a pretty conservative and sheltered lot. I must have been about 12 (in the late '50s) before I saw an actual black person pass through my home town of Lehi. My wife Kerry recalls that her grandmother used to panic whenever she saw a "colored" stroll along her Ogden sidewalk. She had been brought up to think of them as sub-human, if not downright evil. 

It was not until the civil rights era, which coincided with the world wide missionary expansion, that Mormons started to think seriously about the "problem" of blacks and the priesthood. There is no indication that any president of the church before Spencer W. Kimball petitioned the Lord on the issue, although certainly President McKay began to move to a more liberal interpretation of the policy.[48] As the Lord and experience have told us, we are not likely to receive if we don't ask.[49] The church was not ready—yet. 

My generation, latter-day baby-boomers, grew up with the civil rights movement. For many years we were besieged, but valiantly resisted the logic of critics of the Church's policy on blacks. Finally the protests and boycotts hit BYU sports. That got our attention. Our consciousness at last was raised, our consciences pricked. By 1978 we were ready. 

Every American of my generation remembers vividly two public events: Kennedy's assasination and Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon. Mormons recall a third with equal clarity. I was in the bursar's office at Duke University, explaining why I needed another extension on a bill, when a news bulletin was read matter-of-factly on the radio in the back ground: the Mormon church would no longer deny priesthood ordination to blacks. No one else in the office raised an eyebrow, but I was speechless with excitement. I rushed out to the car where Kerry was waiting. "You'll never guess what was just on the news," I said. "Think of the most fantastic thing you can imagine." 

"Russia just renounced Communism?" she ventured. 

"Don't be ridiculous," I said. "Come on, something at least conceivable." 

"The Millennium is here," she joked. 

"Close!" I exclaimed. Then she figured it out. 

"No!" she said, and she was right. It really was supposed to wait for the Second Coming. But then, so was Communism. 

I think of the Millennium as a time of universal brother/sisterhood when peace and righteousness will reign, when we will esteem every neighbor as ourselves. It still has not arrived. Nor will it, I am certain, until we repent of our racism and learn to judge others not by the color of their skin, but by their characters. We must get past our myths about ancestry and speculations about pre-earth life to the revealed truths of our spiritual kinship, the worth of souls, and the efficacy of baptism and the Atonement. If there is neither black nor white with the Lord, neither can there be with us. To claim to be his disciples otherwise is hypocrisy; it is we who are marked with a curse. Let us turn our hearts to the greater light and knowledge that we have received and forsake the darkness of the past.

---

[1] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd edition(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 109. 

[2] Ibid., 526-7.

[3] 2 Nephi 5:21. 

[4] Alma 3:6, 8-9.

[5] 3 Nephi 2:14-15; ct. 1 Nephi 12:23; 2 Nephi 30:6; Jacob 3:8; Mormon 5:15.

[6] Jessie L. Embry, Black Saints in a White Church (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994), 75-76. 

[7] See www.mormonlinks.com. Cf. Alan Cherry and Jessie L. Embry on "Blacks" in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 1, which soft-pedals the issue while implying that any ordination of blacks in the 1830's was an aberration. See below, pp. 11-13. 

[8] "Mormon teachings won't be changed," by Mike Carter, Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 19,1998.

[9] Lester E. Bush, Jr., "Mormonism's Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 7, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11-68. 

[10] Ibid., 11. See esp. Newell G. Bringhurst, "Elijah Abel and the Changing Status of Blacks within Mormonism," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 12, no. 2 (Summer 1979): 23-36.

[11] Ibid, 11-22. See also Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (New York: 1979), 48-49, 322. 

[12] Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (New York: Modern Library, 1993), 316-317. 

[13] Ibid., 317-8. Cf. Oliver Cowdery's estimation of schemes of emancipation as "folly . . . destructive . . . [and] devilish" in Bush, "Negro Doctrine," 15.

[14] Evening and Morning Star, "Extra" [1833], quoted in Bush, "Negro Doctrine," 12.

[15] Genesis 9:25. See Messenger and Advocate, 2 (April 1836), cited by Bush, "Negroe Doctrine," 14. 

[16] Bush, "Negro Doctrine," 50n21. 

[17] Ibid., 17. Coltrin made his statement in 1879. See ibid., 59nll3. 

[18] Ibid., 17-18. 

[19] Ibid., 19-20.

[20] Ibid., 21-22. 

[21] In contrast to the general, low opinion of the innate capacity of blacks, the prophet attributed their failings to their enslaved condition. But like most of those in his age who were similarly enlightened, he advocated strict racial segregation at such time as they might be liberated. See Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith [hereafter TPJS], ed. Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938), 269-70. 

[22] Bush, "Negro Doctrine," 25. 

[23] Ibid. 

[24] Ibid., 26; cf. 31. 

[25] Ibid., 27.

[26] Abraham 1:26-27. 

[27] Bush, "Negro Doctrine," 35. Note that Abraham 1:23-27 does not establish, as claimed by the Encyclopedia of Mormonism's entry on "Blacks," that "the descendants of Cain were to be denied the Priesthood of God." See note 7 above. 

[28] First Presidency pronouncement, cited in Bush, "Negro Doctrine," 38.

[29] Quoted by Embry, "Black Saints," 70. There are several indications that President McKay considered the priesthood ban to be policy, not doctrine, but was unable or unwilling to push his views onto his colleagues in church councils. See Armand Mauss, "The Fading of Pharaoh's Curse," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 14, no. 3 (Fall 1981): 11, 32.

[30] Cited by Mauss, "Fading Curse," 27. 

[31] Quoted in ibid., 34-35.

[32] But see his condemnation of white superiority in "The Evil of Intolerance," Improvement Era (1954), 423. 

[33] See, e.g., Tona J. Hangen, "A Place to Call Home: Studying the Indian Placement Program," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 30, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 71-96.

[34] Documentary History of the Church 5:215-216. See also Joseph Smith: Selected Sermons and Writings, ed. Robert L. Millet (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 22, 24; and TPJS, 315.

[35] Journal of Discourses 9:150.

[36] D&C1:24. 

[37] Luke 10:25-37; John 10:33-59; Matthew 3:9 (=Luke 3:8). 

[38] Luke 10:5-6; 15:22-28. 

[39] Acts 10:34-35; cf. 15:5-11. 

[40] Galatians 3:28; Romans 10:12. For the dispute with Peter, see Galatians 2, esp. vs. 11- 14. 

[41] 2 Nephi 26:33.

[42] Douglas Campbell, "'White' or 'Pure': Five Vignettes,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 24, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 119-135. 

[43] Title page and Mormon 8:12,17.

[44] A version of the paper was published as "A Kinder, Gentler Mormonism: Moving Beyond the Violence of Our Past," Sunstone 14, no. 4 (August 1990): 10-14.

[45] See Lavina Fielding Anderson, "The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership: A Contemporary Chronology," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 33-34. 

[46] Moroni 8:11-12.

[47] Isaiah 28:9-10; 2 Nephi 28:30, 29:9; D&C 98:12,128:21. 

[48] See Bush, "Negro Doctrine," 45-48. 

[49] 2 Nephi 32:4.

[post_title] => The Mark of the Curse: Lingering Racism in Mormon Doctrine [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 32.1 (Spring 1999): 119–135
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In 1981 the first presidency of the LDS church changed 2 Nephi 30:6 in the Book of Mormon from "and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and delightsome people" to "and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and delightsome people ... " In the following essay I present five vignettes as background to the change from "white" to "pure" in official LDS scripture. 

Vignette 1. Restoring a Plain and Precious Truth 

Our story begins with the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon. After LDS missionaries had exhausted this first edition, Joseph Smith had Parley P. Pratt publish a second edition in 1837 in Kirtland, Ohio. Three things happened in 1839 that affect our story: (1) Joseph Smith sent the Quorum of the Twelve to England; (2) missionary work exhausted the second edition of the Book of Mormon by December 1839; and (3) on 29 December 1839 the Nauvoo, Illinois, High Council voted to publish a third edition of the Book of Mormon. After delays in fundraising, Ebenezer Robinson published the third edition in October 1840 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In this 1840 edition, for the first time, 2 Nephi 30:6 reported that the Lamanites became "a pure and delightsome people" rather than "a white and delightsome people." 

Not knowing that a third edition was being planned 4,000 miles away (the trans-Atlantic telegraph was not in operation until 1866), the Twelve held their April 1840 conference in England and voted to publish the Book of Mormon in England by the end of the year. The Twelve faith fully reprinted the second (1837) edition. Due to delays, this edition did not appear until January 1841. The church thus had two different editions at the same time: the American 1840 Nauvoo and the English 1841 edition.

Based on the English 1841, not the American 1840, edition, three more major editions of the Book of Mormon followed: 1852, 1879, and 1920. A member of the Quorum of Twelve supervised each major edition: Franklin D. Richards, in 1852; Orson Pratt, in 1879; and James E. Talmage, in 1920. The 1837, 1841, 1852, 1879, and 1920 editions retained the 1830 "white" instead of the 1840 "pure" in 2 Nephi 30:6. 

In the 1970s the First Presidency established the Scripture Publication Committee composed of some members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. Its charge was to produce printed materials to help members understand the Bible and to improve doctrinal scholarship in the church. Elders Thomas S. Monson, Boyd K. Packer, and Bruce R. McConkie were among its members. A group of faculty members from Brigham Young University carried out the project. Among its members was Ellis Rasmussen, dean of the College of Religion. During their work the committee reported the 1840 "pure" versus "white" variant. The First Presidency restored this 1840 change to the Book of Mormon in 1981. 

This "plain and precious truth" was restored exactly 141 years after it had been lost. 

Vignette 2. Two Non-LDS Editions: 1858 and 1908 

Consider the following three events of 1858 that affect our story: 

1. Brigham Young, using guerrilla tactics, had earned headlines along the East Coast by successfully resisting Johnston's Army which U.S. president Buchanan had sent to Utah in 1857 to subdue the Saints.[1]

2. The twenty-eight-year non-renewable copyright for the Book of Mormon had expired.[2]

3. Hoping to capitalize on public interest in the Utah War, James O. Wright, a non-Mormon publisher in New York City, printed in 1858 a commercial version of the now-out-of-copyright Book of Mormon. For unknown reasons, Wright skipped the 1830,1837,1841, and 1852 editions and reprinted the 1840 edition (with "pure," not "white") in November 1858.[3]

Wright's edition did not sell well. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has tried to give the books away during a mission. Wright should have heeded Orson Pratt's advice to Brigham Young in September 1853: "There is no more prospect in offering our publications in the eastern cities, than there would be in offering so many cobblestones.”[4]

Wright had printed, but not bound, about 4,000 copies. His edition began with an advertisement and featured a long anti-Mormon introduction on the origins of the Book of Mormon. 

What could Wright do with his 4,000 unbound copies? Turn them into a pro-Mormon edition and sell the entire printing to an LDS splinter group. Wright removed his long anti-Mormon introduction and had Zadock Brooks, a schismatic Mormon elder who controlled the abandoned Kirtland temple, write a short pro-Mormon introduction. He then sold the entire set of newly bound copies to Russell Huntley, another schismatic Mormon appalled by the Utah church's practice of polygamy. By 1862 the Huntley-Brooks faction had disbanded. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints inherited and used Huntley's copies of Wright's 1858 reprint of the 1840 edition for their worship needs.[5] In 1874 the RLDS church removed Brooks's introduction and faithfully reprinted this 1858 (1840) edition as their first official edition of the Book of Mormon.[6]

Jump now to 1906, the year the RLDS church decided to print a new edition of the Book of Mormon in response to three events with LDS connections. 

1. In 1879 Orson Pratt divided the various books comprising the Book of Mormon into shorter chapters, and divided its long narrative paragraphs into short verses. This LDS version was easier to use; its verses now looked like Bible verses instead of a novel. 

2. When Oliver Cowdery separated from the LDS church in 1838, he kept the printer's manuscript[7] of the Book of Mormon. Cowdery rejoined the LDS church in October 1848. However, before he died at the home of his brother-in-law David Whitmer in 1850, he gave the manuscript to Whitmer. When Whitmer died in 1888, the printer's copy passed to George Schweich, his grandson. In 1901 William F. Benjamin offered it through Samuel Russell to the LDS church. In a 19 March 1901 letter to Russell, LDS president Joseph F. Smith declined to purchase it.[8] In 1903 the RLDS church bought it from George Schweich for $2,450. 

3. From 1904 to 1906 the U.S. Senate conducted hearings to decide whether Reed Smoot, a monogamous Mormon apostle, could serve as senator from Utah. The hearings focused on polygamy, an issue for which the RLDS church had considerable antipathy. 

With this background, the RLDS Council of Twelve Apostles charged a committee to produce a new edition of the Book of Mormon with (1) better versification, (2) a text as nearly as possible consistent with the printer's manuscript, and (3) restored anti-polygamy verses (see, for example, Jacob 2:6). The RLDS church therefore removed words from the 1840 edition not found in the 1837 version or in the printer's manuscript. In particular, the 1908 RLDS edition replaced "pure and delightsome" with the original "white and delightsome." In fact, in their preface, they list this change as the first of six[9] scriptures restored to their earlier, more pristine state. Subsequent RLDS versions have kept this reversion. Thus while the LDS church had accidentally omitted the 1840 wording, its cousin had used the words for forty years, then deliberately altered them. 

Vignette 3. Textual Variants and Printing Technology 

Readers today may better understand the rise of textual variants in the Book of Mormon editions of 1830, 1837, 1840, 1852, 1879, 1920, and 1981 by learning something of the state of printing technology during these years. 

The 1830 Edition 

When the church exhausted the 5,000 copy print run of the 1830 first edition, why did they produce a completely re-typeset second edition, rather than simply order a second printing of the first edition? To answer this question, I will review how Egbert Grandin, a small upstate New York printer, printed the 1830 first edition. Grandin handset the type for each sixteen-page signature, proofread these sixteen pages while printing the 5,000 copies of that signature,[10] broke up the signature, and salvaged the type to set the next sixteen-page signature. Grandin could never issue a second printing; he salvaged its type every sixteen pages. 

The 1837 Edition 

So why does Parley P. Pratt's 1837 Kirtland edition of the Book of Mormon have over 3,000 textual changes from the first edition? The 1837 preface explains: "Individuals acquainted with book printings, are aware of the numerous typographical errors which always occur in manuscript editions. It is only necessary to say, that the whole has been carefully re-examined and compared with the original manuscript . . ."[11] Consider the following five reasons for the existence of textual variations in the second edition of any book having both a printer's manuscript and a printed first edition. 

1. Time pressures. Scarce money-generating resources encourage quick proofreading. A sixteen-page signature takes up space in a small print shop; signatures consume the limited supply of each typeface and font size. The sooner a printer finishes corrections, the sooner he can print a signature; the sooner he prints a signature, the sooner he can salvage the type; the sooner he salvages the type, the sooner he can accept additional print jobs; the sooner he accepts additional print jobs, the sooner he can make money; and time is money. 

2. Complicated proofreading. Book of Mormon proofreaders were not able to line up old pages and new pages and compare line to line and word to word. The page height of the 1830 Book of Mormon is 15.5 centimeters. That of the 1837 edition is 12.5 centimeters. The 1830 edition has forty-three lines per page; the smaller 1837 edition has forty-seven lines. The page width of the 1830 edition is 9 centimeters; that of the 1837 edition is 6.5 centimeters. The 1830 edition averages sixty characters per line; the 1837 edition averages fifty-four. In addition, the greatly reduced font size of the 1837 edition hampered proofreading. 

3. Precedence. When the 1830 edition differed from the 1830 printer's manuscript, which took precedence? Even more problematic, during the years after 1830, Joseph Smith recorded some grammatical and doctrinal corrections directly on the original printer's manuscript. Thus the printer's manuscript contained corrections made before the 1830 printing and corrections made after the 1830 printing. The 1837 text could differ from the 1830 printed version, from the printer's manuscript, from the pre-printing corrections to the printer's manuscript, from the post-print ing corrections to the printer's manuscript. 

4. Modernized language. Joseph Smith modernized some of the language of the 1837 edition, changing (1) "which" to "who" 707 times; (2) "saith" and "sayeth" to "said" 229 times[12]; and (3), after revising the Bi ble and deciding he had overused the term "and it came to pass," crossed-out that phrase on many pages of the printer's manuscript.[13] Continuing Joseph Smith's trend to modernize the language of the Book of Mormon faces an uphill battle. Elder J. Reuben Clark of the First Presidency wrote the book Why the King James Version to discourage use of modernized Bible translations. In his April 1993 general conference ad dress, Elder Dallin Oaks discouraged modernizing the language of prayer and encouraged the continued use of a "special language of prayer." 

5. Doctrinal clarification. Joseph Smith had many additional revelations from 1830 to 1837. During these years his understanding of the nature of the Godhead developed. Some changes in the 1837 edition were made to clarify his concept of the Godhead. 

The 1840 Edition 

The first edition, which lasted seven years, took six months to typeset and proofread. The second edition, which lasted two years, took one winter to typeset and proofread. To reset and proofread the Book of Mormon all over again just to print another couple of thousand copies was both tedious and time consuming. Fortunately, a new technology from England had made its way to the American Midwest: stereotyping. 

In stereotyping, the printer sets the text in type, presses a mat into the type, pours metal into the wetted mat, and produces a metal plate. After the type is salvaged, the plate continues to exist. Stereotyping separates the typesetting process from the printing process. Stereotyped plates last a long time, provide economies of scale, permit identical printings of the same edition, and permit printing by different printing companies. 

The 1852 Edition 

The plates to the stereotype edition printed in Nauvoo, Illinois, were lost during the Saints' 1846 exodus west.[14] Franklin D. Richards arranged for new plates while presiding over the church in England. For almost thirty years, from 1842 to 1871, the LDS church printed its copies of the Book of Mormon in England and shipped them to the United States.[15]

The 1879 Edition 

In the early 1870s the Deseret News Press in Salt Lake City began to assert itself as the primary source of printed material for the church.[16] The 1852 stereotype plates were shipped to Salt Lake City. After a few years, however, the heavily used plates were unusable. Again, technology came to the rescue. England had developed electroplating to produce longer lasting plates. But, again, new plates had to be made from scratch. Elder Orson Pratt went to England to have the plates set again. 

The church used this opportunity to change the page layout. As noted, Pratt divided the internal books of the Book of Mormon into shorter chapters, and divided the long narrative paragraphs into short, memorizable verses. 

The 1920 Edition 

Electroplates do not last forever. Forty years later the First Presidency stated: "So many imprints have been taken from the several sets of old plates that all of these have become defectively worn, and the preparation of a new set of electrotypes was deemed imperative."[17] No new technology was involved in the 1920 edition, but new plates had to be made. The church again used this opportunity to alter the page layout. They placed the verses in double columns, making it look more like the King James Bible. A committee under Elder James E. Talmage was charged with correcting textual variants. 

The 1981 Edition 

Printing technology did not directly change the 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon. The 1973 Bible Aids Project at Brigham Young University had created aids for the Bible and other LDS scriptures. 

It soon became evident that computer assistance in the collection of the information, collating, sorting, and printing the organized data would be helpful ... A complete tape file of the Standard Works ... has been extremely helpful in speeding up entries, avoiding errors, and reducing the necessity of proof- reading.[18]

How did the committee, charged with producing biblical aids, take on the Book of Mormon? Church officials had instructed the Scripture Publication Committee to oversee the addition of a vision of Joseph F. Smith and a vision of Joseph Smith to the Pearl of Great Price, and turned to the BYU Bible Aids Project for the legwork. The BYU committee asked Elder Bruce R. McConkie if they should add footnotes to these revelations similar to those already used in the triple combination or use the new system that had been devised for the Bible. McConkie was adamant: "Don't use the old Pearl of Great Price cross-reference system. It drives me crazy!" 

The old triple combination cross-reference system used lower-case letters that were not tied to a specific verse. To find the verse to which the cross-reference "v" corresponded, readers had to search through the whole chapter looking for the tiny super-scripted letter. As one who now uses trifocals, I can commiserate with Elder McConkie and others who found this an infuriating process. 

With McConkie's encouragement, the committee prepared the two new revelations for inclusion in the Pearl of Great Price under the new system that had been established for the Bible. After the work began, church leaders decided that the two visions would not be put in the Pearl of Great Price but would be placed in the Doctrine and Covenants instead. Approval was given to re-do the entire triple combination with the new cross-reference system. 

Early in the project on Bible aids, the BYU faculty committee began to incorporate cross-references to Joseph Smith's Inspired Translation of the Bible. Although committee members can no longer recall the exact sequence, at some point they also began to include Joseph Smith's known revisions of the text of the Book of Mormon. In the course of identifying the textual variants, the committee reported the 1840 "pure" versus "white" variant.[19]

Vignette 4. Why Not the 1852,1879,1920, or 1966 Edition? 

I know of no account of the revision process left by those people in charge of the 1852,1879, and 1920 editions. Nevertheless, a paper trail exists, one that we can verify. We will summarize the textual variants listed by Jeffrey Holland[20] for selected verses from the 1830, 1837, 1840, 1852, 1879, and 1920 editions. 

The 1852 Edition 

Holland identifies four verses in the 1852 edition which are identical to the 1840 edition but which are not in the 1830 or 1837 edition: 

1 Nephi 8:18, p. 50[21]: 
And it came to pass that I saw them, but they would not come to me and partake of the fruit. 

Alma 20:4, p. 91: 
Now Lamoni said unto him, Who told thee that thy brethren were in prison? 

Alma 46:40, p. 99: 
to remove the cause of diseases to which men were subject by the nature of the climate. 

3 Nephi 21:16, p. 109: 
and I will cut off witchcrafts out of the land, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers. 

The 1879 Edition 

Holland identifies six verses in the 1879 edition which are identical to the 1840 edition but which are not in the 1830,1837, or 1852 edition: 

1 Nephi 10:18, p. 52: 
for he is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; and the way is prepared for all men from the foundation of the world. 

2 Nephi 7:4-5, p. 66: 
He waketh mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious. 

Jacob 5:21, p. 72: 
How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this branch of the tree? for behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of the vineyard. 

Mosiah 5:4, p. 76: 
And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us, that has brought us to this great knowledge. 

Mosiah 26:23, p. 82: 
and it is I that granteth unto him that believeth until the end, a place at my right hand. 

Alma 56:5, p. 101: 
it sufficeth me that I tell you that two thousand of these young men have taken their weapons of war. 

He also identifies two verses which overturned the 1852 corrections based on the 1840 edition:

1 Nephi 8:18-19, p. 50: 
And it came to pass that I saw them, but they would not come unto me [omitted and partake of the fruit]. 

3 Nephi 21:16, p. 109: 
and I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy hand, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers. 

The 1920 Edition 

Holland identifies four verses in the 1920 edition which are identical to the 1840 edition but which are not in the 1830,1837,1852, or 1879 edi tion: 

1 Nephi 18:18, p. 60: 
yea, even they were near to be cast, with sorrow, into a watery grave. 

1 Nephi 20:1, p. 61: 
Hearken and hear this, O House of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, (or out of the waters of baptism), who swear by the name of the Lord. 

Alma 11:19, p. 87: 
Now an antion of gold is equal to three shiblons. 

Ether 13:31, p. 118: 
all the people upon the face of the land were shedding blood, and there was none to restrain them. 

He also notes that the 1920 edition re-overturned the 1879 edition's overturning of the 1852 corrections based on the 1840 edition: 1 Nephi 8:18-19, p. 50, and 3 Nephi 21:16, p. 109. 

Although only twelve years had passed since the RLDS church identified the "pure" versus "white" 1840 variant, the 1920 LDS committee did not make a marginal notation for this verse in its revision copy of the Book of Mormon.[22]

Perhaps a perusal of three hymns from the 1927 LDS hymnal can re-create certain cultural attitudes of the period. 

O stop and tell me, Red man . . .
to idle Indian hearts 
And quit their savage customs.[23]

Great Spirit, listen to the Red man's wail 
Not many moons shall pass away before 
the curse of darkness from your skins shall flee[24]

the red untutored Indian 
seeketh here his rude delights.[25]

This may not have been the time to restore the verse. But what about 1966? 

On 5 August 1966 Jeffrey Holland finished his master's thesis at Brigham Young University on selected changes in the Book of Mormon text: "[T]his study has been limited to 'selected changes,’ defined as major modifications in format and addition, deletion, or change of words within the text which could alter the meaning of the passage."[26] Al though he examined 156 major[27] modifications, he made no mention of the "pure" versus "white" variant. Two factors may explain this omission. 

1. Some members of the Quorum of the Twelve preached that a physical change would turn the skin of Indians from red to white. Six years before, Joseph Fielding Smith had published: "When the Lamanites fully repent and sincerely receive the gospel, the Lord has promised to remove the dark skin.... Perhaps there are some Lamanites today who are losing the dark pigment. Many of the members of the Church among the Catawba Indians of the south could readily pass as of the white race."[28]

2. On 31 May 1966, two months before Holland's thesis, the Arizona Republic had run a four-part article[29] on BYU's policy of not recruiting blacks for its athletic teams. The 1960s were a time of national concern over blacks and civil rights; the church had been under considerable pressure to explain its practice of denying black men the priesthood. The church's explanation—"We don't know why"[30]—complicated BYU's position. Within days of the Arizona articles, BYU's president Ernest L. Wilkinson took BYU into a defensive mode. The situation escalated; Stanford and the University of Washington refused to play BYU; major disruptions occurred at Wyoming and Colorado State games. Confrontations declined with the appointment of Dallin Oaks as president of BYU in 1971. Under his leadership, the university made a concerted effort to stress black civil rights. BYU changed its unwritten athletic policy and actively recruited blacks for its athletic teams. 

In 1974, when Stan Larson's BYU master's thesis[31] re-investigated the topic of textual changes in the Book of Mormon, he spent considerable time discussing the "pure" versus "white" variant. Two years later he published an article in Sunstone in which this variant was one of the pas sages examined.[32] Two years later worthy black males were given the priesthood. Three years after that the First Presidency replaced "white and delightsome" with "pure and delightsome." 

Vignette 5. What About the Rest of the Book of Mormon? 

While this scripture has changed, people have not. As I have shared the above vignettes with friends, neighbors, and colleagues, I have repeatedly encountered those who quoted, in no uncertain terms, Book of Mormon scriptures that (1) righteous Lamanites had their skin changed to white (3 Ne. 2:15-16); (2) Jesus and Mary were white-skinned (1 Ne. 

11:13; 3 Ne. 19:30); (3) gentiles who came to the Americas were white skinned (1 Ne. 13:1); (4) white skin is physically and spiritually desirable (2 Ne. 5:21; Mormon 9:6); and (5) in the resurrection the whiteness of our skins will be an indication of our righteousness (Jacob 3:8). "Ignore the small changes and follow the broad themes of the Book of Mormon," they said. So I have. 

As translator, Joseph Smith used the word "white," "whiter," and "whiteness" twenty-eight times in the Book of Mormon. I have arranged the twenty-eight references into six usages: (1) robes and garments, (2) fruit, (3) stones and hair, (4) Mary and Jesus, (5) gentiles, and (6) white Nephites. 

The first involves clothing: garments and robes. 

1 Nephi 8:5	he was dressed in a white robe
1 Nephi 12:10	garments are made white in his blood
1 Nephi 12:11	garments were white even like unto the Lamb of God
1 Nephi 12:11	These [garments] are made white in the blood of the Lamb.
1 Nephi 14:19	dressed in a white robe.
Alma 5:21	garments are washed white
Alma 5:24	garments are cleansed and spotless, pure and white.
Alma 5:27	garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood
Alma 13:11	garments were washed white through the blood of the Lamb
Alma 13:12	garments made white, being pure and spotless before God.
Alma 34:36	garments should be made white through the blood of the Lamb.
3 Nephi 11:8	clothed in a white robe.
Ether 13:10	garments are white through the blood

These verses suggest that "white" garments are metaphors for purity and cleanliness. A physical cleansing agent removes stains, soils, dirt, disease, and impurities from clothing. Clothing washed in physical blood does not appear white. Just as the washing of clothing in the Blood of the Lamb is metaphorical, so the whiteness of clothing is a metaphor for cleanliness and purity. 

The second usage involves fruit. 

1 Nephi 8:11	fruit thereof was white to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen.
1 Nephi 11:8	(fruit) the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.
Alma 32:42	fruit thereof which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea pure above all that is pure.

"White" fruits are metaphors for luminosity. Yellow peaches, red apples, green grapes, blue blueberries, orange oranges, black blackberries, and purple plums are desirable. A brilliant fruit that glows, dazzles, radiates, and shines is certainly an alluring symbol. But few people like pale, unripe, paper-colored, washed-out, leprous, ashen, or cadaverous-like fruit.

The third usage involves stones and hair.

Ether 3:1	stones; and they were white and clear even as transparent glass.
3 Nephi 12:36	thou canst not make one hair black or white.

Transparent glass is not white; it is clear. White glass is opaque.

The fourth usage involves two historical personages, Mary and Jesus. 

1 Nephi 11:13	[Mary] was exceedingly fair and white
1 Nephi 11:15	[Mary] was most beautiful and fair [not white]
3 Nephi 19:25	they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea ever there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof.
3 Nephi 19:30	and behold they were white, even as Jesus.

I suggest that "whiteness" for Mary and Jesus refers to a countenance that is exquisite, radiant, awe-inspiring, and not to blue-eyed, blond haired, white-skinned Aryans. 

The fifth usage involves gentiles. 

1 Nephi 13:15

[Gentiles] were white and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain.

The "whiteness" of gentiles is also metaphorical. To see this, consider the question, who are the gentiles in the Book of Mormon? The prophet Mor mon gives us an answer on the title page. As did the Jews, Mormon divides the world into two: Jews and gentiles. Gentiles are the non-Jews. Black Africans, brown Hispanics, yellow Vietnamese, black Melanesians, fair-skinned Scandinavians, or olive-complected Italians are not Jews. Lehi spoke of gentiles in 2 Nephi 1:6: "Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophecy according to the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come unto this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord." Negro slaves, Vietnamese refugees, Irish potato famine people, Japanese sugar cane la borers, Chinese railroad workers, Haitian boat people, El Salvadorean sanctuary refugees have been brought to this land. And "none come unto this Land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord." In what way, then, are they, the gentiles of 1 Nephi 13:1, "white like unto my people before they were slain"? Black-skinned gentiles, brown-skinned gen tiles, yellow-skinned gentiles, and white-skinned[33] gentiles are white like unto the Nephites in that they have been brought here by the hand of the Lord to become beautiful, pure, and righteous. 

The sixth usage involves white Nephites. 

2 Nephi 5:21	as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delight some, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them
Jacob 3:8	I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought before the throne of God.
3 Nephi 2:15	and their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites.
3 Nephi 2:16	and their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair, and they were numbered among the Nephites.

White-skinned Nephites and black-skinned Lamanites are metaphors for cultures, not for skin color. The church teaches that the descendants of the Lamanites inhabited the Americas when Columbus arrived. But Lamanites are not black-skinned; they are not even red-skinned. As the "skin of blackness" is a metaphor, so too is the white skin of the Nephites. Perhaps 3 Nephi 2:15-16, in which the Lamanites have the curse taken from them, fulfills 2 Nephi 30:6. In these verses the Lamanite has become "white and delightsome" not "pure and delightsome." 

I do not believe the Lord changed their physical skin to white in the twinkling of an eye. These Lamanites lived with city-dwelling Nephites and became cultural Nephites. The significance of 3 Nephi 2:16 is that the historian of 3 Nephi, raised in a culture preoccupied by racial differences, records that the Lamanites, who could be distinguished from the Nephites on physical grounds, were nevertheless numbered among the Nephites. 

Let us look at two final instances of white in the Book of Mormon: Mormon 9:6 and 2 Nephi 26:33. These verses capture Joseph Smith's cross-cultural translation of white: 

Mormon 9:6

ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb,

It is Moroni in Mormon 9:6 who gives this fervent prayer as to what our condition may be on the day of resurrection: spotless, pure, fair. And white, not white skinned. Not Aryan. Not Caucasian. But cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb.

2 Nephi 26:33

He denieth none that cometh unto Him, black and white, bond and free, male and female.

This verse relates salvation to sets of opposites. Salvation transcends gender, social condition, and race. Christ's gospel is intended to overcome our narrow biases. 

In the words of Spencer W. Kimball, former president of the LDS church, who approved all changes to the Book of Mormon text in 1981, who was known as the apostle to the Lamanites, and who extended the priesthood to black males, 

From the dawn of history we have seen so-called superior races go down from the heights to the depths in a long parade of exits... Is the implication of Mrs. Anonymous justified that the white race or the American people is superior? John the Baptist, in forceful terms, rebuked a similar self-styled superior group: "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham" (Matt. 3:9).[34]

Why this final vignette? Because words change. Meanings and significance change, and old meanings can hurt. Even when words describe the physical world, they may have associations that go beyond the literal. They may do evil even when used unconsciously or unintentionally. 

---

[1] See Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience, 2d ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 169. 

[2] The twenty-eight-year, non-renewable copyright law was passed in 1790, in line with English law. In 1909 Congress enabled the copyright owner to renew copyright for an additional twenty-eight years. 

[3] Hugh Stocks, "The Book of Mormon, 1830-1879: A Publishing History," M.L.S. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979,19.

[4] Pratt to Young, 10 Sept. 1853, Brigham Young Papers, archives, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. 

[5] Stocks, 20. 

[6] Richard Howard, Restoration Scriptures (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1969), 53. 

[7] There were two manuscripts of the Book of Mormon: the original dictated manuscript and a back-up copy, the printer's manuscript. This second copy could be left overnight with the printer since the original was still in Joseph Smith's possession. In the printer's manuscript, the printer and others marked paragraphs, added punctuation, established capitalization, and cleaned up the grammar. The original dictated copy was placed in the corner stone of the Nauvoo House where over time it was severely damaged. Portions of the original manuscript are now in the possession of the LDS church and the Marriott Library at the University of Utah.

[8] Smith to Russell, 19 Mar. 1901, Samuel Russell Collections Correspondence, 1863-91, Archives and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Smith wrote: 

The manuscript in the hands of Mr. Benjamin possesses no value whatever. It has been repeatedly offered to us and numerous false reports have been put in circulation with regards to our desire to obtain possession of it, but we have at no time regarded it of any value, neither have we ever offered any money to procure it, all the stories to the contrary notwithstanding, for we have always known it was not the original, as aforesaid, and as many editions of the Book of Mormon have been printed, and tens of thousands of copies of it circulated throughout the world you can readily perceive that this manuscript is of no value to anyone. There is no principle involved in its possession, there could be nothing lost if it were utterly destroyed, it can neither add to or diminish aught from the word of God as contained in the printed work which has already gone to the world and been translated into many languages. Indeed, it is not worth the time and paper I am using to convey these thoughts to you. 

[9] Other changes included: wading to wandering, inherit to enter, where to whence, and armies to servants.

[10] Corrections were made during the run, creating many variants. Before binding, the sheets were collated but in an unknown order. Since each of the 5,000 copies was bound from sheets each containing different variants, constructing the "true" text of the 1830 edition has not yet been done. In this sense we do not have a copy of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. Instead, we have possibly 5,000 different textual copies. Royal Skousen of Brigham Young University is currently working on the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project whose goal, among others, is to produce a list of all 1830 variants. 

[11] The one-and-a-half page preface was signed by Parley P. Pratt and John Goodson.

[12] Howard, 41. 

[13] Ibid., 38.

[14] Stocks, 15. 

[15] In January 1853 Orson Pratt was on a mission to Washington, D.C. With the confirmed loss of the Nauvoo stereotype plates, Brigham Young instructed Pratt to get copies for the Utah Saints. After obtaining estimates for printing the Book of Mormon in New York City, he wrote to Young: "The printing and binding can be done in England and the books transported to this country and the duties paid on the same, as cheap, if not cheaper, than to have it done in this country." 

[16] Stocks, 8.

[17] Official Announcement, Deseret News, 25 Dec. 1920. 

[18] Committee Notes on Bible Aids Project, manuscript copy; copy in my possession.

[19] I am a professor in the BYU Computer Science Department with a background in natural language text processing. This background was one of the reasons that I investigated the topic of this essay. Considering the extensive use the Bible Aids Committee had made of computers, I had assumed that the following standard computer techniques for natural language text processing were responsible for the discovery of the "pure" versus "white" variant: (1) Put the printer's manuscript, the 1830, 1837, 1840, 1852, and 1920 editions onto computer readable tapes; (2) Write a program to find and print out all textual variants; and (3) Visually inspect the output, looking for significant variants. I was surprised to learn that these well-know techniques were not used; the different editions had not and have not yet been converted to machine readable form. 

[20] See Jeffrey R. Holland, "An Analysis of Selected Changes in Major Editions of the Book of Mormon—1830-1920,” M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, Aug. 1966.

[21] Page numbers refer to pages in Holland's thesis.

[22] Part of the donation made by the James Talmage family to Brigham Young University, now housed in the Lee Library, was a 1911 edition of the Book of Mormon which had been used as a "manuscript" for changes to be made to the 1920 edition. On the inside front cover is written, "Committee Copy—Containing all changes adopted by the Book of Mormon Committee—April, 1920."

[23] 1927 LDS hymnal, no. 64, "O Stop and tell me, Red Man," w. 1, 3, 4.

[24] Ibid., no. 77, "Great Spirit, Listen to the Red Man's Wail," vv. 1 and 9.

[25] Ibid., no. 118, "For the Strength of the Hills," v. 4. 

[26] Holland, 1. 

[27] Holland (121) identifies 97 changes in the 1837 edition, fifteen in the 1840 edition, fifteen in the 1852 edition, six in the 1879 edition, thirty-five in the 1920 edition, and six changes between the 1920 and 1966 editions. 

[28] Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1960), 3:122-23. 

[29] See the articles by Dave Hicks, in the 29-31 May and 1 June editions.

[30] See, for example, the First Presidency statement, dated 15 Dec. 1969, and published in the Church News, 10 Jan. 1970: "Negroes ... were not yet to receive the priesthood for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which he has not made fully known to man." 

[31] Stan Larson, "A Study of Some Textual Variations in the Book of Mormon, Comparing the Original and the Printer's Manuscripts and the 1830, the 1836, and the 1840 Editions," M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974. 

[32] Stan Larson "Early Book of Mormon Texts: Textual Changes to the Book of Mormon in 1837 and 1840," Sunstone 1 (Fall 1976): 44-55.

[33] The only white-skinned people are albinos. They can be found as descendants of any racial group. Caucasians may be pinkish, tanned, ruddy, or swarthy, but they are not white-skinned. When Caucasian explorers and slave-traders penetrated Africa, they were referred to as "red-skinned" by the inhabitants.

[34] Spencer W. Kimball, "The Evil of Intolerance," 6 Apr. 1954, Improvement Era 57 (1954): 423.

[post_title] => "White" of "Pure": Five Vignettes [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 29.4 (Winter 1996): 119–135
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WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 11606 [post_author] => 2647 [post_date] => 2018-04-09 03:08:08 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-09 03:08:08 [post_content] =>

It takes about an hour to travel from the Mormon church in Johannesburg to the one in Soweto. And those sixty minutes present an open window on the world of difference between "black" South Africa and "white" South Africa. 

I was in Soweto that Sunday morning attending fast and testimony meeting at the Soweto Branch of the church. I had driven to the place where the meetings are held, in the Dikou Elementary school in Orlando West, one of the many sections or "suburbs" of South Africa's biggest black township. Soweto has a population of somewhere between one and three million Africans, depending on whether you believe the government numbers or the more reliable statistics of market researchers and housing companies. 

In fact, Soweto is not so much a township as a giant conglomeration of Black Local Authorities (its name is actually an acronym for South Western Townships, referring to its geographic relationship to the Johannesburg metropolis), each gradually repositioned there after decades of social engineering meant to assure that no white would have to live within walking distance of a black he or she did not employ. Nowadays, each major "white" city in South Africa has an adjoining "black" town ship, generally separated by several kilometers of industrial "buffer zone." 

Soweto is violent even in the best of times: what kind of normal social life can exist in a "city" which began as a "temporary" reserve for migrant laborers who had no right to own property, conduct commerce, organize freely, or petition for redress of community grievances? 

But this weekend in May was a time of particular "unrest." The previous Sunday I had been in the township on foot, asking the people I encountered, in the best Zulu-English I could muster, for directions to the local elementary school. At that hour, unknown to me, ten people were killed following the funeral procession for the "mayor" of Diepmeadow (a Soweto township) who had been assassinated a couple of days earlier in an AK-47 ambush. But the only sign of tension or violence possibly caused by this event came when the driver of the minibus "combi" taxi I was taking from Dube to Diepkloof swerved out of his normal route— chattering with passengers in Zulu, several of whom wanted to get out— to avoid coming close to a procession of slogan-chanting and red-bandanna-wearing Inkatha Freedom Party members. 

For the last decade, being a town councilor or official employed by the government had not been a safe occupation for black South Africans. Rightly or wrongly they have been seen as agents of the apartheid state—and all the more contemptible because they were putting a black face on repression initiated and orchestrated by the white state. Along with black policemen and soldiers, they had been among the first victims of violent township protest. Their homes had been burned with Molotov cocktails. They had been subjected to the grisly "necklace"—a brutal punishment in which, in a frenzy of anger and accusations, a tire is placed over the victim's neck, his arms are hacked off, and he is doused with petroleum and burned alive. 

The murder of Diepmeadow's "mayor" was significant because of his membership in the Inkatha Freedom Party of Zulu Chief Mangosutho Buthelezi—one of the signs marking the transmutation of the violence in South Africa's black townships from mobs against military police to battles between political factions. Buthelezi's prominence came from his position as chief minister in Kwa-Zulu, a black "homeland" for Zulus in Natal, the southeastern province of the country. Widely regarded as more moderate in his demands on the government of F. W. De Klerk's National Party than Nelson Mandela's African National Congress has been, Buthelezi was pushing to get a larger chair at the negotiating table, and many said that Inkatha's recruitment drives in traditionally ANC-supporting areas like Soweto were the spark that let the fire fly in the carnage that engulfed most of the townships of the Transvaal Province after August and September 1990. 

Despite the gruesome quality and depressing frequency of this violence, it was not so pervasive that it was unavoidable. I had been to Soweto dozens of times: normally I traveled with everyday Sowetans in one of the fleet of mini-bus combi taxis, a newly emerging and frequently used form of black-owned and black-controlled transportation. The only violence I had ever witnessed had been on the part of the South African Defence Force—tear-gassing, chasing after, and then whipping Soweto Day (16 June) protestors with their rhino-hide sjaamboks. Moreover, although a white person always attracts attention in the townships, the attention is almost always friendly and solicitous. I have always enjoyed the experience of going there. 

So on this fast Sunday I was also the only white in this congregation of my church, a church in which we whites, in the last decade, have counted ourselves lucky if we had at least one black among us. But just as the negative of a photograph contains the same image as the print, so too was this worship service conducted in the same manner, and in exactly the same spirit, as meetings held in my own white-bred ward in suburban Washington, D.C. 

In fact, I had something of a feeling of deja vu, cutting out of church after sacrament meeting and Sunday school in the Johannesburg Ward in order to hop over to the Soweto Branch. For a time when I lived in the Virginia suburbs, I would leave my home ward after sacrament meeting so that I could also attend the more diverse Washington II Ward meetings held in the top floor of the National Press Club. (Whereas Washington, D.C, a traditionally "black" city, has "white suburbs, Johannesburg, a traditionally "white" city, has "black" suburbs.) 

In fast meeting in Soweto, I was sitting next to Sister Julia Mavimbela, former president of the Relief Society for the branch. When she stood up and bore her testimony in English (I would say that offerings were equally balanced between English, Sotho, Twsana, and Zulu, al though the branch presidency presided and conducted in English) I thought of scriptures speaking of love driving out fear: "Be not afraid of sudden fear. For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken" (Prov. 3:25-26); "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7); "Wherefore, fear not even unto death, for in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is full" (D&C 101:36).

***

Sister Mavimbela was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ on 28 November 1981, when she was sixty-three years old. Ten years later, she was a bundle of energy, constantly involved in numerous projects to better her family, her community, her people, and her church. Although she didn't know it when she agreed to be baptized by the two white missionaries whom she had met when they were all helping to clean up a boys' club in Soweto, 28 November was the same day her father passed away when she was only four years old. 

To Sister Julia (which is what she asked me to call her soon after we met on my first Sunday in Soweto), this "coincidence" is significant because it was a connection with her dead ancestors that sparked her initial interest in the church during one of the visits the missionaries made to her house. In an interview with Brigham Young University Professor of Church History and Doctrine Dale LeBaron, Sister Mavimbela recounted that she reluctantly agreed to let the two white missionaries at the boys' club come visit her at her house.[1] "They came, took seats, said a prayer with me, and explained who they were. Then they started the first lesson—which carried no weight with me. 'I can't be moving from one church corner to another,’ I told them. 

"They made another appointment and left. What was strange to me is that I just felt they should come, so I let them continue to come.

"On the second visit, they saw a wonderful picture of my wedding, and they asked, 'Who is he?' 

"'Oh, he has passed on.' 

"'Do you know that you can be baptized for him?' 

"Something opened in my mind. 'Take baptism for him? In what way?' 

"They explained how. 

"I said to them, 'Look here, Elders'—I had started addressing them as Elders—'you have startled me. I am a black, and in other churches when you speak about the dead, you get excommunicated. Now you come and tell me about my dead. You've got a different message. Come again.'" 

The wonderful picture on the mantle of her small but cramped living room is a black-and-white photograph of a much younger Julia and her husband. He was the founder of the Black-African Chamber of Commerce in Johannesburg and was killed in a car crash in 1955. "It was quite clear that the other man involved in the accident was on my husband's side of the road. He was white. Most of the policemen were white," re-counts Sister Mavimbela. But "the police said, 'The careless drivers are the blacks.'" 

It was soon after she joined the church—at a time when the church had very few black members—that the Johannesburg Stake president asked her to give a talk at a special regional conference. "The Lord told me just to tell my people how I had felt when my husband tragically died, and how the laws of my country wouldn't satisfy me with the truth, because of my color, but how I had since found myself moving to a very happy state of life," Mavimbela said. 

For white South Africans, that turned out to be a pretty bold message, most of whom are not accustomed to letting black South Africans tell them—even with love—how the laws of their country don't satisfy blacks with the truth, nor with justice. But, in fact, Sister Julia had long been involved in constructive projects to overcome the bitterness and hatred of each other that are very much alive among both white and black South Africans. 

Soon after the 1976 riots in Soweto (which began on 16 June after police opened fire on a group of students protesting against their schools' use of Afrikaans rather than English), Sister Julia founded an organization called Women for Peace, a community service group that worked on local development projects. This led to her involvement in the National Council of Women in South Africa, a multi-racial group that works on gardening, planting trees, improving streets, and upgrading the quality of services in their townships. 

The first Sunday that I attended church in Soweto, I took an immediate liking to Sister Mavimbela, formerly president of the branch's Relief Society. I had read a short article about her in the April 1990 Ensign magazine, and in the back of my mind I was keen to meet her and find out more about the kinds of activities in which she has been involved. But I hardly needed to introduce myself before we eagerly took down each other's phone numbers and contacted each other at least a half-dozen times over the next several days, exchanging ideas and bustling with persons to contact in our respective lines of work. She had worked with numerous national women's and religious organizations, and invited me to attend a gathering with her in which she addressed a white suburban women's group about the advantages of herbal gardening, and how various plants can be used both medicinally and in food storage. 

The next Sunday I was back in Soweto visiting Sister Mavimbela in her lovely furnished house in Dube on a small but well-tended plot of land (and a huge garden out back) in this older section of Soweto. I saw the wedding photograph hanging in the living room of her cramped living room—I imagine it was in the same place where those Elders first saw it ten years ago. Near it I saw a framed photograph of the Salt Lake temple and a color photograph of Spencer W. Kimball. (Sister Mavimbela says that this photograph occasionally gets confused with the image of former South African state president P. W. Botha—a man disliked among both blacks and whites—who ruled the country with an iron fist throughout the 1980s.) 

I had just signed her visitor's log (which reads like a Who's Who of international Mormondom), and she had just started to show me her scrapbook from the trip she took to America to address a BYU International Women's Conference, when we suddenly heard the music of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The South African Broadcast Corporation, the near-complete television monopoly held under tight government control, had religious broadcasting every Sunday afternoon, and every other week the Mormons were allowed a sliver of time. I must admit that it was emotional to be so far from home and yet so near to Zion. I shed a tear in Julia's "matchbox house" where I, Julia, and four of the children she cared for hummed along to the choir's rendition of "God Be With You Till We Meet Again." 

In fact, Zion is growing quite rapidly in South Africa. On that same day of death in South Africa's townships, I witnessed the symbolic death—and rebirth—of six people entering the waters of baptism. Three were in Soweto and three in Johannesburg. 

I hadn't anticipated the ones in Soweto. At sacrament meeting, in addition to enjoying the warmth and friendship of the congregation—who kept greeting me, insistently asking if I were a missionary—I learned that there would be a baptismal service at 12:30 p.m. 

So I travelled with half the congregation in an over-crowded minibus taxi to the luxurious (by Soweto standards) house of Dolley Henrietta Ndhlovu. Three teen-age boys had committed to be baptized, and when we arrived we went to the garage, where a large cylindrical wire frame held a blue vinyl liner filled with water. The only other white people there (or in the sacrament meeting held previously) were the two assistants to the president of the Johannesburg South Africa Mission. The American baptized the boys and the South African confirmed them members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

I was upset that no one from the branch presidency was there, that only a handful of white people came, but it was so powerful to know that the simple things about to take place in this garage were so important— to these boys and to all of us. The new members had heard of the church through a woman named Gladys, a Latter-day Saint who, as I understood her through the translation Sister Julia provided, had been helping out in the choir of one of the Zionist Christian churches and had told them about the Mormon church and its meetings at Dikou Elementary. 

Zionist churches are an interesting phenomenon in southern Africa. They combine indigenous beliefs with Christian ones. Whether ancestors are worshiped or not, they do play an important role in the Zionists' religious identity. Zionists are very visible in South Africa, if for no other reason than the fact that every Saturday and Sunday they walk about the streets and parks of the cities with distinctive blue, white, or green garments, bearing a five-pointed star set against the colored background (different colors represent different churches within the movement) that they wear during the rest of the week. 

Zionists tend to be found among the more impoverished and less educated blacks. All of them that I tried to talk to on the streets or in taxis struggled with English, if they spoke it at all. Often they had no church building, so they found an open space in the Sunday afternoon sunshine to serve as their place of worship. Zionists also tend to be very conservative, socially (they don't drink or smoke) as well as politically. They generally stay out of politics completely (certainly they stay out of activist, ANC-oriented politics) but nevertheless gave a standing ovation to then-state president Botha when they invited him to speak at one of their annual Easter conventions. Botha relished the opportunity—and strengthened his opinion that "peace-loving" blacks of South Africa were on his side, no matter how deceptive that conclusion would have been at the time. 

Better educated black African Christians often belong to the mainstream religious denominations, the largest of which are the Anglicans, Methodists, and Catholics, each of which makes up about 10 percent of the total population in South Africa. The leadership of these and other well-recognized Christian denominations come together in the South African Council of Churches, an important group that played a major political role during the time in which the state of emergency was in effect (1985-90) because so many bonafide political leaders were detained or imprisoned. The mantle of religious authority allowed people like Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu, Methodist minister Frank Chikane, and Dutch Reformed Church presbyter Beyers Naude (an Afrikaner who had broken ranks with the majority of his people in the 1960s) to speak freely without much fear of political persecution. Even so, prior to his elevation to head the SACC, Chikane had been brutally detained, and Naude had been a "banned person"—unable to speak in public, write for publication, or even meet with more than one person at a time in his own home—until 1984. By virtue of winning the Nobel Peace Prize in that same year, Tutu became almost totally immune to government pressure. His lionization by the international media made it possible for him, almost single-handedly, to lead the campaign for economic sanctions against South Africa—which left many white and black Anglicans severely disgruntled—while the government could do nothing to silence him. 

Although these mainstream religious denominations—whether led by blacks or whites—may have strong political and social commitments against apartheid, they shun all talk about incorporating indigenous beliefs into their worship. Sister Julia—who had been both Baptist and Methodist prior to joining the church—knew that talk about one's genealogy was forbidden in these churches lest it be taken as ancestor-worship. In an article written more ten years ago on "Mormon ism in Black Africa,”[2] Newell G. Bringhurst described some of the beliefs and practices in Mormonism that appeal to residents of Africa: belief in a plurality of Gods, pre-existence, eternal progression, apocalyptic millennialism, the idea of a church led by a living prophet, the ability to perform sacred ordinances for one's dead ancestors, and an emphasis on the virtues of a strong family. "Since many of these Mormon concepts are similar to those found in traditional indigenous African cults and in independent Christian denominations, there is a tendency for isolated African Mormons to deviate from accepted Mormon doctrines and modes of worship and lapse into African ones," Bringhurst wrote, speaking particularly about isolated areas in Nigeria and Ghana. 

In South Africa, however, black Latter-day Saints are likely to have come from a thoroughly westernized background, no matter what form of Christianity they practiced before they joined the church. And they are overwhelmingly likely to have been Christians of another sort before becoming Mormon. In his interviews with 400 African Latter-day Saints, Dale LeBaron found that over 390 had adopted some form of Christianity before accepting Mormonism. Moreover, even if African members were inclined to "lapse into African modes of worship," they currently exist in an integrated church structure in which they are the minority—and in which they are happy to be equal fellow-citizens in the household of God. 

In spite of apartheid, South Africa in the past fifteen years has become one of the world's premier multi-ethnic societies. Urbanization of the workforce has brought integration to the economy and is currently bringing it to other areas of society: housing, education, and recreation. Blacks and whites work side by side. Although most blacks are at the bottom of the ladder and most whites at the top, that too is changing as more blacks matriculate from high schools and go on to enter universities and the workforce. Representative of this type of well-educated South African is another young man I met at that baptismal service in Soweto. 

Between the baptism and confirmation of the three boys, the missionaries asked Ambrose Nkeske to bear his testimony. Brother Ambrose is a well-dressed eighteen-year-old who could easily fit in at any suburban American high school or college. In fact, he attends Pace College, the only private school inside Soweto. I had visited Pace before and was acquainted with Ambrose's English teacher. Ambrose has been adopted by Sister Dolley Ndhlovu, a good friend of Sister Julia who accompanied her on her trip to Salt Lake City. It was through Dolley that Ambrose heard about the church and became a member almost two years ago. He is finishing Standard Eight (equivalent to the tenth grade in the U.S.). His goals are to go on a mission after his "matric" year and then attend college at BYU. In this respect, he's like many young white Mormons I met that May evening at another baptismal service in Johannesburg. 

***

Among both whites and blacks, South Africans have a deep and abiding love-hate relationship with the United States. "Europeans" (a euphemism for whites) look at the wide open spaces in their country and see the mythic American frontier. "Africans" look to black culture in America and see jazz, the civil rights movement, the legal and political equality of a people who suffered under a legacy of slavery and exploitation. 

This love affair turns sour, however, when the United States starts to intervene in South African affairs. When Republican administrations under U.S. presidents Nixon and Ford provided assistance and advice to the South African government in some of the darkest days of apartheid, America's credibility rating dropped in the eyes of anti-apartheid leaders, who increasingly started attacking American "imperialism." On the other hand, when the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986—a blunt instrument that severely curtailed trade between the two countries—white business leaders thought that America had lost any standing it had to arbitrate the South African quagmire. 

Naturally, there are differences between the history and culture of the two countries, but the analogy between America and South Africa can shed light on very diverse subjects—from race relations to religion. 

Perhaps the most notable aspect of Mormonism to the outside world is the Book of Mormon. Brigham Young or polygamy or the Word of Wisdom may be more widely present in folk knowledge, but an acquaintance with the Book of Mormon confronts the reader with two compelling facts about the American continent: it is another place where Christ visited and lingered for a season—the place where Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built. Second, the Book of Mormon explains that native Americans are of the House of Israel—a Hebraic lineage to whom the word of God must be brought through missionary work. 

When I told this story to James Dryja, a friend active in the anti-apartheid movement, he was impressed by the book's apparently enlightened view toward native Americans. I added that for many years this positive view about the origins of one group of non-Europeans was demeaned by a different view about the origins of another group of non-Europeans, the Africans. 

Just as this favorable view towards American Indians had some bearing on the strong presence of missionaries and the rapid growth of the church in South America, so too had the pre-1978 prohibition preventing blacks from receiving the priesthood forced church leaders to urge patience upon those in black African countries who had heard about the Book of Mormon and pleaded with the church to send missionaries. For many years, to baptize an African was to mark him as a second-class citizen in the Kingdom of God, unworthy, for whatever reason, to receive all of the Father's blessings. But as hard to bear as this condition must have been for African Mormons in countries like Ghana and Nigeria who had come into contact with the restored Church of Jesus Christ, at least it did not coincide with—and give implicit support to—a system of social and political organization based upon complete separation of the races. 

Moreover, while American or European blacks were at least allowed the opportunity of baptism during this time period, in South Africa blacks had to wait. Moses Mahlungu, the Elder's quorum president when I visited Soweto, learned about the Book of Mormon in 1966, four teen years before he was allowed to be baptized.[3] He told me that during much of this time he showed up at the church building in Johannesburg every Sunday—rain or shine—and would have to wait outside. After meeting with the mission president, he was told that attending the same church as whites would be a violation of civil law. After the church applied to the government in Pretoria and received special permission to baptize blacks, Brother Mahlungu and three others came into Hougton, one of the wealthiest white sections of Johannesburg, for special gospel lessons on Sundays and Thursdays. The day before he was going to be baptized in the late 1960s, word came from Salt Lake City that the gospel was to be preached first to whites in South Africa, then to blacks. He waited longer, until Spencer W. Kimball finally rescinded the church's prohibition of blacks receiving the priesthood. 

South Africa, like America, was settled by God-fearing Puritans— Calvinists who believed, as did the inhabitants of John Winthrop's "City on a Hill," that they were an elect generation, chosen of God to build new Jerusalems on their respective continents. But something happened when these people—Dutch, German, French Huguenot—ventured into the heart of Africa, cutting themselves off from their own written traditions and continuing to live a seventeenth-century agrarian life in an eighteenth-, nineteenth-, even twentieth-century world. These people—the Afrikaners—became the "white tribe of Africa." They created their own language and brooked no compromise with black tribes against whom they declared that they would accept equality "in neither church nor state." Rian Malan's autobiography, My Traitor's Heart,[4] speculates about the journey across the Rubicon taken by his ancestors from British-ruled Cape Town civilization—fault-ridden and worldly—into the illiterate frontier country where blood and revenge were the only law. 

Can one continent be blessed and another cursed? Protruding from the steppe a couple of miles outside of Pretoria rises a monument to a ghastly victory, the Battle of Blood River in 1838. December 16, perhaps the biggest holiday of the year for white South Africans, commemorates the "Day of the Covenant" when Johann Pretorius swore that if God protected him from the Zulus (who had attacked a company of pioneers whom they thought were invading their land in northern Natal), the Boers ("farmers" in Afrikaans) would forever honor that day. Circling their wagons, the Afrikaners fired shots at the approaching Zulu tribe. Not one Boer was lost, but on that day Tugela River became Blood River after it was stained by the bodies of Zulu King Dingaan's warriors. 

The Mormons' trek across the American Great Plains followed the Afrikaner Vortrekker by only a decade. Like the Afrikaners, the Mormons sought an independent country far removed from "imperial" rule. Like the Afrikaners, the Mormons sought accommodation—through negotiation and gunpowder—with native tribes. Like the Afrikaners, the Mor mons had a strict moral code and disdained the ungodly world. Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal Republic at the time gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand (named after the "White water reef" of pure gold below ground), was reputed to have read no book in his entire life except the Bible. Maybe the Mormons were lucky that the gold-diggers only passed through Utah, and didn't stop then to bring Babylon with them. 

Given all this, perhaps it is surprising that the majority of Mormon families in South Africa are not Afrikaners, but English-speaking descendants of Scotch, Irish, and British emigrants. At dinner one night with Brother Samuels, patriarch of the Johannesburg Stake (the son of a Scotch emigrant), and his family, I learned just how much the Afrikaner is tied to the family-oriented Dutch Reformed Church. The DRC remains one of the strongest faiths in South Africa—not just among Afrikaners, but also among "coloreds" and Africans as well. Although it has come in the past several years to see the errors of apartheid, its members still look with great suspicion upon a religion so foreign as Mormonism.

Almost all of South Africa's history, in fact, has been dominated by this conflict between the loyalty of the South African English to the mother country and a quest for independence on the part of the Afrikaner. Hence the Boer (or South African) War, which the British won militarily but lost morally. The images of disease and death inflicted on Afrikaner women and children in British "concentration camps" (that term's origin) still have emotive power. Afrikaner prime ministers have ruled the country ever since, after the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, although their desire for national sovereignty was sublimated through the mainly English-speaking "United Party" that governed until 1948. 

Apartheid (literally, "separate-ness" in Afrikaans) was also justified on theological grounds. Theologians in the Dutch Reformed Church used the term to capture the Afrikaners' aspirations for control of "their" country in the National Party's 1948 political platform. After a stunning surprise victory over the United Party, they also captured the world's attention with their goal of separating the races and ethnic groups of South Africa into their own separate enclaves. Like too many amateur Mormon "theologians," the architects of apartheid also used biblical arguments about the "curse of Cain," the "lineage of Ham," or the "seed of Canaan" to justify the inferior position into which they put the Africans of their country. (One can only speculate what these theologians would have come up with had they had access to the concept of pre-existence.) 

This racialistic streak may be the most embarrassing similarity between the Mormons and the Afrikaners. Mormons struggled long and hard before finally relinquishing their political ambition to constitute their beloved state of Deseret as a theocracy, finally yielding to secular rule with the consolation that nonetheless the rule they accepted flows from a "divinely inspired" Constitution. Whatever its faults in implementation, this is a constitution that mandates the vital principles of individual liberty and equal justice under law—noble principles, the blessings of which no Afrikaners (nor any other South Africans)—ever enjoyed. 

At times we Mormons seem to rival the Afrikaners in our finely-tuned loyalty, which can sometimes become blind obedience to authority—both political and religious. While the Mormons of Joseph's and Brigham's day saw gaps between obedience to God's law and obedience to man's law, the contemporary Mormon desire for respectability seems to have swung so far on this pendulum that any challenge (either individually or as a group) to the political status quo in whatever country we inhabit (including Latin America and the former East Germany as well as South Africa) is looked upon with great suspicion.

At least in the United States—where there is no crisis of governmental legitimacy, where the difference between Republicans and Democrats is slight indeed—the contemporary Mormon tilt toward the former hardly stifles anyone's political expression. In South Africa, however, where most members, if pressed, would tend to support the National Party (perhaps with a minority of wealthier members voting for the more liberal pro-business, anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party and its successor, the Democratic Party), politics is seen as a dirty game to be avoided if possible. As did the Christians in Paul's day, I can understand why a minority religion would take this position to protect itself and its members from persecution. But, after living for several weeks in 1988 at a Mormon-run boarding house on the fringes of Johannesburg, I was most frustrated by the almost total indifference and lack of involvement on the part of white South African Mormons in the affairs of their country. 

If black branches like the one in Soweto are forced constantly to be aware of troubles in their country and the difficulties that those troubles make for them, one could yet attend a ward in Johannesburg and not know that this country was riddled with difficulties. One of the blessings of the church is its existence "outside of the world" and its ability to provide solace and refuge from the world's concerns. But this strength must then be used in the world as we become "anxiously engaged in a good cause ... to bring to pass much righteousness" (D&C 58:27). 

Certainly many of the whites in South Africa know and understand how blacks are wronged in their country. Sometimes the problems of South Africa seem too big to be tackled politically, but the Mormons I encountered were making too few attempts to reach out across that great abyss between white and black. In fact, for an organized group of 17,000 people, Mormons have lain remarkably low in South Africa. Perhaps we could learn a lesson from another persecuted minority. The Jews in South Africa have had a disproportionate impact, not just upon business and commerce—and in established political parties such as the PFP—but in extra-parliamentary organizations that are working to build bridges which can reassure whites that they have a future in Africa, even as they contribute, bit by bit, to meet black aspirations. 

Mormons in South Africa speak of "the blacks," using the same propagandistic terms that the Afrikaner nationalist government has been feeding to its population for the last forty years. Like other whites in this country, Mormons often see blacks—as a group—as an omnipresent threat. Individual black members, including those who lived in the "white area" of Johannesburg, were openly fellowshipped into the church in all cases that I saw, but there was almost always an effort, in the whites' minds, to set this person or that person apart from "the blacks" as a collective entity. Though prejudiced by their past, South African Mormons are not more racialistic than most whites. 

Whatever else the gospel does, I believe that our knowledge of Christ's life and mission makes us reach beyond the iniquity of seeing people as "groups." Yet because Mormons know that justice will prevail in the end, they sometimes become indifferent about working to make sure that it prevails right now. I have grown to accept Fourth of July fast and testimony meeting presentations on the "inspired" nature of the Constitution of the United States, but I cannot accept the notion that the historic South African Constitution is either ordained of God or worthy of respect. 

***

I first came to South Africa in August 1988 at a time when, though officially banned the previous February, the United Democratic Front was celebrating its fifth anniversary on college campuses. Since its inception in 1983, the UDF has been closely aligned (both by virtue of its political goals and personalities) with the African National Congress. Throughout the 1980s, however, it had to be circumspect about that subject. The UDF was in fact originally organized to fight against ratification of the new constitution that then-Prime Minister Botha had tried to sell to white voters in a "reformist" referendum in 1983. After years of increasing economic integration in the 1970s and early 1980s, even the National Party had been forced to admit that the goal of "grand apartheid"—separate "homelands" for each of the country's numerous racial groups—was untenable. In Botha's words, the Afrikaner must "adapt or die." The question was how to adapt. 

Botha decided to co-opt the "coloreds"—the mixed-race descendants of Afrikaners and Africans—and the "Indians"—the South African-born descendants of peasant sugar farmers who were shipped in from India. Both "groups" are less numerous than whites, and Botha calculated that if he could create a tri-cameral parliament, each house having seats proportional to the "ethnic group's" population, each having responsibility over its "own affairs," that would grant more legitimacy to the entire par liament's rule over "general affairs" (i.e., the political affairs of the nation). Of course, the constitution also vested highly centralized—almost dictatorial—powers in the newly created executive post of State President, to which Botha, leader of the National Party, was naturally the heir. The result of this constitutional tinkering was a disaster. By raising the expectations for self-government among some of the non-whites while completely ignoring the African majority, Botha unleashed a firestorm of protest and unrest, and then reacted militaristically with a repressive wave of detentions and police violence. The years 1984, 1985, and 1986 were among the worst years that South Africa had seen. 

Things were a little bit quieter by 1988. Although the state of emergency would still be in effect for another year and a half, it was surprising how free was the political discussion that could take place (at least in the major cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, and Durban) as the future of the country settled down into a kind of negotiational hold. 

But other forces of a far more peaceful and hopeful nature were at work in helping to build the new, non-racial South Africa. 

When I first came down to South Africa, I was surprised by how much racial integration there was in all of the major and even minor cities. I was also impressed by the continued feelings of love and goodwill that exist across the color line, particularly in the many non-racial organizations established in all fields of interest and walks of life. Most of all, I was impressed by the indomitable spirit of perseverance that motivated so many people to continue in the face of such tiresome challenges in their lives. 

In my own life, I needed some of the perseverance and charity that I saw in them. I had attended an international political conference in Swaziland, the peaceable kingdom next door. Eventually my American friends left—they, unlike I, had jobs back in America—and I bade farewell to one of them on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, the flat beauty frequently covered by billowing clouds that makes that city my candidate for the most beautiful city in the world. 

Sometimes when our eyes behold a new world before us, our minds can't comprehend how much it has to offer. The week I spent hitchhiking up the coast until I made it back to Johannesburg remains one of the most vivid weeks in my life—not so much for the sights or the people who opened their doors to me—but because of my personal struggle to know what I should be doing. 

I finally found my niche in Hillbrow, Johannesburg's only late-night area, a place and a name that has come to symbolize the rapid racial integration taking place in South Africa. I landed a job writing for the Weekly Mail, one of the major "alternative" or anti-apartheid newspapers in the country. I wrote about the de facto demise of the Group Areas Act, how the government had been forced to tinker with it and ultimately, in 1991, to abolish it. This law, which effectively had been unenforced during the previous five years in neighborhoods like Hillbrow, was on its way out purely as a result of quiet yet determined action by thousands of individuals who decided that they could no longer live by a law that determined where they must live according to the color of their skin. 

It was in this line of work that I met James Dryja, the (white) owner of an old movie house and a citizen who had long worked for the recognition and acceptance of Hillbrow as a multi-racial area. On my first trip to South Africa he was active in the Progressive Federal Party and ran as their candidate from Hillbrow in the municipal (all-white) elections, campaigning to make Hillbrow an open area. When I had the opportunity to visit South Africa for a month in April/May 1991, the biggest change I encountered was that instead of finding PFP and National Party election booths outside the local supermarket on Saturday, it was the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party that were soliciting financial and moral support from the black and white residents of Hillbrow. And now James, who was one of the first persons legally married to a non-white since the Mixed Marriages Act was abolished, was as active in local affairs as ever, helping the African National Congress to establish support and form the basis for growth among all races in Hillbrow. 

It was through James that I met Peter Mbotembeni, a (black) resident of Hillbrow who had attracted some attention when he joined the Hill brow Residents Association in 1989. When he decided to study ceramics there several years ago, Peter was one of the first black students at the Witwatersrand Technikon (or technical college). He lived in a student house in the neighborhood (where I would frequently go for dinner). 

But this story really begins when Peter heard about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and decided to investigate it. During my return visit in 1991, he had almost committed to be baptized. We had several long conversations about the church, about the gospel, about Jesus Christ and what he means to each of us. Peter was baptized in the Johannesburg Chapel on 30 April, the same day as was an Afrikaner named Louie and a young Zulu girl who didn't speak much English, whose mother was a member of the Johannesburg Ward. 

God writes straight with curved lines, runs a Portuguese proverb. I could have had no better blessing in South Africa than to introduce this rock of a soul to the members of my church at his baptism, to participate in confirming him a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, and to fellowship that evening with the white and black Latter-day Saints (sharing my own straight, curved line testimony of God) on the grounds of the Johannesburg temple. It is in this temple that we are welcomed back home— into a home blessed with the presence of a father who loves all of his children.

---

[Author's note: The following essay was written in May 1991, fifteen months after Nelson Mandela walked free after nearly twenty-eight years' imprisonment. His departure from jail accelerated a largely peaceful political revolution that culminated in his election as president in May 1994. It was the first South African election in which all races could participate. But the revolution has not always been painless. Shedding apartheid has been a difficult process, requiring modification of repressive laws and cultivation of new attitudes between brothers and sisters. This essay explores that process of conversion.] 

[1] See Dale F. LeBaron, All Are Alike Unto God: Fascinating Conversion Stories of African Saints (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1990), 146.

[2] See Newell G. Bringhurst, "Mormonism in Black Africa," Sunstone, May/June 1981.

[3] See LeBaron, 159.

[4] Rian Malan, My Traitor's Heart (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990).

[post_title] => The Fading Curse of Cain: Mormonism in South Africa [post_excerpt] => Dialogue 27.4 (Winter 1994): 41–56
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"There was a certain man in Caeserea called Cornelius, a centurion of the . .. Italian band." Luke tells us, in Acts chapter 10, that this Roman was "a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway" (v. 2). An angel of God appeared to him, saying, "Cornelius, .. . thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter." 

God knew this man's heart, that he was prepared to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, but because Cornelius was a gentile, Peter, though an apostle of Christ, had to be prepared to accept Cornelius. So God sent Peter a vision in the form of an allegory. Peter saw a great vessel let down from heaven containing "all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat" (vv. 12-13). 

But Peter, still an orthodox Jew, recoiled at this great diversity of meats, which included some forbidden by Jewish law: "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again ... , What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common" (vv. 14-15). This vision was repeated three times, and while Peter wondered about its meaning a messenger arrived from Cornelius, inviting Peter to come to his home in Caesarea—and the vision became clear. Peter went and found many of Cornelius's friends and family gathered to hear him, and he said, "Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean" (v. 28). Cornelius then told him of the angel who had appeared with the instruction that he listen to Peter, and "Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him" (vv. 34-35). He then preached the crucified Christ to these gen tiles, and they were baptized, the first non-Jews in the universal church.

What Peter perceived, for the first time, is that "God is no respecter of persons," a strange expression, too easily misunderstood. It means, of course, not that God doesn't respect persons, but that he does not have respect of some over others, that his respect is equal, not conditional or partial, and does not vary, as human respect does, according to irrelevant matters: race, gender, creed, intelligence, politics, wealth, sexual orientation. The apostle James, Peter's counselor, makes this clear when he implored early Christians not to forget what Peter has learned—and at the same time implies that some faithful Christians had already forgotten it: 

My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves? 

James 2:1-4

To have respect of persons is to be partial—in both senses, I believe: to show partiality to others (respecting a part of humanity, not all) and to be only part of one's true self, split apart, less than whole, to lack integrity. 

James teaches how serious this is: "If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin.... For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (2:8-9). The scriptures use this expression, "respect" or "regard" of persons, to teach us what God is like and also what he expects of us when we understand who he is and try to be like him. In Deuteronomy we are assured that "the Lord your God ... regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger.... Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (10:17-19). In the Book of Mormon, we are given a picture of a Zion society: "In their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both young and old, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need" (Alma 1:30). In other words, when converted fully to Christ, these Nephites responded to others liberally, generously, freely—and only in terms of what was relevant, their need, not what was irrelevant, their class or sex or church membership. 

The language here echoes the other great New Testament affirmation of this principle, by the brash young apostle Paul, who even after Peter's vision had to convince some of the church leaders that the gospel should go even to the uncircumcised beyond Israel (see Acts 15). Paul writes to the Colossian Saints, who apparently also needed to be taught that the gospel was for everyone, though some were once excluded gentiles themselves: "[You] have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created [you]; Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all" (3:10-11). 

Paul used the same language when writing to the Corinthians: "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:13). And Nephi uses similar language in what, for Mormons, is the most straightforward, challenging, and perhaps still not fully understood expression of God's nature and expectation concerning "respect of persons"—what is, in fact, the fundamental Mormon source for a theology of human diversity: "The Lord ... doeth that which is good among the children of men; ... and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he re membereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile" (2 Ne. 26:33). 

This idea, consistent throughout scripture and eminently sensible, seems clear enough: God loves us all equally, treats us all equally and liberally, expects and hopes the same for all of us—and asks, expects, us to do the same for each other. But of course we have not done so. Human history, including religious history, is perhaps most notable for "respect of persons," for fear and abuse and even terrible violence centered in our rejection of those who are in any way different—our willingness to hurt, exclude, and kill those who are other, those not of our color, gender, stratum, beliefs, even those with different culture or customs. Rather than rejoicing in diversity, as God seems to, on the evidence of the marvelous diversity of his creation, the absolute and stunning plenitude of human form and behavior that has flowered from the agency he has given and fostered in us—rather than praising God and reaching out to that ever-re newing richness, we have recoiled in fear and set up walls of protection. 

God constantly calls his children to accept, even love, diversity. Luke records Paul's sermon before the Court of Areopagus on Mars Hill, about the God they were worshipping without understanding at their altar "To an Unknown God" (I use the New English Bible version for great clarity): 

He created every race of men of one stock, to inhabit the whole earth's surface. He fixed the ordered seasons of their history and the limits of their territory. They were to seek God, and, it might be, touch and find him; though indeed he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move, in him we exist; as some of your own poets have said, "We are also his offspring." As God's offspring, then, we ought not to suppose that the deity is like an image in gold or silver or stone.... As for the times of ignorance, God has overlooked them; but now he commands mankind, all men everywhere, to repent (17:26-31). 

We Mormons are among those God has been patient with in the time of our ignorance but who are now called to repent and join in God's delight in the diversity of his creation. We are his offspring, part of the plenitude of his creation, and ought not to suppose he is like an idol, partial, loving only those who have made and worshipped him. He created and loves all races—and now commands us to repent. Why? Claiming to be specially chosen children of God, inheritors of his true kingdom, we have denied our parenthood and the universal atonement of our brother, Jesus Christ, by having respect of persons. We have not only been partial in our response to difference, asking some, by virtue only of their class or color or gender, to "sit thou here in a good place" but others to "sit here under my footstool." We have also set limits to spiritual opportunities and taught spiritual inferiority, based only on race or gender. 

The most obvious example so far, of course, is our denial, from about 1852 to 1978, of priesthood rights and temple blessings to blacks of African descent. Despite the announcement giving blacks the priesthood and the new understanding that action supposedly brought to the church, I find that many Mormons at BYU and in Provo still believe that the reason blacks did not receive the priesthood before 1978 was that they were unfaithful in the pre-existence—in other words, that people come color coded into the world, exhibiting in their very flesh that God has differing opportunities and expectations for them, that he is a "respecter of persons." 

A worldwide revolution is taking place—not primarily a religious one, though many religious people are involved, but an essentially political and moral one, uniting in common cause people of many different beliefs and backgrounds. The revolution is away from the violent fear of diversity that has plagued all human history and toward a guarantee of equal rights for all and, even more, a rejoicing in the rich diversity of human life. We as Mormons have unparalleled opportunity to be part of, to benefit from, and to contribute to that revolution, given our theology, our remarkable record of openness in the early church, and the divinely directed and energized reach of our worldwide mission. But we mainly missed participation in the first part of that revolution, the quest for civil rights for American blacks in the 1950s and 1960s, and our fears and uncertainties are thus far keeping many of us from contributing much to the second major phase of that revolution, the quest for equal rights and opportunities for women worldwide. 

Why does it matter? After all, the restored church has its own agenda—to take the gospel to the world and save all the dead. We don't need to be involved in faddish and divisive revolutions for minority rights, do we? Certainly, any quest for rights tends to be self-centered and vindictive, and excesses have occurred and will. Minorities have struggled for redress of past grievances and in the process have sometimes taken vengeance, or have gained power only to use it unrighteously. Increased pride in ethnic or religious identity has sometimes brought, not mutual respect and tolerance that builds community but tribalization, re opening of centuries-old wounds and violent conflict that has destroyed community in the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, in Sri Lanka and Rwanda—and increasingly even in our own country. The revolution is not without its failures and setbacks—about which we should not be surprised. 

Abraham Lincoln recognized, in his Second Inaugural Address in 1865, "If God wills that [this terrible Civil War] continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid," we could not question God's justice. We Americans are still paying those costs in the seemingly unbreakable cycles of discrimination, poverty, alienation, and violence in our ghettoes which increasingly affect us all. We are paying similar costs for our wholesale exploitation and destruction of Native Americans and the dehumanization through forced assimilation of their descendants. And we have not even begun to recognize the costs we are paying and yet must pay for thousands of years of suppression of women. 

Despite the costs and setbacks, we must work our way through, I believe, towards a world where there is no respect of persons—even if for a while we who have benefitted most from past exploitation, whites and especially males, are treated unfairly. Thoreau wrote in Civil Disobedience, "If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself," and we must bear the costs of returning those planks we and our ancestors have unjustly taken from minorities and women. We must do so not because we are responsible for others' sins or because some abstract justice must be served, but simply because some of the inequities still remain and many of the effects from past sins have been passed on in families and attitudes and laws and customs and continue to cause damage for which we are response-able, about which we can do something. Mormons must do something about such past and continuing damages precisely in order to achieve our worldwide mission. We cannot succeed fully in taking the healing and unifying gospel to a world that remains divided by race and sex, by any form of fear of the other—we can't especially if we as Mormons remain divided. I do not believe Christ can come again until, like him, we have no respect of persons, until for us, as well as for our God, all are alike, black and white, male and female. 

But my main reason for thinking so is not social, but personal. I believe our individual salvation, at the very deepest level, is tied to this principle. Perhaps the greatest paradigm shift of the Old Testament, one very much related to that which came to Peter in his vision of the diversity of meats God had cleansed, was the understanding, recorded most clearly by the literary prophets like Isaiah and Amos, of what has been called "ethical monotheism." This is the new idea that the God of Israel, unlike pagan gods, cannot be known directly, through personal piety and sacrifice. We can only know God as part of a triangular relationship that includes all other humans, his other children whom he loves as much as he does us. He speaks clearly through the prophets: "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings ... I will not accept them. . .. Take thou away the noise of thy songs.... But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:21-24). "When ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. . . . put away the evil of your doings ... Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isa. 1:15-17). In other words, it is only through accepting human diversity in unconditional love, as God does, he who is no respecter of persons—only through seeking justice and mercy for all his children and taking delight in them all— that we can know and love and please God our eternal Father. 

Emmanuel Levinas, the great post-modern Jewish philosopher from Lithuania, who has become an important focus of study and influence for many faculty members at BYU, has developed an extremely persuasive ethical philosophy centered in exploring our encounter with what he calls the "other." He claims that our experience with otherness, with the beings outside ourselves whose very presence makes ethical demands on us, beginning at least in the womb, is the pre-rational basis of all ethical meaning, in fact, the basis of our ability to experience individuality, to have language, and to think. I believe he is right that the most fundamental of our life experiences, the confrontations with the others as persons, whether human or divine, make infinite claims on us: We must respond—or try not to respond—to the demand, posed by their very existence, that they be treated as ends in themselves, that we do them good according to their needs and our ability to respond, that we never dehumanize them, never define them ("totalize" them in Levinas's word) or limit them to a category or a static judgment and thus limit our infinite responsibility to them. 

This line of thought is, of course, a useful way to recognize we cannot be partial, cannot have respect of persons, without denying our fundamental nature as children of God or trying to deny the most fundamental claim that others, including God, have upon us. If we have respect of persons we injure them, ourselves, and God. 

How great is that injury? The following passage is from the Lectures on Faith, which were partially written and fully approved by Joseph Smith and included in the Doctrine and Covenants as scripture until 1921: 

It is also necessary that men should have an idea that [God] is no respecter of persons ["but in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted of him"], for with the idea of all the other excellencies in his character, and this one wanting, men could not exercise faith in him; because if he were a respecter of persons, they could not tell what their privileges were, nor how far they were authorized to exercise faith in him, or whether they were authorized to do it at all, but all must be confusion; but no sooner are the minds of men made acquainted with the truth on this point, that he is no respecter of persons, than they see they have authority by faith to lay hold on eternal life, the richest boon of heaven, because God is no respecter of persons, and that every man in every nation has an equal privilege.[1]

This is a marvelous argument, though we seem to have missed it in popular Mormon thought: All human beings must be alike unto God, with no respect of persons, for him to be God, and we must understand that that is true for the plan of salvation even to be able to work for us— for faith unto repentance, the experience of Atonement, and exaltation to be possible. The passage describes precisely how it feels to be a rejected person or woman in a racist or sexist culture, supposedly being punished or limited in some way, purely on the evidence of the bodies they inhabit, for something done by an ancestor or in the pre-existence or inherent in their nature, with no way to repent of that "something" and no certainty about its effects on their future. Joseph Smith provides us here with the most powerful practical reason why we must immediately stop believing or teaching racist and sexist notions in popular Mormon thought and develop an affirmative theology of diversity: We are denying others—and ourselves—full access to Christ and his plan of redemption. In a culture that believes God is a respecter of persons—or simply acts as if he were—neither the victims nor the victimizers can have sufficient faith in God unto salvation. 

The root reason for this, I believe, is that the Atonement, as we understand from the Book of Mormon, is only efficacious when we can accept the unconditional love Christ gives us, even in our sins. The chief barrier to that acceptance, according to Alma, is "the demands of justice"—the felt need to pay debts fully and condemn ourselves when we haven't, even when that's impossible. Those demands can only be appeased by Christ's "plan of mercy," which offers infinite and unconditional love, not as a payment for repentance but as a means to empower our repentance; it provides "means unto men that they might have faith unto repentance" (Alma 34:15). But, as King Benjamin makes clear, we tend to remain caught up in justice, in deciding what others "deserve," and therefore withhold unconditional love and service to them, not, as God requires, "administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants" (Mosiah 4:26; my emphasis). And King Ben jamin declares that anyone who has such respect of persons cannot retain "a remission of... sins from day to day" (v. 26)—that is, cannot enjoy the continuing blessings of the Atonement, and "except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God" (v. 18). 

With so much at stake—our personal salvation as well as the salvation of the world in preparation for Christ's coming—it seems to me useful to review the history of diversity as a value and challenge in the restored gospel and church. God revealed to Joseph Smith a remarkable theology of diversity, which seems to have been followed by a sometimes swift, sometimes gradual, decline from that theology in popular Mormon thought and custom, but there are some hopeful signs of recovery in recent years. The Restoration was a stunning rejection of the racism, sex ism, and general fear of diversity that had plagued even the great world religions for thousands of years. God revealed to Joseph that most explicit, foundational claim in the Book of Mormon, that "all are alike unto God"; then, through continuing revelation and Joseph's own developing character and insights, came many remarkable specific advances directly contrary to the views and customs of early nineteenth-century America: Joseph ordained blacks to the priesthood and contemplated their participation in the Nauvoo temple; he opposed slavery in his U.S. presidential campaign of 1844; at a time when wholesale genocide of American Indi ans was preached and practiced, he declared them to be of the chosen House of Israel and destined to rise to great power in preparation for the Second Coming; he included women as essential to the building of God's kingdom, organized them and gave them keys of authority after the pat tern of the priesthood, included them as equal participants with men in temple ordinances that bestowed upon them saving gifts and healing authority from God, and taught a doctrine of eternal marriage that exalted the equality of men and women to the very highest level, guaranteed in divinity itself. For Joseph Smith Godhood, the ultimate goal of eternal marriage, required a divine union of the two genders in the future, and thus by implication—and according to Eliza R. Smith, Joseph taught it directly—our present God is actually Heavenly Parents. 

In the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants the prophet Joseph struck directly at the chief theological error that has led to the suppression of women in Judeo-Christian cultures, the idea that Eve was the first to fall and that all women are subsequently cursed with child-bearing and subservience to their husbands. In 2 Nephi, chapter 2, Nephi makes clear that the fall was necessary and positive, and in Doctrine and Covenants 29:40 God declares it was "Adam," clearly in context meaning what President Spencer W. Kimball called "Mr. and Mrs. Adam," the model first couple together, who made that difficult and courageously intelligent choice that cost them dearly but blessed us all. 

Later in the Doctrine and Covenants God condemns the false traditions and "creeds of the fathers" in Western thought. Christian creeds all include that false idea about Eve, and we are told in section 123 that it is our "wives and children, who have been made to bow down with grief, sorrow, and care" as a result of such creeds. In the King Follett Discourse, given just before his death, Joseph Smith declares the fundamental truth that explains why God is no respecter of persons and we must not be— the infinite God-like potential of every mortal: "[God] once was a man like one of us and . . . dwelled on an earth . . . like us. All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement and improvement."[2]

With such a clear and dramatically challenging theology of diversity, if we had held true to it, the restored church should by now have radically changed the world—or been destroyed in the attempt. But God has always adjusted his demands to some extent to his people's ability and circumstances, given us lower laws to live, such as the Old Testament laws of performance and our present law of tithing, schoolmasters to bring us gradually to Christ. By 1852, for inspired cultural and survival reasons, I believe, but not because of metaphysical realities or eternal doctrinal principles, we were denying blacks the priesthood and practicing polygamy openly. By the late nineteenth century, the person still honored as our most liberal high church leader and outstanding intellectual, B. H. Roberts, felt comfortable opposing women's suffrage and supporting the theories of the time about Negro inferiority.[3] In accommodating to American government power in the 1890s in order to survive, we also increasingly accommodated to American culture, including its military violence, its racism, and its sexism. By the early twentieth century polygamy had ended, but by the 1940s women's roles in healing and blessing ordinances were gradually diminishing, and paradoxically the very autonomy and forceful roles in publishing, politics, and professional life that polygamy had provided some Mormon women were declining and continued to do so almost to the present. 

In 1931 Elder Joseph Fielding Smith published, in The Way to Perfection, his speculation that the proscription on blacks was reasonably explained by some fault in their pre-existence.[4] That idea gradually achieved doctrinal force in popular Mormon thought and, combined with unexamined notions from the Book of Mormon and false Christian traditions about God cursing whole races, was generalized to all colored races, including Native Americans and Jews. Skin color was nearly universally seen as an indication of spiritual inheritance—the darker the worse. 

By the 1950s, when I was a college student, Utah culture was thoroughly racist and sexist and characterized by popular Mormon notions that uncritically assumed a divine mandate for the culturally assigned roles and limitations for women and colored races. In other words, much Mormon thinking and teaching was founded on the implicit assumption that God is a respecter of persons and all are not alike unto him. The almost totally Mormon Utah legislature passed stringent laws against inter-racial marriage and persistently killed fair housing and employment bills. Good Mormons cheerfully canvassed our neighborhood in eastside Salt Lake City with a petition to keep out a Jewish family. And most Mormons began to accept as the natural order the unusual gender role differentiation (perhaps only widespread before in upper-class Victorian society) that the prosperity after World War II made available to middle class America—the father as boss but at a job in an office all day and the mother totally absorbed in nurturing her children in isolation in a suburban home. 

It is easy to see why, despite our radically liberal theology and early history, we have responded very conservatively to the revolution toward racial equality that began in the late 1950s and the revolution toward gender equality that began a decade later. Very few Mormons got involved in the early stages, and the church for a time opposed equal rights laws that might lead to integration and made only luke-warm statements affirming civil rights in 1963 and again in 1969 in its last official statement about blacks not being allowed the priesthood. That policy of course, tended to make even liberal Mormons defensive and reluctant participants in civil rights efforts, partly, as I learned at Stanford, because our credentials were automatically tarnished and our motives suspect. 

All that seemed to change with the announcement in 1978. There was instantaneous churchwide rejoicing (we all remember what we were doing when we heard), quick expansion into areas missionaries had not been allowed to go before, and, with very few exceptions, loving acceptance of the new black converts and of their participation in the temple and in leadership. But we have never officially renounced the false theology that blacks—and by extension other races—are color-coded as to pre existent righteousness, and some blacks feel their full acceptance as per sons and as leaders is still limited. 

One black BYU student told me, in 1990, of sitting in a Pearl of Great Price class where someone asked why blacks had once been denied the priesthood and the instructor and class speculated for fifteen minutes on the various sins they might have committed there, with no apparent awareness that he was present—truly "the invisible man." Those two embarrassing books published in the 1960s, John J. Stewart's Mormonism and the Negro and John Lewis Lund's The Church and the Negro,[5] have not been repudiated, though both try to explain why blacks are denied the priest hood and in so doing use a temporary church practice to support a thoroughly racist theology and concept of a partial God, a respecter of persons. Such teachings directly contradict the central scriptural teaching that all are alike unto God, that he is no respecter of persons, and those teachings must be kindly but firmly rebutted in whatever form they appear, with knowledge and authoritative resources. Elder John K. Carmack, in his recent book Tolerance,[6] provides the most explicit renunciation yet by a church leader of the false ideas about the inferiority of non-white races—because of supposed "degeneration" from the "pure" white race of Adam or "choices in the pre-existence"—that developed in the church prior to 1978 and are still published, taught, and believed by some Latter-day Saints: "We do not believe that any nation, race, or culture is a lesser breed or inferior in God's eyes. Those who believe or teach such doctrine have no authority from either the Lord or his authorized servants."[7]

Elder Bruce R. McConkie, in a remarkable address given shortly after the 1978 revelation, quoted the passage from 2 Nephi 26:33 about all being alike unto God and said, "Many of us never imagined or supposed that these passages had the extensive and broad meaning that they do have,"[8] apparently because we had assumed, until that revelation, that there were essential differences, distinctions "unto God," between the races. Of course, we may still not understand the "extensive and broad meaning" of that scripture as it applies to gender—how all are alike unto God "male and female." 

The most challenging—and meaningful—human diversity is, of course, gender diversity. It directly affects us all, touches our deepest joys and insecurities, determines the very survival of human life, and for Mormons is intimately connected to the meaning of exaltation and the very possibility of Godhood. For most of us, in our highest concept of earthly felicity, in our sweetest imagining of heavenly glory, and in our excited anticipations of what makes Godhood possible and desirable and defines the nature of Godly power and creativity, "Neither is the man without the woman or the woman without the man" (1 Cor. 11:11). The gradual retrenchment from the remarkably liberated gender theology and practices of the early church continued into the 1970s, with the disempowering, under Correlation, of the Relief Society, the ending of its own publications and independent budget, even control over its lesson manuals. The Equal Rights Amendment was defeated, in good part through Mormon opposition. Through determined right-wing influence, Mormon women were marshalled against even the clearly beneficial proposals during the International Women's Year convention in Utah in 1977, beginning a process of dividing Mormon women and aligning a majority with fundamentalist religions which dogmatically oppose all efforts to improve women's rights and opportunities that can be labeled feminist. For a while Mormon women were even denied the right to pray in sacrament meeting and then for a while restricted to opening prayers. 

Perhaps most indicative of the depth of our present anxieties is the process of fearful escalation at local levels that has followed the admonition by President Gordon B. Hinckley in 1991 not to pray publicly to Mother in Heaven.[9] I understand that some local leaders are now telling their people they can't even talk about Mother in Heaven, and some students at BYU seem to have accepted that view as orthodox. What is most disturbing about such an unauthorized "improvement" on counsel and the fear it reveals is that the concept of Mother in Heaven is one of the great gifts of the Restoration, a keystone concept in the crucial theology of diversity I have described because it establishes genuine diversity as intrinsic to the very nature of Godhead. It gives the highest possible guarantee for the perfect equality of men and women, showing that there cannot be respect of persons in God because two persons dwell there, in perpetual otherness to each other. If we cannot solve our intrinsic aversion to the other, which places those infinite and inescapable demands on us, it isn't simply that we thus cannot be more like God, we cannot be Gods—which requires a perfect union of male and female. 

What are we to do then about what seem increasing divisions in the church centered around the efforts of some Mormons to join in the multicultural and feminist revolution? One frequent response is to quote Christ's command, "I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine" (D&C 38:27), as a way of condemning those whose otherness and interest in diversity seems to bring division. I don't believe, however, that Christ means "Be all alike in the Church or I won't accept you," but rather "Be like me by accepting each other in the Church, even if you're not all alike." He is asking us to be one in our acceptance of diversity, not as a denial of diversity. 

As evidence for this crucial interpretation, I offer the following: Just before making that command, Christ pleads, "Let every man esteem his brother as himself." He then retells a story of a man who has twelve sons and who claims to be no respecter of persons, a just man, but nevertheless "saith unto the one son: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there" (D&C 38:25- 26)—a clear parallel to the example I cited earlier that the apostle James uses to teach what "respect of persons" looks like (James 2:1-4). Finally, Christ concludes, "This I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you be one." Clearly, to be like Christ rather than the man in the parable, we need to learn to love unconditionally and treat equally all the members of our church and human families, no matter how different they are. 

I believe this is our greatest single challenge as Mormons—and as Americans and human beings—right now. We Mormons are experiencing the growing pains inevitable as we become a genuine world religion, soon to be preaching in every nation and with a membership approaching ten million. As a nation we are trying to cope with our increasing racial diversity and the struggle for women's rights. As a human family we are trying to cope with increasingly deadly prejudices, of which neo Nazism in Germany, the "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, lethal religious in tolerance in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and racial violence in American cities are only the most prominent examples. 

There is no room for smugness in this matter. All of us are sinners in this regard and need help so that we can be one, even be gratefully accepting of each other, despite our differences, in the Mormon and in the human family. In just the past year I have seen Mormons of all political and intellectual and spiritual varieties guilty of judging and rejecting others on partial and irrelevant grounds. Feminists have been called Nazis— and conservatives have been called Nazis. Conservatives have been stereotyped as stupid, not fit participants in the university community; liberals have been stereotyped as evil, not fit participants in the church community. The very terms "intellectual" and "feminist," which are traditionally neutral words describing certain people's commitment to rational discourse or gender equality—and thus ought to be terms of honor or at least respect for all Mormons—have been perverted into something like swear words. 

At the same time, general authorities have been stereotyped as senile, unresponsive, dishonest, sexist, even diabolically conspiratorial. Letters to the Deseret News and BYU Daily Universe are a constantly embarrassing revelation of the aggressive prejudice of some Mormons, their frank willingness to be respecters of persons and hunker down in fear of diversity. The challenge to Utah high school graduation prayers a few years ago provoked a huge outpouring of letters condemning the American Civil Liberties Union and asserting the right of the Mormon majority in Utah to control public religious life; one letter frankly stated, unaware of the irony, "We were once a persecuted minority who were denied religious freedom and driven out of the United States. Now we're in control, and if minorities don't like what we do they can leave." How easily we chosen people forget, when we get political control, that plea of God to us in Deuteronomy, "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (10:19). 

A letter last year in the Deseret News asking for understanding of those who have same-sex preference and challenging people to find any biblical evidence that God condemns the preference brought a huge num ber of homophobic letters that confirmed my sense that most Mormons do not make any separation between same-sex preference and homosexual acts, condemning both as sinful—even though the church position does make a clear distinction. A speech given by a visiting educator, Dawn Person, in 1993 at BYU during Black Awareness week, titled "Diversity: The Critical Need to Nurture Pluralism in Higher Education," was re printed in May in the Brigham Young Magazine for BYU alumni; the author discussed difficulties posed by the increasing diversity in our colleges and the great opportunities this could bring us all if we would learn to solve the resulting problems: "I challenge you to dream a world of higher education that is caring, just, open and honest, disciplined, civil, and supportive of diversity, multicultural issues, and pluralism." The next issue carried a host of negative letters attacking the article for "advocating a message so opposite to the standards of BYU and its alumni" and attacking the editors for publishing it. A recent letter in the BYU Daily Universe defended discrimination as merely part of God-given agency and as having scriptural precedent: "With god's help, Abraham discriminated by race, religion, sex, and national origin to choose a wife for his son. [The Book of Mormon] describes God creating race to segregate people." 

Such use of authority to justify attitudes and practices that directly contradict our affirmative theology of diversity must be clearly repudiated and thoughtfully rebutted. For instance, we can use recent Book of Mormon scholarship to help us understand the origin of darker-colored Lamanites in intermarriage with pre-Lehite peoples of probably Asiatic origin rather than as a genetic curse by God. We can also look sensibly at the evidence in the scriptures themselves that the racism and sexism in scriptural societies was culturally constructed not divinely directed: The Doctrine and Covenants warns us that God speaks to humans "in their weakness, after the manner of their language" (1:24), and the Book of Mormon preface warns us that any faults in the book "are the mistakes of men; wherefore condemn not the things of God." An obvious mistake, resulting from the cultural attitudes of the people who wrote the record, is the claim that God punishes sinful people and their descendants by curs ing them with darker skins; the Book of Mormon itself directly contradicts that idea by stating not only that all are alike unto God, black and white, but that "every man that is cursed [doth] bring upon himself his own condemnation" (Alma 3:19). Yet I have seen Mormons so resistant to the idea that even prophets can be at times affected by their cultural conditioning that, rather than consider that the writers of sexist or racist passages in the scriptures are reflecting a limited perspective, they would rather attribute racism and sexism in the scriptures to God himself—making him a respecter of persons! 

We need to look more carefully at what prophets are saying to us in our own time about the need for change in our cultural limitations. Elder Boyd K. Packer, concerning our entry into third-world nations, has ex claimed, "We can't move there with all the baggage we produce and carry 

here! We can't move with a 1947 Utah Church!"[10] President Howard W. Hunter has said: 

The gospel of Jesus Christ transcends nationality and color, crosses cultural lines, and blends distinctiveness into a common brotherhood.... All men are invited to come unto him and all are alike unto him. Race makes no difference; color makes no difference; nationality makes no difference.... As members of the Lord's church, we need to lift our vision beyond personal prejudices. We need to discover the supreme truth that indeed our Father is no respecter of persons.[11]

Contemporary philosophy and literary criticism has thoroughly demonstrated, I believe, the truth of the Lord's statement in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 1, about how all language, even scriptural, is affected by, though certainly not determined by, the cultural constructs of the speaker. This idea does not undermine prophetic authority but rather establishes clearly the need for continuous revelation and continuous individual spiritual confirmation and renewal in our understanding of prophetic discourse. As part of this we must constantly listen and respond as the prophets change. The "supreme truth" President Hunter evokes, that God "is no respecter of persons," must constantly take precedence over earlier statements by seminary teachers, authors of popular books, even by general authorities and the scriptures, that may seem to contradict it. 

We need to accept wholeheartedly the enormous, prophesied success of the church worldwide, and change ourselves so we can rejoice in it rather than impede it. Fine models for us are becoming available in both the increasing diversity of the church itself and also in the diverse spokespersons who are telling us their stories and challenging us to move forward with them. Catherine Stokes, whom most Mormons in the Chicago area know well, expressed to a gathering of Mormon women at Nauvoo shortly after the 1978 announcement an insight gained by her own sometimes painful diversity that could help us all: " [When I went to the temple for the first time], I took my blackness with me, and that was part of what I consecrated.... My blackness is one of the things that the Lord can use if he wants to."[12]

On 26 January 1993, Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi, our first native Japanese general authority, spoke at BYU's International Week and challenged us: 

We now see great turmoil and anger, pain, hunger, suffering, hate, jealousy, and dishonesty in our society, [which] cause us to lose human dignity and values.... We must continue to break down barricades. We must bring down the barriers of cultural misunderstanding and misconception. We must break down the spiritual Berlin walls in us. [To do so] we must understand [that] (1) God made all these nations and is now gathering them under His Wings. (2) The best prescription is to implement the Savior's teachings. (3) The love of God is already in the souls of the human family.[13]

The best teacher of these truths I know is Chieko Okazaki, the first non-Caucasian member of a church general board and now the first in a general presidency. As you may have noticed in any of her recent Women's Conference and general conference addresses, she makes diversity a central theme: In her first book, Lighten Up!, she begins by announcing, 

Diversity is a strength. I attend a lot of meetings where I'm the only woman. And I attend many, many meetings where I'm the only Oriental woman.... Have you ever had the feeling that you're the odd one, the different one? Maybe even too odd or different for this church? The truth is that you're not odd—you're special. When white light falls on a wall, it makes a white wall. But when it passes through a prism, that same light makes a rainbow on the wall [Like God during creation, I say] "Let there be light!" All kinds of light! Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet light. We need our differences. 

Sister Okazaki claims her favorite saying is 

In principles, great clarity. In practices, great charity.... When it comes to practices, I want kaleidoscopic vision.... I want the whole world of options to be at our fingertips so that we can consult our needs and wants when we decide how to apply those principles. I want us to make up our own minds, experiment with one form and abandon it without feeling guilty if we find it doesn't work, listen to what works for other people, find something else.[14]

She summarizes, in personal and practical terms, the heart of any theology of diversity: 

In Hawaii, I was surrounded from babyhood by differences—in language, in physical appearance, in dress, in economic level, in religion, in traditional men's and women' roles, in education, in race, in life-styles, and in customs. I observed differences, but I did not learn to label them as "good" or "bad."... Being different, I internalized, is all right. Heavenly Father wants differences. He does not make two identical blossoms or two snowflakes that are the same.[15]

I thought of these words in March 1993, at the Sunstone Symposium in Washington, D.C., as I listened to a panel of recent converts talk about the difficult new challenges as well as benefits of difference that are coming to the universal church. A young woman told how offensive to the Japanese is our standard Mormon phrase, "I know the gospel is true"— too assertive, too prideful; she pled that translation must increasingly recognize such extremely different cultural inheritances. A young Israeli talked of continuing to wear his Jewish skullcap, his yarmulke, for a year after he converted and of attending his family's prayer ritual for the dead—done for him as dead to them while standing fifty feet away, because he was still a Jew in culture and family. One friend tells me how difficult it is for the Finns to understand or live by our concept of "authority," and another tells me the French have such different ideas about visiting others, about the pace of life and family vacations, etc., that our Utah Mormon ways of doing home teaching and burdening bishoprics simply must be reconsidered. 

I recently heard that one new Mormon branch in India, before sacrament service on Sunday, gathers to chant for half an hour the name of the church in Hindi—as a mantra. As Sister Okazaki points out in her new book, Cat's Cradle, 

If you're a convert in the LDS church, you're aware of two separate religious cultures, but the gospel culture is the one that will ultimately infuse, replace, and transform every human culture on the earth. Are we trying to move into that gospel culture already, or are we putting our energy into preserving one of these old cultural forms like hierarchy and gender and youth and wealth that will be swept away when the Savior comes again?[16]

We are seeing new challenges and new delights—and gradual change, often encouraged by our leaders. In 1979 Elder Carmack, in an article in the Ensign entitled "Unity in Diversity," pled with the Saints not to encourage in any way jokes that demean and belittle others "because of religious, cultural, racial, national, or gender differences. All are alike unto God." He warned about stereotyping and judging: "Labeling a fellow Church member an intellectual, a less-active member, a feminist, a South African, an Armenain, a Utah Mormon, or a Mexican, for example, seemingly provides an excuse to mistreat or ignore that person."[17]

In October 1993 general conference, Elder Russell M. Ballard announced that in a recent meeting with the presidencies of the women's auxiliaries he'd been told that "very few women in the church express any interest in wanting to hold the priesthood. But they do want to be heard and valued and want to make meaningful contributions." He then went on to give specific suggestions about how the councils of the church could improve their work through focussing on people, through free and open discussion, and through wide and responsible participation. 

We live in difficult times. Many of us who value diversity, who believe the cause of truth is served by dialogue and the quality of our social and political and ethical life by healthy encounters with the other, have ourselves been excluded—labeled intellectuals, feminists, dissidents, heretics. We must not let these exclusions lead us to lose faith that God is no respecter of persons, that he has restored the gospel in part to provide a base and a people to "gather in one" all the lovely diversity—of race and culture and gender and perspective—that he has created and encouraged. We must be part of the gathering—to help it succeed and to save our own souls through the atonement of Christ. 

We must not let our resentments about being excluded—or seeing those we love and admire excluded—move us to exclude anyone or to put up walls that will further shut us out. Chieko Okazaki is a great model. She has been excluded often and painfully and bears her witness to us: "Having been excluded ourselves, we've learned to take extraordinary measures to include others.... What can you do? If you're waiting to be included, think about some steps you can take to put yourself at the center of a circle, a circle of inclusion."[18] We must keep ourselves included, by staying active, serving gently and creatively, seeking out those we offend to apologize and repent if need be, seeking out those who offend us to seek understanding and reconciliation rather than harboring resentments that easily turn into revenge. 

We must act to create circles of inclusion, in our wards, across ward boundaries, throughout the church. Keep this community of independent Mormon thought alive and Christ-centered; lend our voice for peace making and humility, for gentleness and meekness and love unfeigned. Write directly to church leaders with our concerns—never criticizing them to others. And also write directly with our love and support and specific thanks: write Bishop Robert Hales and thank him for his acceptance for the church of the thousand white roses sent at general conference in October 1993 as a gesture of reconciliation; write Elder Ballard with thanks for his talk at that same conference on including women's voices in our church councils; write Sister Okazaki and thank her for her courageous faith in Christ and in God's love of diversity. 

The widespread and thorough discussion, during last year's "quincentennary," of the nature and consequences of Columbus's voyages to America, raised important questions that we must face as Mormons who are now confronting very similar challenges to those Columbus brought the Catholic church: What is the spiritual status of people, especially of other races, who have long "dwelt in darkness," and what is our responsibility to them and ourselves as we intrude upon them with the version of the gospel of Christ developed in our culture? The Catholic answer was, of course, mixed and in many ways a failure, but Catholic theologians have analyzed that process in ways we can learn from, as they have, as we all now try to do better. 

Mormons, of course, agree with Columbus's own conviction that he was inspired and blessed by God in his voyages; because of him and the colonization that followed the gospel was brought back to Book of Mormon peoples and a way was prepared for the development of the United States, a country sufficiently formed by and respectful of diversity and freedom that the gospel could be restored there and go forth to bless all the world. 

But as the revisionist historians of recent years have graphically reminded us, Columbus himself participated in the exploitation and racist violence of the Spanish Conquest he made possible—which was followed by the Portuguese and French and English conquests and participated in by some of our own ancestors. Some Catholics, including Columbus's editor and biographer and champion Bartolome de Las Casas, as well as many heroic and sometimes martyred priests down to the present, strenuously opposed the violence and racism of the Conquest and tried to develop and promote their understanding that the impact of European civilization on others was justified only in bringing a non-intrusive and non-judgmental extension of the gospel of Christ to them. And Catholic theologians like Karl Rahner have tried to describe the gains in possible understanding for all of us—the new paradigms made possible—from the mistakes and new perspectives of this crucial historical experience of proselyting Christian cultures colliding with others. 

For instance, Rahner has articulated a way of understanding, given God's universal love and power, how Christ's grace must have been operating in non-Christian peoples all along: Christianity cannot "simply confront the member of an extra-Christian religion as a mere non-Chris tian but as someone who can and must already be regarded in this or that respect as an anonymous Christian. It would be wrong to regard the pagan as someone who has not yet been touched in any way by God's grace and truth."[19] Rahner also asks us to consider what did and what should happen to Christianity itself as it enters into a genuinely loving encounter with others in another culture. He points out that Catholicism was always a world church "in potency," but in the encounter with the New World brought on by Columbus it came for the first time to act, on a huge scale, like an export firm: it exported an essentially "European religion as a commodity it did not really want to change but sent throughout the world together with the rest of the culture and civilization it considered superior."[20] And as a result it has had to face the mistakes and evil that resulted and try to admit that, in a genuine world church, such cultural imperialism must give way to interaction and reciprocal influences in all the non-essentials. 

The restored gospel has given us a crucial additional concept to help us improve on the Catholic experience, as we face our own transition into a world church. Alone among Christians, we understand that God did not first reveal Christ's identity and saving gospel at the meridian of time but has done so again and again from the very beginning, in dispensation after dispensation in all parts of the world. Indeed in the Book of Mormon the Lord declares, "Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth" (2 Ne. 29:7). 

I can only understand that passage as giving even more concrete meaning to Karl Rahner's sense that Christ's grace has come to all, that every people has the word of God, much of it in written form, from the Hindu Baghavad Gita to the Ogalalla Sioux Black Elk Speaks. Part of our mission is to learn from them and delight in the diversity of revelation God has given. 

I do delight in that diversity—even while struggling with its challenges and often failing. I confess I experience the greatest challenge to my faith when I consider the enormous variety of races and cultures and people and, caught up in the popular Mormon notion that only those who have known Christ through our particular Western Christian and now American Mormon tradition have been "saved" or even experienced life properly, realize that perhaps less than one in ten of those who have lived have even heard of Christ and only one in a thousand have heard the restored gospel. Then I must consider, bleakly, that God is terribly inefficient and powerless, wasteful of those billions of suffering lives—and that we must expend even more concentrated, even desperate, effort to save a few more before Armageddon. 

In saner moments I remember God's universal love, and I open my imagination to the billions of diverse lives which have experienced that love in many diverse ways and enjoy being part of a missionary effort that will share what God has given them with what God has given us, with the genuine and joyful anticipation that we can all be changed and healed by each other and brought back to him. 

Finally as I face the most difficult and delightful form of diversity, that between men and women, I rejoice in what I believe is the greatest challenge facing our church at present—how to translate the assurance that all are alike unto God, male and female, into a theology of gender and church practices that fully reflect that equality and thus release the enormous spiritual energy and moral impetus that true gender equality and family relationships unfettered by the sinful traditions of the fathers would bring. The most challenging diversity is of course that provided by the partner in marriage, what Michael Novak describes as "seeing myself through the unblinking eyes of an intimate, intelligent other, an honest spouse."[21] And that I believe is what each of us must work through into genuine equality and delight before we can become as the Gods in the highest degree of celestial joy and creativity. We have not yet devel oped sufficiently the theology and practices concerning gender that will make that possible, and "all the blessings of the gospel" are therefore not yet equally shared. How that will come about I do not know, and it has apparently become a potentially actionable offense to speculate about it. I value my membership in what I believe is Christ's authorized church, led by his apostles, more than I do my speculations, so I will only voice my abiding faith that genuine equality will come in some form and before too long. God is no respecter of persons. 

---

[1] Lectures on Faith, Lecture 3, in any edition of the Doctrine and Covenants published before 1921; also in The Lectures on Faith in Historical Perspective, eds. Larry E. Dahl and Charles D. Tate (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1990).

[2] "The King Follett Sermon: A Newly Amalgamated Version," ed. Stan Larson, Brigham Young University Studies 18 (Winter 1978): 204.

[3] See his inclusion, on page 160 of his Seventy's Course in Theology, First Year (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press,1907), of a paragraph from William Benjamin Smith's The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn. 

[4] The Way to Perfection (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1931), see chaps. 7,15, and 16, esp. pp. 43-44 and 105-106.

[5] Stewart's book was published by Community Press of Orem, Utah, in 1960,1964, and 1967, and reprinted by Horizon Publishers of Salt Lake City in 1970. Lund's book was privately printed in 1968. 

[6] John K. Carmack, Tolerance: Principles, Practices, Obstacles, Limits (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1993).

[7] Ibid., 64. 

[8] Bruce R. McConkie, "All Are Alike unto God," speech delivered 18 Aug. 1978, published in Charge to Religious Educators (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1982), 152. 

[9] Ensign 21 (Nov. 1991): 100.

[10] Boyd K. Packer, "Address to the Church Coordinating Committee Meeting," 8 Sept. 1987, copy in library, historical department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, cited in Lee Copeland, "From Calcutta to Kaysville: Is Righteousness Color coded?" Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21 (Fall 1988): 97.

[11] Howard W. Hunter, "All Are Alike Unto God," Ensign 9 (June 1979): 72, 74.

[12] Lavina Fielding Anderson, "Making the 'Good' Good for Something: A Direction for Mormon Literature," Mormon Letters Annual, 1984 (Salt Lake City: Association for Mormon Letters, 1985), 163.

[13] Yoshihiko Kikuchi, "Breaking Barriers,” 1-2, speech delivered at Brigham Young University, 26 Jan. 1993, copy in my possession. 

[14] Lighten Up! (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 17.

[15] Ibid., 122-23. 

[16] Cat's Cradle (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1993), 65. 

[17] Quoted in ibid., 85.

[18] Ibid., 68.

[19] Karl Rahner, Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions, 131.

[20] Ibid., 717.

[21] Michael Novak, "The Family Out of Favor," Harper's, Apr. 1976, 42.

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Introduction 

From 1820 to 1860, most immigrants to the United States came from northern Europe. As a general American history book explained, "Wave[s] of immigration enhanced the wealth and progress of the country, yet encountered bitter opposition. . . . Sudden influxes of foreigners with strange ways and attitudes always do that, everywhere" (Morison 1965, 481). The discrimination northern European immigrants faced, however, was not nearly as harsh as that experienced by later immigrants from eastern Europe, Mexico, Central and South America, and Asia. African-Americans and Native Americans faced perhaps the most intense prejudice of all. 

While whites have dominated this nation since its founding, current research suggests that they will not remain the majority race in the United States. In 1990 three out of four Americans were white; but if current immigration and birth rates continue, by 2020 Hispanic and nonwhite U.S. residents will double, while the white population will remain the same. According to Molefi Asante, chairman of African American Studies at Temple University, "Once America was a microcosm of European nationalities. . . . Today America is a microcosm of the world" (in Henry 1990, 28-29). 

Religions have not been immune from ethnic discrimination. During the nineteenth century, European Protestants resented the arrival of Irish and German Roman Catholics; at the same time, Catholics had to adjust to those who professed the same beliefs but came from other cultures. To deal with these cultural differences, immigrants established national parishes, as Catholic historian Jay P. Dolan put it, "to preserve the religious life of the old country." The local parish served a variety of purposes: "For some it was a reference point, a place that helped them to remember who they were in their adopted homeland, for others . . . a sense of community could be found, for still others it gave life meaning, and it helped them cope with life in the emerging metropolis or the small town" (Dolan 1985, 164, 197, 207-8).

During the twentieth century, the Catholic Church began to emphasize integration, realizing that separate parishes "reinforced the ethnic differences of the people and enabled neighbors to build cultural barriers among themselves" (Dolan 1985, 21, 44). In 1980 the National Catholic Council of Bishops "urge[d] all Americans to accept the fact of religious and cultural pluralism not as a historic oddity or a sentimental journey into the past but a vital, fruitful and challenging phenomenon of our society." Rather than encouraging separate ethnic parishes, the church advocated those "that serve more than one nationality." Arguing that such parishes had not worked in the past "because they were ill-conceived, were based on mistaken perceptions of cultural affinities between groups, or were inadequately financed," these new "dual purpose parish centers (based upon the notion that religion will bind the ethnically diverse newcomers)" could "have the advantage of shared resources" and could eliminate the "logistical problem for church authorities" of parishes with different languages and cultures (Liptak 1989, 191-92, 202). 

For Euro-Americans, this integration in the Catholic Church eventually ran smoothly. For example, although German Catholics frequently had problems worshipping with the Irish, ultimately "their own desire to enter more fully into mainstream American life . . . and especially their retreat from any position that might be characterized as un-American . . . moved them away from separatist patterns of Catholic identification in the twentieth century." Assimilation, however, was more difficult for people of color. Hispanic and black Catholics, for example, according to one historian, found "their experiences within the American Catholic church tended to be even more painful than that of most European newcomers of the post-Civil War period. Members of each minority had to accept the segregated place set for them by society in general; in much the same way, they found themselves separated from other Catholics" (Liptak 1989, 111, 171). 

Mormon Ethnic Wards to the 1970s

Like the Catholic Church and unlike most Protestant Churches, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints professes to be a church for all the world. Therefore, it has experienced many of the same problems as the Catholic Church in dealing with immigrants. The problems were less intense during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, since the Church was small and new immigrant converts, urged to come to Zion, were eager to "adopt the manners and customs of the American people, fit themselves to become good and loyal citizens of this country and by their good works show that they [were] true and faithful Latter-day Saints" (McCracken 1986, 107). While the Church supported ethnic branches, organizations, and native-language newspapers, they considered them temporary measures to use until the newcomers learned English and became part of their geographical wards (Embry 1988, 222-35). 

However, as the Church grew worldwide, it was no longer practical, or even desirable, for all members to become Great Basin Mormons. Members now came from a variety of cultures rather than from a few European countries. This new growth created for the Church the same dilemmas the Catholic Church had faced at the turn of the century: How can the wards and branches best serve the needs of people whose language, culture, and life experiences are different from those of the majority? As minority people become more prominent in the United States and in Mormon congregations, how can the Church, and particularly its members, truly accept them and avoid discrimination and prejudice? 

Like the Catholics, the LDS Church has at times encouraged ethnic congregations. During the 1960s, for example, Apostle Spencer W. Kimball was very active in organizing Indian congregations, generally called Lamanite branches. There were even separate Indian missions in the Southwest and North Central United States (Whittaker 1985, 38-39). These congregations were organized to preserve the Native American culture. During the same time, Kimball and fellow apostle LeGrand Richards organized a German-speaking ward in the Salt Lake Valley. At that ward's initial meeting, Kimball explained that the Quorum of the Twelve favored the arrangement; as the Church expanded to all nations, it was not "not right" to force everyone to learn English. But the General Authorities hoped that as the immigrant members in the United States learned English, they would return to their geographical wards (German-speaking 1963). 

Ethnic branches continued throughout the 1960s. However, during the early 1970s, Church leaders questioned the utility of sponsoring separate branches. In a 1972 letter to all the stakes, wards, and branches, Church leaders explained that members should be conscious of "racial, language, or cultural groups." Where language barriers were a problem, special classes could be organized. If there were sufficient need, a stake could ask for authorization from the Quorum of the Twelve to organize a branch, but several stakes could not organize a branch together. Some stakes, like Oakland, thought they were supposed to dissolve their special units. Others, like the Los Angeles Stake, interpreted the letter as authorization to create language branches, but its request to form one was denied (Larsen and Larsen 1987, 55; Orton 1987, 262-63). 

In 1977, the Church introduced the Basic Unit plan, and the idea of ethnic branches returned. Initially planned as a program to help Native Americans, the Basic Unit plan was an effort to provide the essential Church programs for a small group that might not have all the leadership or membership to conduct the complex, regular Church programs. These simplified branch units provided a set-up for restoring ethnic branches. In describing the need for these units, President Spencer W. Kimball told the regional representatives in 1980, "Many challenges face all of us as we fellowship and teach the gospel to the cultural and minority groups living in our midst. . . . When special attention of some kind is not provided for these people, we lose them" ("Aid Minorities" 1980). Several changes led to separate congregations: increasing numbers of Southeast Asians immigrating to the United States, growing Church population in largely black sections of American cities as a result of increased missionary efforts following the priesthood revelation in 1978, and desire by ethnic groups such as Tongans, Samoans, Hispanics, and Native Americans to worship in their own language and with members of their own backgrounds. In 1990 language wards and branches organized in Salt Lake City during the 1960s, such as the German ward and several Tongan wards, were still functioning. Black branches have been organized in Charlotte and Greensboro, North Carolina. Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese wards can be found in communities from California to Virginia. Hispanic membership has grown so much in the Los Angeles area that there is now a Spanish-speaking stake. 

The roller coaster dilemma of whether to have separate ethnic branches or integrated wards continues, fluctuating according to which of two mutually exclusive concepts has the most official support. The first is the practical management problems posed by multi-cultural, multi-lingual units. Some branches have been organized because General Authorities and local church leaders felt, as Joyce L. Jones, stake Relief Society president of the international Relief Society units in the Oakland California Stake, put it, that "[ethnic groups] would learn better in their own language surrounded by other members who shared the same ethnic/cultural background" (Oakland Stake 1988). The second principle is the ideal —and idealized — view of gospel unity producing social unity. Paul H. Dunn, a member of the First Quorum of Seventy, articulated this view when he was rededicating a chapel in Oakland: "Do you think when we get to the other side of the veil the Lord is going to care whether you came from Tonga or New Zealand or Germany or America? . . . No. That's why we call each other brothers and sisters. That's why we are in an eternal family. The color of skin, the culture we represent, the interests we have are all quite secondary to the concept of the great eternal family" (Oakland Stake 1988). 

In practice, the Church's policy has vacillated because neither ethnic branches nor integrated wards have met the needs of all Church members. Language and cultural differences have often weakened the uniting ties of religion. And whether ethnic Latter-day Saints were Swiss-German immigrants to Logan, Utah, during the early twentieth century, Tongans settling in the Oakland, California, area, or Navajos on the reservation, they have voiced many of the same concerns about their experiences as Church members. The difference, however, is that the Swiss-Germans were usually integrated in one generation; other racial groups have had a longer and more difficult adjustment. 

Oral history interviews and manuscript histories give us valuable information about the ways ethnic Latter-day Saints have responded to separate branches. According to these sources, some of the advantages and disadvantages of ethnic groups seem to be universal, regardless of the ethnic group; others are unique to a specific group. It is also clear that segregated branches impacted not only the members of the branches, but white Latter-day Saints as well. 

This essay draws heavily on the experiences of Native Americans and Hispanic Americans, using examples from other ethnic groups to support the conclusions. As the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies continues its LDS Ethnic Oral History Project, researchers will be able to test these results with other groups including Tongan Americans, Samoan Americans, Chinese Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Cambodian Americans, and others. My essay "Separate but Equal?: Black Branches, Genesis Groups, or Integrated Wards?" (Embry 1990) covers many of these same issues for LDS African Americans. 

Advantages of Ethnic Branches 

There is a compelling reason for organizing and maintaining ethnic branches: they genuinely aid Church members with language and cultural differences. An elderly sister in the Spanish-speaking branch in Oakland, California, for example, illiterate in both Spanish and English, could participate once again in meetings, something that had been impossible in an English ward (Larsen and Larsen 1987, 38). The clerk of a Samoan branch in the Long Beach, California Stake declared with pride when the branch was organized in 1966, "Now we are taught in our own mother tongue" (Samoan Branch, 23 October 1966). Esmeralda Meraz, a Mexican American from Southern California, explained why her parents decided to attend a Spanish speaking branch: "Even though my dad speaks English, he has not mastered the English language and he can't communicate very well. He is not a very educated man as far as schooling is concerned. My mom has had less schooling than he has. . . . I think [my dad] felt that he would get more out of it and so would his family if we attended the Spanish branch" (Meraz 1991, 5). 

Cultural language is often as important as the spoken word. Ernesteen Lynch, a Navajo, recalled going to a Lamanite branch in Upper Fruitland, New Mexico: "When I went to Alma, we were all Navajo and we just automatically understood where the other was coming from. We didn't have to feel uncomfortable about what we did because we were all Navajo and we knew our Navajo-ness" (Lynch 1990). As Gabriel Holyan Cinniginnie, who traveled from Salt Lake City to attend the BYU Lamanite ward explained, "If you don't find good LDS Indian people, then you can lose your culture, get off track, and become more non-Indian. You lose your Indian point of view. You lose interest in being who you are and where you came from. You lose everything about your whole family as an Indian" (1990, 10). 

Shirley Esquerra Moore, a Native American, described a Navajo visiting teaching companion she had in the Poston, Arizona Lamanite Branch. That branch has been dissolved, and members are asked to attend a ward in Parker, Arizona. Moore said, "Let me tell you about Sister Redhouse. She's a Navajo woman, and she wears her Navajo clothing. She's what I think of as a typical Navajo woman. I feel like she's a spiritual giant. . . . I feel like people could learn from Sister Redhouse, but I don't know that she'd ever go to the Parker Ward because the cultural contrast would be too much for her to overcome" (1990, 10-11). 

Branches also give ethnic members opportunities to serve in a wider range of callings than they might have in a larger ward. In the Alma Branch in Upper Fruitland, New Mexico, "everybody was Navajo. The whole bishopric was Navajo. The Relief Society and every body was Navajo that had a calling" (Lynch 1990). Carletta O. Yellowjohn, a Shoshone Indian, enjoyed attending the Lamanite branch at Brigham Young University because it gave her an opportunity to serve as a Relief Society president (1990, 18). Edouardo Zondajo explained, "I think the underlying purpose of the Lamanite ward here [at Brigham Young University] is to give leadership training." He questioned why Native Americans were not given the same opportunities to serve in other wards, but added, "It's good for people to get opportunities to do things that they ordinarily wouldn't get a chance to do for some reason or another" (1990, 8). Esmeralda Meraz's parents also have been able to serve in the Spanish-speaking branches. Her father served as a branch president. When his job forced him to travel more, he was called as a Sunday School president. Her mother "has probably pretty much done about everything. She has worked in the Primary. . . . She has been Relief Society president before. She was the Young Women's president" (1991, 6). 

Spencer W. Kimball watched the growth of Native American Church members during his tours of the Southwest Indian Mission during the 1960s. He rejoiced when Native Americans took part in meetings, especially when they played the piano and sang. If their performance was not always the best, he complimented them in his journal on their willingness to participate. He recorded after a district conference in Kayenta in 1962, "It was thrilling indeed to see the beginning of what will become standard procedure in the future with Indian leaders in branches and districts, Indians at the piano, at the baton, Indians at the pulpit, Indians making the arrangements, Indians even furnishing the luncheon" (21 April 1963; 3 June 1962). 

Even when ethnic members adjusted to integrated wards, they acquired new skills and deeper spirituality when they could speak their native language or simply be with people from their own culture. Ernesteen Lynch felt a great deal of spirituality in a Lamanite congregation. Although Alma was a branch, she remembered it as being a ward: "Alma Ward was just a struggling Navajo ward that was trying to make ends meet in many different spiritual ways. . . . We all decided that we would make it the very best ward that we could possibly make it. We would be the very best that we could in terms of living the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . I'm not exaggerating when I say that we grew a lot together" (Lynch 1990). 

As an additional benefit, ethnic branches reduced the possibilities of perceived prejudice. Odessa Neaman, a Yakima/Shoshone Indian, recalled that after the Lamanite branch she attended in Washington state was combined with a ward, "things began to be bad, . . . There were different families, mainly white families. We had no grudge with them. I'd say they were pretty snobby." Her brother "became inactive because one of the people there." Because the bishop was concerned about saving money, he would shut off the lights while Indians, members and nonmembers, were playing basketball. Native Americans resented this, viewed it as prejudice, and stopped attending church (1990, 10-11). Helen Taosoga remembered going to a Lamanite branch in Omaha, Nebraska. When the branch was eliminated after she moved from the area, she went back to ask the former branch president, a Native American, about what had happened and why the Indians were no longer attending church. "He broke down and told me that the reason a lot of the Indians quit the Church was because they pushed them into a basement." For the Native Americans, this was proof that the rich white people did not want them in their meetinghouse (Taosoga 1990). 

Ernesteen Lynch was also concerned with economics: "If you go into a ward where people think another group of people of different color or different language are poor, the last thing you want to tell a person is, 'Gosh, you're poor.' But you can say that in so many ways outside of the words" (Lynch 1990). Edouardo Zondajas also described how economics can be expressed through actions. One of the reasons that the Native Americans didn't like to attend the wards in Omaha, he said, was because they would go and "see all of these white faces. Everybody was all dressed up and decked out. The men were wearing suits and ties, and the women were wearing dresses. There are not too many Indian women that wear dresses." In the branch, however, sometimes people would wear "jeans and a shirt." It didn't matter, though, because "no one looks down on anybody" (1990, 8-9). 

Esmeralda Meraz enjoyed attending the Spanish-speaking branch in El Centro, California, because "the kids that went there were my friends. I saw them as my friends. I felt very secure. I knew that no one was going .. . to make a reference to my skin color or the fact that I am Mexican. I was in my territory." When she attended seminary with the teenagers from the English-speaking ward, however, she explained, "I felt that they didn't like me, they saw me as a different person, and they didn't care. They would often make remarks and say things that didn't make me feel very good and didn't make me feel like I belonged" (1991, 9). 

Varying cultural habits could also be perceived as prejudice. It was hard, for example, for Ernesteen Lynch when she attended a ward in Provo, Utah. "White people don't shake hands like Navajos do. It took a long time for me to realize that just because they didn't shake my hand didn't mean that they didn't like me. In Navajo if you don't shake somebody's hand it's an offense to them. But white people just normally don't shake hands. I noticed they weren't shaking anybody else's hands too although they had all known each other for the last thirty years. I understood that through a long process of observation." But she felt differently about physical contact when she attended a ward in Kirtland, New Mexico. While she viewed shaking hands as an important part of Navajo culture, hugging she felt was inappropriate. "It seemed like I was constantly being reminded that I was a Lamanite. . . . [White] people were constantly telling me how much they loved me. I always got hugs. . . . I just don't consider church to be a hugging place. That's an action for me that's reserved for your family" (1990). 

Ethnic branches also give the Church a presence in ethnic neighborhoods. Navajos became interested in the Church and were more likely to attend an ethnic branch. Ernesteen Lynch said that funerals in the Alma Branch especially attracted nonmembers, who "were impressed by the hope that the bishopric gave in their talks at funeral services. They were impressed by the songs, the chorus, and the music being provided by Navajos and things just proceeding in an orderly and organized fashion." As a result, "people started coming to our church" (Lynch 1990). According to an obituary of Dolores Rivera (Lola) Torres, a member of the Lucero Mexican Ward in Salt Lake City, "The narrative of the ward . . . [and] her life is inseparably connected with its history. It was this fine woman, together with two of her sisters and other limited few who originated the missionary work among the Mexican people of Salt Lake Valley which led to the establishment of what was then the 'Mexican' branch" (Lucera Ward, 23 October 1961). 

When the Chinese-American branch was organized in San Francisco in 1962, Latter-day Saints received publicity in the Chinese newspapers and radio stations and sponsored social activities so the residents of Chinatown had an opportunity to be exposed to the Church (Chinese-American Branch 1986). 

Ethnic branches often planned activities unique to that culture which were popular and the members enjoyed a sense of home. In addition to its regular meetings, the Lucera Branch sponsored socials, operettas, and Mexican dinners. Its annual "Pinata Party" drew people from throughout the Salt Lake Valley, and its operettas helped fund-raising in other wards. Besides raising money, the annual December "party of Mexican food, excellent talent, and social dancing has served to provide a much desired contact with Latin culture" (Lucero Ward, 6 December 1958). 

Parties were also important to the members of the Annandale Asian Branch. Janean Goodsell, an Euro-American who was called to serve as Primary president in the branch, recalled, "Whenever we would have a branch party, it was unbelievable how many people were there. Everybody brought their friends. They loved having parties." Important parts of these socials were the native foods, talents, and dances. As Goodsell remembered, "They just loved the socializing and the food. I remember one time in particular. Maybe it was the Christmas party. They had people do different skits or talents. I just remember the people laughing so hard at this one skit. It was in Cambodian, so I didn't really know what was going on other than just watching what was happening. They were just laughing so hard. They just enjoyed it so much" (Goodsell 1991). 

Activities were very important to Native American members, too, according to Odessa Neaman. 

We had more activities when we were a Lamanite branch. That's because we knew that's how we could get our Indian people involved. It was just to invite them and to get them into the ward. Once they did that, more of them stayed for sacrament. They would stay longer in the Church. I think that's how some of them got converted because they were led to it by what attracted them the most. Then eventually they would start coming to Church and start thinking of spiritual things. (1990, 10) 

Cultural Differences and Ethnic Branches 

Often members of ethnic branches are all new and have no real perception of how the Church operates. Julius Ray Chavez, a Navajo, felt that the branch he attended in Sawmill, Arizona, was not especially good because "no one there really fully understood the nature of the Church. They only understood the branch and how it worked. They didn't know the whole Church system." Though that lack of understanding led in part to the focus on activities, Chavez saw that as a positive element: "What I liked about the small branch is that the people there were more activity oriented than they were religious oriented. You call a quilting thing and all the ladies will be there, even the nonmembers. You call a planting thing for the Church, and every body will be there. . . . But call a leadership meeting, hardly anybody will show up" (1990, 22-23). 

Ethnic members view cultural differences as positive as well as negative. For example, some ethnic groups have a different concept of time than most Euro-Americans. For Audrey Boone, "time management and being on time" were important reasons for having "a mixture of other cultures, especially the Anglo society" in a ward "because they are so rigid with their time. We need a little bit of them rubbed off with Indian cultures" (1990, 11). But that less-fixed time frame was something Edouardo Zondajas liked. He explained that the BYU Lamanite ward was "really laid back. I guess it's not as formalized. We don't start exactly on time. We don't get out of class exactly on time. There's not as much seriousness" (1990, 8). 

While smaller branches give more people the opportunity to hold positions, they often do not have enough members to fully staff the auxiliary organizations. According to Joseph Harlan, who served as a branch president in Macey, Nebraska, "Without the numbers, you can't really have all of the programs in the Church and all of the auxiliaries. You get a watered down version of the gospel. You have to do a lot of independent study to really get the meat of the gospel" (1990, 14). Esmeralda Meraz had similar experiences attending a Spanish-speaking branch in Southern California. When her family moved from Mexico to California and attended a Spanish-speaking branch there, she had difficulty adjusting. In Mexico, she explained, "I was used to attending these ward meetings, separating into my classes, and seeing my friends." In California, however, 

I felt like we weren't really part of what was going on. It was kind of discouraging to see only ten people, twelve people in the meetings. It was also discouraging not to see any youth. We were the only kids that were attending church. . . . We didn't really have any teachers in Primary or Young Women's. . . . We always had a feeling of not being complete and of not having everyone there that needed to be there to make it a successful experience for us every Sunday. 

She went on to explain that the Spanish branch 

didn't have the leaders. It didn't have people that were strong in the gospel. . . . There weren't people there who were examples of returned missionaries .. . or people who had been outside of El Centro or the Imperial Valley. (1991, 5, 10) 

Other ethnic groups had trouble fulfilling callings and adapting to the Church's lay ministry. Shirley Esquerra Moore loved attending a Lamanite branch in Poston, Arizona, but added, "It was frustrating. A lot of the members weren't too dedicated to their callings. Sometimes they wouldn't show up or call. At the last minute we'd have to improvise. Sometimes I wanted to shake them and say, 'Get with the program'" (1990, 10). Cambodians, for example, were not used to religious practices that included accepting callings, but they also considered it rude to say no. As a result, some accepted callings but did not attend meetings or perform the duties of the callings, thus confusing the Euro-American members in Oakland (Larsen and Larsen 1987, 45-46). 

A similar response in the Annandale Branch made the Asian members seem unreliable, and therefore branch leaders did not extend calls to them. Janean Goodsell, however, watched those attitudes change as Asian members started to feel more comfortable in the Church. "We even had one sister from the branch, Sister Sun, who accepted a call to serve as a counselor in the Primary with enthusiasm!" Because Sun was so new to the Church, Goodsell and the other Primary counselor charted out the responsibilities that they felt she could fulfill. After having her greet the children and observe Primary for a while, they asked her to teach during opening exercises. "Teaching in itself was new to her. So it seemed not overwhelming but a challenge to her. . . . She wanted me to come over and go through it with her. She basically did it herself, but she just wanted me to know what she was going to talk about and to make sure that it was okay. She did a wonderful job" (Goodsell 1991). 

Ethnic Branches and White Members 

The perceptions and perspectives of Euro-American members play a major role in the success of ethnic branches. Most traditional members were aware of the obstacles simply because they were often more visible and overwhelming than the successes. Quite often the problems they observed reinforced stereotypes that Euro-Americans had about a particular ethnic group. As mentioned earlier, some whites perceived the Asians as unreliable because they would accept callings and then not perform. Some whites also felt that Native Americans were cold and aloof. In summarizing a trip to the Southwest Indian Mission in 1967, Elder Kimball wrote, "The progress of the Indians in the years is unbelievable nearly. When I began coming to this area the Indians were backward and timid and frightened. When we approached them, they shyed off, hid their faces, stood like a post, and if we would shake hands with them it was a cold . . . hand they gave us. It was impossible to get them out to meetings and especially the men. Today many are coming out" (23 April 1963). The first part of this description fits many stereotypes Euro-Americans have of Indians; the "unbelievable change" involved Indians adapting better to the white's world. 

Despite the problems, though, whites recognized positive gains. Foremost among these was how prejudice dissolved when whites worked directly with racial groups. Janean Goodsell had already gained an appreciation for Asians on her mission to the Philippines. Serving in the Asian branch strengthened that commitment as she visited the children in their homes and served as a Primary president. In summarizing her experiences, she explained, "It is a neat experience to associate with people who are different in some ways. Yet you also find and see the common things" (Goodsell 1991). Learning about the hopes, desires, and needs that all people share helped whites called to serve in the branches see individuals rather than stereotypes. 

Working within the branches, Euro-Americans also learned about other cultures. White Relief Society helpers in a Ute branch in Gusher, Utah, recalled that their first year "was well spent. We feel we have made endearing friendships, helped them understand some of the Gospel principles, taught them the art of preserving, storing, remodeling, and making new clothes. Indeed they feel they can trust us, and that we really are interested in their welfare and we are trying to help them." These women recognized that the learning was not one-sided. "Here we got many good points from them. . . . They alone weren't just learning from us. But we also are learning from them, and we all are enjoying it immensely" (Gusher Branch, April-June 1951).

Janean Goodsell recalled one party when the Asians tried to teach the Euro-Americans a dance. "All of us tried to follow, but we were not able to do our hands like we were supposed to." The Asians, according to Goodsell, "always liked to see us eat their food." She added, though, that culture was more than just socials. "It is just a way of life and of thinking." She recalled asking the parents of two Thai children to come watch them perform in a sacrament meeting program. The parents explained to the children: "You kids can go to church on Sunday. We want you to be American. But we can't go because if we go our Gods will leave us" (Goodsell 1991). 

Ethnic members had positive and negative reactions to Euro Americans running the branches. Robert Yellowhair, a counselor in the Snowflake Third Branch presidency, explained at a stake conference that native Americans may not always understand the whites, but they did appreciate their help: "Many times when our white brothers and sisters talk, they use many big words that we do not understand. We need teachers to teach us in words we understand. We need your help to take us by the hand and show us more about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon" (Snowflake Third, 11 September 1966). 

Shirley Esquerra Moore, whose husband and father-in-law later served as branch president, resented the constant use of whites in the Poston Branch, noting that "since most of the Brethren were new in the Church and all of them are Lamanites, . . . maybe an advisor will work out very well." Therefore, a white couple was asked to assist (Southwest Indian, 2 May 1954). As a teenager in that branch, Moore had felt whites were used in the branch "because, of course, the Indians couldn't be leaders. What did they know?" (1990, 6). She added, "I'm being sarcastic," but emphasized that she felt that the Native Americans could have served very well in the branch. 

In an ethnic ward, however, only a few white members have a chance to appreciate another culture. In an integrated ward, more members have that opportunity if they choose it. The geographical boundaries of the BYU Lamanite ward actually include white members, then any Native Americans at the university are invited to attend. According to Audrey Boone, "It was kind of hard at first because there was a distinct segregation between the Lamanites and the [apartment] complex. It was just obvious there was a division among us." How ever, as time as passed, 

we've had sort of an education process. Many of the Anglos who are in the ward have learned a lot. They express their appreciation for what they have learned from the Lamanites. Not too many white people know a whole lot about Native Americans, the founders of the country. It's been good that way because they've come to appreciate a different culture and a different people. It's also the other way around. We've appreciated getting to know the Anglo ways, culture, and society. (Boone 1990, 11) 

Esmeralda Meraz, who attended a Spanish-speaking branch for sacrament meeting and an English-speaking ward for Young Women's meetings, noted: 

I had the opportunity to learn about . . . serving in the Church. I was asked to be the Laurel president. . . . I learned how to deal with people, how to use my English skills, and how to develop my leadership in the Church. I learned how to conduct a meeting. 

The adjustment had worked well for Meraz as a teenager; it was more difficult when she was in Primary. 

When I was younger. . . . I depended more on my parents and . . . I didn't have the knowledge of the gospel that I did when I got to be older. . . . When I went to a Spanish branch for sacrament meeting and then switched over to a ward for Primary, I didn't know the people in the ward. Being young, it was difficult to feel comfortable with people that my parents were not friends with. Also, it was difficult for me because I was still struggling to learn the language. (Meraz 1991, 8, 10) 

Ethnic members often helped strengthen traditional wards. When Alan Cherry, an LDS Afro-American, started attending the Rego Park Ward in New York City in 1968, a number of Hispanic Americans were joining the Church. Cherry was disappointed when a Spanish speaking branch was organized. Because a lot of the Hispanic members wanted to become bilingual, he hoped that the English-speaking members would make the same effort to learn Spanish. He felt that the ward's future energy left with the new Hispanic converts (1991). 

Conclusion 

Ethnic members can see the blessings of attending a ward where they can "worship with their own people," but they can also see problems in understanding Church organization and growing in the gospel. They appreciate the help of white Latter-day Saints but sometimes resent being considered part of what might seem to be "the white man's burden." LDS Euro-Americans, on the other hand, also have mixed feelings about working in ethnic branches. While many see the need for the branches, they view the ideal situation as assimilation. Neither group is sure what culture should dominate in an integrated church. Robert Hatch, a Navajo who used to attend the Alma Lamanite Branch, epitomizes the dilemma of many ethnic Latter-day Saints. When the branch was dissolved and members were asked to go to a geographical ward, Hatch quit attending. "For me it was dissolving this Lamanite Branch," he said. "I just miss it so much. It was joyous. It was always a friendly feeling to go there. . . . It's really sad to see it interrupted now." Yet when asked what he would do for Navajos if he were the stake president, he explained, "I don't know that I'd make such a big deal about Indians or Navajos. . . . Maybe our Lamanite Branch that we used to have wasn't such a good idea. It kept us se