By Sandra Tanner

Twenty-six years ago, in June of 1978, the LDS Church announced the end of its priesthood restrictions for blacks. Since one of the foundations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the claim that priesthood is essential to act in God’s behalf, the change opened the way for blacks to be on an equal basis with other members. In the LDS manual Gospel Principles we read:

We must have [ LDS ] priesthood authority to act in the name of God when performing the sacred ordinances of the gospel, such as baptism, confirmation, administration of the sacrament, and temple marriage. If a man does not have the priesthood, even though he may be sincere, the Lord will not recognize ordinances he performs. (Gospel Principles, p. 81, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1995 edition)

Since almost every male in the Mormon Church has some sort of priesthood office, the restriction on blacks meant that they could not participate in any leadership position. In addition to this, Mormonism teaches that a person must be married in the temple in order to achieve the highest level of heaven, or eternal life (see Gospel Principles, p. 297). However, the priesthood ban on blacks meant that they could not have a temple marriage, thus keeping them from achieving eternal life, also referred to as exaltation.

While the ban has been lifted, the LDS Church has yet to clarify its theological view on race or why the ban was ever instituted.

Racism in Early Mormonism

Joseph Smith seems to have accepted the prevalent view of his day that darker skinned people were not as favored by God as white skinned people. This attitude is reflected in the Book of Mormon, which tells the story of a group of Israelites who fled Jerusalem about 600 BC and came to America. They soon divided into two groups, the righteous Nephites, who were “white”, and the wicked Lamanites, who were cursed with “a skin of blackness” (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 5:21). The story claims that when Lamanites converted to Christianity “their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites” (3 Nephi 2:14-16). The Introduction to the current Book of Mormon maintains that the Lamanites “are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.”

Even though early Mormonism reflected many of the same racial attitudes of the larger community, they did not restrict church participation on the basis of race. Viewing the Native Americans as descendants of the Book of Mormon people, Joseph Smith referred to them as “Lamanites.” In 1830 he inaugurated a mission to the Indians in Missouri (see Doctrine and Covenants [D&C] 32:2).

Armand Mauss commented:

In assessing the significance of Mormon relationships with the Indians during the lifetime of Joseph Smith, one must concede the part that these relationships played in inciting the hostility of other Americans against the Mormons, especially in Missouri . . . Prophecies in the unique Mormon scriptures, as well as some Mormon commentary on those prophecies, seemed to justify such suspicions. When the Book of Mormon has Christ promising that the “remnant of Jacob” (i.e., Indians) shall go among the unrepentant Gentiles “as a young lion among the flocks of sheep” (3 Nephi 21:12-13), it would make the Gentiles wonder. Nor would they likely be reassured by public proclamations warning the unrepentant Gentiles that God is about to sweep them off the land because of the “cries of the red men, whom ye and your fathers have dispossessed and driven from their lands” . . . As part of an emerging separate ethnic identity, the Mormons began to define their destined homeland as extending from Wisconsin down to Texas and from Missouri across to the Rockies and even beyond, with the Indians as partners in building Zion throughout that entire region. (All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage, by Armand L. Mauss, University of Illinois Press, 2003, p. 55)

Soon after publishing the Book of Mormon in 1830 Joseph Smith began working on the Book of Moses (printed in the Pearl of Great Price) which reflected the same community concept that blacks descended from Cain (see Moses 7:8, 12, 22). Even though the Mormons at that time accepted the common idea that blacks were from the cursed lineage of Cain they did not view this as restricting their church participation. A few blacks were baptized and at least two were ordained to the priesthood.

When Mormons started settling in Missouri in the early 1830’s their attitude toward Native Americans and blacks became a concern of their neighbors. Many Missourians worried that Smith’s church, founded in New York, was anti-slavery (see Lester E. Bush, Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 12).

To appease their slave-holding neighbors, on July 16, 1833, the Mormons published an article in their newspaper stating:

“. . . our intention was not only to stop free people of color from emigrating to this state, but to prevent them from being admitted as members of the Church.”
(Evening and the Morning Star, Extra, July 16, 1833)

Writing in 1836 Joseph Smith stated:

I do not believe that the people of the North have any more right to say that the South shall not hold slaves, than the South have to say the North shall. . . . It is my privilege then to name certain passages of the Bible . . . “And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant” (Gen. ix:25, 26). . . . I can say, the curse is not yet taken off from the sons of Canaan, neither will be until it is affected by as great a power as caused it to come . . . (History of the Church, vol. 2, p. 438)

Oddly, right at the time Smith seems to have been developing his racial doctrines he allowed the ordination of a black named Elijah Abel. Although there may have been at least one other black ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s life, Elijah Abel was the only one mentioned by LDS historian Andrew Jenson:

Abel, Elijah, the only colored man who is known to have been ordained to the priesthood . . . was ordained an elder March 3, 1836, and a seventy April 4, 1841, an exception having been made in his case with regard to the general rule of the church in relation to colored people.
(L.D.S. Biographical Encyclopedia, vol. 3, p. 577, 1901-1936, Deseret News)

[Bold in quotations is added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]

Even though Elijah Abel was allowed to retain his priesthood and go on a mission after the Mormons came to Utah, he was not allowed to participate in the temple endowments (see Dialogue, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 28-29).

In 1842 Joseph Smith published his Book of Abraham, which is part of the Pearl of Great Price, in the church-owned Times and Seasons. This new work reflected Smith’s growing racist attitude towards blacks and priesthood:

Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, . . . From this descent sprang all the Egyptians, and thus the blood of the Canaanites was preserved in the land. (Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham 1:21-22)

Further on in the same chapter we read that Pharaoh, being a descendant of Ham, could not have the priesthood:

Now, Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood . . . (Book of Abraham 1:27)

LDS author Stephen Taggert observed:

With the publication of the Book of Abraham all of the elements for the Church’s policy of denying the priesthood to Negroes were present. The curse of Canaan motif borrowed from Southern fundamentalism was being supported with the Church by a foundation of proslavery statements and attitudes which had emerged during the years of crisis in Missouri. . . .
(Mormonism’s Negro Policy: Social and Historical Origins, by Stephen G. Taggart, p. 59, University of Utah Press, 1970)

Doctrine of Pre-Existence

During this time Joseph Smith started formulating his doctrine of man’s pre-earth life. Preaching in 1844, Joseph Smith taught:

The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal [co-eternal] with God himself . . . God never did have power to create the spirit of man at all.
(History of the Church, vol. 6, pp. 310-311)

The Book of Abraham explains that those who were “noble” in their pre-earth life [man’s first estate] were to be the “rulers” on earth [man’s second estate] (Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham 3:22-23). This led to an interpretation that everyone’s birth on earth is a direct result of his/her worthiness in a prior life in heaven. Thus those less valiant were born black while the righteous were born white, with the most worthy being born into Mormon families. In 1845 LDS Apostle Orson Hyde explained that blacks were inferior spirits in the pre-earth state:

At the time the devil was cast out of heaven, there were some spirits that did not know who had authority, whether God or the devil. They consequently did not take a very active part on either side, but rather thought the devil had been abused, . . . These spirits were not considered bad enough to be cast down to hell, and never have bodies; neither were they considered worthy of an honourable body on this earth: . . . But those spirits in heaven that rather lent an influence to the devil, thinking he had a little the best right to govern, but did not take a very active part any way were required to come into the world and take bodies in the accursed lineage of Canaan; and hence the Negro or African race. (Speech of Elder Orson Hyde, delivered before the High Priests’ Quorum, in Nauvoo, April 27, 1845, printed by John Taylor, p. 30)

Seed of Cain

After the Mormons moved west, Brigham Young, the second president of the church, became very adamant in his disapproval of blacks. Preaching in 1859, at the October Conference of the LDS Church, President Brigham Young declared:

Cain slew his brother . . . and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. . . . How long is that race [blacks] to endure the dreadful curse that is upon them? That curse will remain upon them, and they never can hold the Priesthood or share in it until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof. Until the last ones of the residue of Adam’s children are brought up to that favourable position, the children of Cain cannot receive the first ordinances of the Priesthood. They were the first that were cursed, and they will be the last from whom the curse will be removed. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 290)

On another occasion Brigham Young declared:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 10, p. 110)

Preaching in 1882, John Taylor, the third president of the LDS Church, taught:

Why is it, in fact, that we should have a devil? Why did not the Lord kill him long ago? . . . He needed the devil and great many of those who do his bidding just to keep . . . our dependence upon God, . . . When he destroyed the inhabitants of the antediluvian world, he suffered a descendant of Cain to come through the flood in order that he [the devil] might be properly represented upon the earth. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 23, p. 336)

LDS Attitudes Toward Blacks in the Twentieth Century

Scholar Armand Mauss observed:

Finally, in an important 1931 book, The Way to Perfection, the scholarly young apostle Joseph Fielding Smith . . . synthesized and codified the entire framework of Mormon racialist teaching that has accumulated . . . Integrating uniquely Mormon ideas of premortal decisions about lineage with imported British Israelism and Anglo-Saxon triumphalism, [Joseph Fielding] Smith in effect postulated a divine rank-ordering of lineages with the descendants of ancient Ephraim (son of Joseph) at the top (including the Mormons); the “seed of Cain” (Africans) at the bottom; and various other lineages in between. (All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage, by Armand L. Mauss, p. 217, University of Illinois Press, 2003)

Writing in 1935 Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, who later became the 10th president of the LDS Church, explained the curse on Cain:

Not only was Cain called upon to suffer [for killing Abel], but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race. . . . Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with a black skin and have been denied the privilege of Priesthood and the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain. (The Way to Perfection, by Joseph Fielding Smith, Genealogical Society of Utah, 1935, p. 101)

Elder B. H. Roberts, of the council of Seventy, wrote:

. . . I believe that race [blacks] is the one through which it is ordained those spirits that were not valiant in the great rebellion in heaven should come; who, through their indifference or lack of integrity to righteousness, rendered themselves unworthy of the Priesthood and its powers, and hence it is withheld from them to this day. (Contributor 6:297, as quoted in The Way to Perfection, p. 105)

LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, son-in-law of President Joseph Fielding Smith, wrote:

Those who were less valiant in pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the negroes. Such spirits are sent to earth through the lineage of Cain, the mark put upon him for his rebellion against God and his murder of Abel being a black skin. (Mormon Doctrine, 1958 edition, pp. 476-477; second edition, 1966, p. 527)

In 1949 the LDS Church First Presidency issued an official statement on priesthood denial to blacks:

The attitude of the church with reference to the Negroes remains as it has always stood. It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time. (As quoted in Black Saints in a White Church, by Jessie L. Embry, Signature Books, 1994, p. 24)

Civil Rights Movement

During the 1960’s and early 1970’s there were demonstrations and extensive articles denouncing the LDS teaching on blacks.

In January of 1963 the LDS Church announced a mission to Nigeria but it was aborted when the Nigerian Outlook printed articles attacking the Mormon position on blacks and the Nigerian government refused to grant visas to LDS missionaries.

From 1968 through 1970 students at various colleges protested against the LDS position on race. Tensions mounted against BYU and its sports department to the point that in 1969 Stanford University announced it would end participation in any sporting events with the Mormon school. The Salt Lake Tribune reported:

The Stanford University Student Senate has voted overwhelming approval of the institution’s ban against sporting events with Brigham Young University over a racial question. (Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 25, 1969)

Stanford’s policy of not scheduling games with BYU stayed in place until after the 1978 revelation. Gary Bergera and Ron Priddis commented:

At the time of the [1978 priesthood] announcement, only four American blacks and a handful of Africans were enrolled at BYU. During the three years following the announcement, the number of blacks rose to eighteen American and twenty-two foreign blacks . . . As a direct result of the priesthood revision, Stanford University decided in 1979 to remove its ban against athletic competition with BYU.
(Brigham Young University: A House of Faith, by Gary James Bergera and Ronald Priddis, Signature Books, 1985, p. 303)

One Drop Disqualifies

One of the problems for the Mormons regarding the priesthood restriction was their stand that anyone with black ancestry was barred. Speaking at BYU on August 27, 1954, Apostle Mark E. Petersen explained:

We must not inter-marry with the Negro. Why? If I were to marry a Negro woman and have children by her, my children would all be cursed as to the priesthood. . . . If there is one drop of Negro blood in my children, as I have read to you, they receive the curse.
(Race Problems—As They Affect the Church, speech by Mark E. Petersen, BYU, August 27, 1954; reproduced in Curse of Cain? Racism in the Mormon Church [Appendix B]; also available from mormonthink.com [PDF])

With the mixed racial profile of many people in South Africa and South America, especially Brazil, it was becoming obvious that some priesthood holders had black ancestry. LDS scholar Jessie L. Embry discussed the struggle that had been going on in Brazil:

. . . church membership in Brazil had grown enormously during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Determining who was black had always been a sensitive issue in the racially mixed country. In 1978 a temple, from which blacks would be excluded, was under construction. (Black Saints in a White Church, p. 28)

Through the years there had been numerous private meetings of LDS Church leaders discussing these issues and trying to resolve the problems. When the church announced in 1975 that a temple would be built in Brazil some of the leaders must have realized that the priesthood ban would have to come to an end once the temple was dedicated (see All Abraham’s Children, p. 237).

Prelude to Revelation

LDS scholar Lester E. Bush, Jr., observed:

The 1970’s will be a challenge to historians for years to come: Black activist harassment of BYU; the Genesis Group; litigation with the Boy Scout movement; Roots-spurred interest in genealogy; heightened leadership awareness of the historical antecedents of current Mormon beliefs; and once again questions over the identification of the cursed lineage, this time with reverberations in both Brazil and the U. S. Congress. . . .

The greatest challenge to future historians, and that of most interest and importance, will be 1978 itself, about which very little can now be said with confidence. There are a few tantalizing hints. That the forthcoming dedication of the Brazilian temple figured conspicuously in the deliberations leading up to the revelation is clear from some published comments. LeGrand Richards, for example, is quoted as saying, “All those people with Negro blood in them have been raising the money to build the temple. Brother Kimball worried about it. He asked each one of us of the Twelve if we would pray—and we did— that the Lord would give him the inspiration to know what the will of the Lord was. . . . ”

Beyond this the story is hazy and intriguing. According to his son Edward, President Kimball was “exercised about the question” for “some months at least,” during which time “he could not put it out of his mind.” He solicited individual written and oral statements from the Twelve, conveying, to Apostle Richards, the impression that “he was thinking favorably toward giving the colored people the priesthood.” That any such disposition followed a great internal struggle is evidenced by a statement from President Kimball himself, in an interview with the Church News: “ . . . I had a great deal to fight, of course, myself largely, because I had grown up with this thought that Negroes should not have the priesthood and I was prepared to go all the rest of my life till my death and fight for it and defend it as it was.” Indeed, according to son Edward, his father “could not comfortably debate things about which he felt deeply.”

Whatever the contributing factors, President Kimball apparently was persuaded even before the June first revelation—as Richards suggested—that a change in the priesthood policy was indicated. . . .

The “revelation and assurance came to me so clearly,” Kimball later said, “that there was no question about it.” The revelation thus appears to have been a spiritual manifestation in confirmation of a decision made after a period of lengthy and profound study and prayer. This “spiritual witness” was reportedly experienced by all present at that time as well as a week later when the First Presidency presented their official statement to the Twelve. (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 12, no. 2, Summer 1979, pp. 10-11)

Historian D. Michael Quinn discussed this process. He observed that President Kimball had

met privately with individual apostles who expressed their “individual thoughts” about his suggestion to end the priesthood ban.

After discussing this in several temple meetings and private discussions, Kimball wrote a statement “in longhand removing all priesthood restrictions on blacks” and presented it to his counselors on 30 May. (The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, p. 16)

The next day, on June 1, 1978, the group prayed in the temple and received personal confirmation that it was time to change the policy. Gordon B. Hinckley explained:

No voice audible to our physical ears was heard. But the voice of the spirit whispered into our minds and our very souls. (As quoted in The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, p. 16)

Quinn goes on to explain the events leading up to the public announcement:

On 7 June 1978 Kimball informed his counselors that “through inspiration he had decided to lift the restrictions on priesthood.” In the meantime he had asked three apostles . . . to prepare “suggested wording for the public announcement of the decision.” The First Presidency used the three documents to prepare a fourth preliminary statement which was “then reviewed, edited, and approved by the First Presidency. This document was taken to the council meeting with the Twelve on Thursday, June, 8, 1978.” The apostles made additional “minor editorial changes” in the nearly final statement which was then presented to all general authorities the next day, just hours before its public announcement. (The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, p. 16)

This process hardly sounds like a direct revelation from God to the prophet. In what way does this chain of events equate with a “revelation”? How is this process any different from any other religious leader praying for divine guidance and then acting on those spiritual promptings?

The 1978 Announcement

For over a hundred years the Mormon leaders had taught that blacks could not be given the priesthood until the millennium. In 1854 Brigham Young taught:

When all the other children of Adam have had the privilege of receiving the Priesthood, and of coming into the kingdom of God, and of being redeemed from the four quarters of the earth, and have received their resurrection from the dead, then it will be time enough to remove the curse from Cain and his posterity. He deprived his brother of the privilege of pursuing his journey through life, and of extending his kingdom by multiplying upon the earth; and because he did this, he is the last to share the joys of the kingdom of God. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p. 143)

Yet on June 9, 1978, the Mormon Church’s Deseret News carried a startling announcement by the First Presidency of the church that stated a new revelation had been given and that blacks would now be allowed to hold the priesthood. Although the ban was lifted in June, the declaration was not presented to the church for formal acceptance until September 30, 1978 at the Fall Conference. N. Eldon Tanner, counselor to President Kimball, read the declaration to the congregation:

To Whom It May Concern:

On September 30, 1978, at the 148th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the following was presented by President N. Eldon Tanner, First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church:

In early June of this year, the First Presidency announced that a revelation had been received by President Spencer W. Kimball extending priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy male members of the Church. President Kimball has asked that I advise the conference that after he had received this revelation, which came to him after extended meditation and prayer in the sacred rooms of the holy temple, he presented it to his counselors, who accepted it and approved it. It was then presented to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who unanimously approved it, and was subsequently presented to all other General Authorities, who likewise approved it unanimously.

N. Eldon Tanner then read President Kimball’s letter to the priesthood:

Dear Brethren:

As we have witnessed the expansion of the work of the Lord over the earth . . . This, in turn, has inspired us with a desire to extend to every worthy member of the Church all of the privileges and blessings which the gospel affords.

Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us that at some time, in God’s eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood, . . . we have pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the Upper Room of the Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance.

He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, . . . Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color. . . .

Sincerely yours,

SPENCER W. KIMBALL
N. ELDON TANNER
MARION G. ROMNEY

The declaration was then presented to the assembly who gave it their full support.

Declaration 2, in the Doctrine and Covenants, was obviously carefully crafted by church officials. As a matter of fact, it never even mentions that it was the blacks who had been discriminated against prior to the revelation.

Stating that they “pleaded long and earnestly” for the change implies that God has been a racist for thousands of years, and that Mormon leaders “by pleading long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the upper room of the Temple” finally persuaded God to give blacks the priesthood.

The Bible, however, informs us that “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him”(Acts 10:34‑35). It was the Mormon leaders who kept blacks under a curse.

Finally, when missionary efforts around the world were being hampered by the doctrine, Mormon leaders were forced to change their position. Historian Jan Shipps commented on the reason for the announcement:

The June 9 revelation will never be fully understood if it is regarded simply as a pragmatic doctrinal shift ultimately designed to bring Latter-day Saints into congruence with mainstream America. . . . This revelation came in the context of worldwide evangelism rather than . . . American social and cultural circumstances.
(As quoted in Black Saints in a White Church, p. 27)

Questions Remain

Was the original ban based on scripture or revelation? Many Mormons have maintained that the priesthood ban was a policy, not established by revelation. If it was only a policy, why did it take a revelation to end it?

If a revelation was received in June of 1978, why isn’t the specifically worded revelation published instead of a statement about a supposed revelation? Declaration 2 is not the revelation.

If Declaration 2 represents a revelation to the church, why wasn’t it numbered with the other sections of the Doctrine and Covenants? The two Declarations at the back of the D&C seem to be policy statements putting an end to practices, but neither contains the words “thus saith the Lord” or repudiates the doctrine behind the practice. If the revelation included a repudiation of past teachings on race and color why isn’t it published?

Another contradiction is the fact that the revelation was given too early. According to Brigham Young, the priesthood would not be given to the blacks until after the resurrection:

. . . they [descendants of Cain] never can hold the Priesthood or share in it until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises . . .
(Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 291)

This was obscured in the 1978 declaration that said “Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us that at some time, in God’s eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood.” Past leaders had said that blacks would eventually receive the priesthood, but they maintained that it would be after everyone else had had a chance to receive it.

Teaching Not Renounced

Reporter William Lobdell wrote:

It took until 1978—14 years after the Civil Rights Act—before the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lifted the ban following what leaders said was a revelation from God to make the priesthood available to “every faithful, worthy man.”

The new doctrine came without an apology or repudiation of the church’s past practice. . . . Mauss and others believe that a church repudiation of past policies would help, but that would be difficult because it was never clear whether the racism was a divine revelation—which couldn’t be apologized for—or man-made law. (“New Mormon Aim: Reach Out to Blacks,” Los Angeles Times, September 21, 2003)

Armand Mauss observed:

Certainly these old doctrines have not appeared in official church discourse for at least two decades. . . . However, as long as these doctrines continue to appear in successive reprintings of authoritative books and are freely circulated at the Mormon grassroots, they will continue to rankle many of the black Saints. (All Abraham’s Children, p. 252)

On page 262 Mauss continues:

To repudiate any of the cherished religious lore of their immediate ancestors seems to some Mormons, especially the older ones, to be almost a repudiation of the grandparents themselves, to say nothing of their teachers, who might have walked with God. . . . One need point only to the struggle in Utah even now over plural marriage: Despite the long arm of the law and the church’s strenuous repudiation of polygamous practices, the traditional doctrines underlying plural marriage still survive even in mainstream Mormonism. Why should traditional racial doctrines be any easier to set aside? (All Abraham’s Children, p. 262. Italics in original.)

Writing in the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Stack pointed out:

For most white members, the ban controversy is over, but the issue continues to haunt many black members, especially in the United States. They are constantly having to explain themselves and their beliefs—to non-Mormons, other black converts and themselves. And no matter how committed to LDS teachings and practices they are, they must wonder: If this is the true church, led by a prophet of God, why was a racial ban instituted in the first place? (“Faith, Color and the LDS Priesthood,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 8, 2003, pp. A1, A12)

Blacks in the LDS Church

Since 1978 LDS missionary work in the United States has gained a small but significant number of black converts. However, there seems to be a problem with retention. Mauss observed that “Mormon missionary work among American blacks does not seem to be thriving, even after the 1978 change in priesthood policy” (All Abraham’s Children, p. 261). Their greatest success among blacks has been in Brazil and Africa.

On the news page for the official Mormon web site, http://www.lds.org, is an article on their growth in Ghana. They report that in 1978 Ghana had about 400 Mormons. In December of 2003 they dedicated a new temple in Ghana to serve the approximately 23,000 members in that country.

Most of the blacks who join Mormonism are not aware of the past racist teachings of its prophets and leaders. When they read the earlier statements they are usually upset and want an explanation from the church.

A black convert, participating in a round-table discussion on race and Mormonism, observed:

We can say what we want to say in this room today, but nothing is going to change until somebody says in General Conference meeting, “Racism in the Church is wrong.” By not saying it, they’re condoning it. They’re condoning Brigham Young’s statements; they’re condoning John Taylor’s statements; they’re condoning things that need to be repudiated. A statement may not stop everything, but it will make people think, because, by not saying it, they’re condoning it. (“Speak the Truth, and Shame the Devil,” Sunstone, May 2003, p. 33)

Darron Smith, a black convert, wrote:

. . . even though the priesthood ban was repealed in 1978, the discourse that constructs what blackness means is still very much intact today. . . . Hence there are Church members today who continue to summon and teach at every level of Church education the racial discourse that blacks are descendants of Cain, that they merited lesser earthly privilege because they were “fence-sitters” in the War in Heaven, and that, science and climatic factors aside, there is a link between skin color and righteousness. . . .

Further anchoring the early LDS appropriation of negative notions concerning blackness are several Book of Mormon teachings that associate dark skin with that which is vile, filthy, and evil, and white skin with that which is delightsome, pure, and good. . . .

I did not find out about the priesthood ban on blacks until after I had joined the Church, and, sadly, I passed on much of the folklore while serving an LDS mission in Michigan. Looking back on that experience, I venture to say that had I known about such teachings in the Church, I might not have joined. . . .

Blacks who do move toward Mormonism should not be made to feel that blackness is synonymous with curses, marks, or indifference. And this can be accomplished only by a formal repudiation, in no uncertain terms, of all teachings about Cain, the pre-mortal unworthiness of spirits born to black bodies, and any idea that skin color is connected to righteousness. (“The Persistence of Racialized Discourse in Mormonism,” by Darron Smith, Sunstone, March 2003, pp. 31-33)

Conclusion

While the LDS Church is to be commended for its humanitarian work in Africa and among minorities, it does not offset the damage done by racial teachings of its past leaders. The teachings in the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price associating dark skin with a mark of God’s judgment, along with racist statements of past prophets and apostles, need to be officially repudiated.

The Bible offers eternal life to all mankind, regardless of race. Jesus told his disciples to go “into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

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