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(Originally published in 2003)
Twenty-five Years after the Revelation—Where Are We Now?
JUNE 2003 WILL MARK THE TWENTY-FIFTH Anniversary of the announcement by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that all worthy male members, regardless of race, are eligible for priesthood ordination. The 1978 declaration created a moment of great hope and optimism within the Church, and many assumed this revelation would usher in a new era of success in proselytizing among African Americans. However, the promise of a quarter-century ago has only partially been realized. This is because the Church has not done enough to remake its racist past and present in such a way as to coincide with its mission to teach, preach, fellowship, and retain African Americans.
Projects designed to fully embrace African-American saints will meet with difficulties, I believe, until each of us recognize just how persistent and pervasive racism in U.S. society is. It is present in virtually every facet of life, including the workings of religious organizations. So, even though the priesthood ban was repealed in 1978, the discourse that constructs what blackness means is still very much intact today. Under the direction of President Spencer W. Kimball, the First Presidency and the Twelve removed the policy that denied blacks the priesthood but did very little to disrupt the multiple discourses that had fostered the policy in the first place. 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. A complete disruption of these discourses will require a rearticulation of Church history and an understanding of how that past interrelates with secular racial history. Further, a greater number of black voices will need to be heard in leadership and scholarly settings, where, with sensitivity and without the threat of censorship or sanction, they can communicate ways the now-defunct ban continues even today to create for African-Americans a position of “less-than” in Church spaces.
RACISM is articulated in multiple and complex ways. The popular perception of racism is that, either by word or deed, racists commit acts of aggression against someone of another race. The problem with this definition is that it assumes only individuals are implicated in racist practices whereas institutions are not—or, if they are, it is usually in isolated incidents. This notion that racism is a function of the individual keeps us from understanding the larger reality of racism as discourse in which social actors perform racial scripts in numerous ways.
For instance, many of us are familiar with slavery, sharecropping, Jim Crowism, segregation, and more subtle enactments of institutionalized racist practices. These are historical events that, thankfully, have been repudiated in the present-day United States, yet the racial perceptions about the “other” that underwrote each of these practices have yet to disappear. So instead of overt racism, most of today’s racial discourse operates in the way individuals, groups, and organizations interact with each other. In other words, how we see ourselves is, to a greater or lesser extent, through the prism of race. Race is not limited only to bodies and skin color, but extends to ideas, values, and beliefs that are held as “normative.” The primary locus of racism at this level is found in the privileging of one group over another. Typically in the United States, whiteness emerges as the preferred prism through which people come to appreciate history, art, literature, and popular culture, and which underwrites much that takes place in the justice system, as well as in business, education, housing, and health care.
In my graduate work in the field of cultural studies, I have found the dichotomy of blackness/whiteness to be helpful in unveiling how racialized discourse influences notions of power and privilege. Blackness and whiteness can be thought of as classifications that have been historically determined through social relations based on oppression, repression, and, to some extent, “progress.” So the construction of blackness as “other” in the Church was not an anomaly, especially given the overlapping secular racist discourses that were endemic in U.S. society—the way in which blackness was named by whiteness. For example, just as today whiteness constructs the idea of black urban spaces as dangerous, sexual, and drug-infested, whiteness in the Church also defined blackness as cursed. Until very recently, black people have not been able to name themselves (which may explain the seeming fixation of the black community to continually represent itself). Since their earliest contact with Africans, Europeans have represented blackness in a number of ways ranging from criminality and fear to myths about hypersexuality and about exceptional abilities in music and athletics.
The seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries produced many ideas about the black body through a regime of pseudoscientific truth.(1) During the eighteenth century, for example, black slaves in North America were construed as threefifths a person—chattel property without souls. Such a notion about blackness provided a basis for many whites to justify the inhumane treatment of black slaves. The power of language also enabled academic disciplines to embrace assumptions about black peoples’ so-called inferior values, mores, and behaviors. And whiteness, as the fortunate opposite of blackness and its negative attributes, became firmly established as “normative.”(2)
Not surprisingly, early LDS leaders were influenced by many of those ideas about blackness. Pseudo-scientific literature regarding the inherent status of blacks was abundantly available and even found its way into Church publications such as the Millennial Star, Times and Seasons, and Juvenile Instructor.(3) But, unfortunately, some leaders went further in portraying blackness in explicitly negative terms by adding a theological layer that implied these inferior characteristics and status were Godgranted or, at least, God-approved. The key element in this theological mix was the adoption of the idea (prevalent during the time it was appropriated) that God “marked” Cain with blackness and “cursed” him so that he would forever be persecuted. Early leaders extended this to mean Cain and his descendants would never hold the priesthood and taught that this mark and curse continued even after the flood through Canaan, Ham’s son through his wife Egyptus, whose descendants were believed to be the negroid races.(4) 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. A metaphorical reading of darkness as representing that which is loathsome is harmful enough, but many leaders taught that this as a literal fact, that God could and sometimes would darken the skin of those who fell out of his favor, and vice versa.(5)
Although African-Americans are not usually imagined to be among those who are the descendants of the Book of Mormon Lamanites, it is instructive to look briefly at some of the discourse in just this past half-century concerning this literal interpretation of the skin-color/God’s-favor link. In our lifetime, it has not been uncommon to hear Church members speak about “rescuing” the Lamanite (meaning Native American) population from its own spiritual demise. Numerous scriptural references in the Book of Mormon articulate that the Gentile/white population is supposed to take the gospel to the Lamanite people (Morm.5:15; 7:8), and many members take as literal the Book of Mormon passages that hint that the skin of Lamanites will whiten as they accept the gospel (Jacob 3:8; 3 Ne. 2:15). Spencer W. Kimball, the Church president who received the revelation that repealed the ban on black men holding the priesthood, manifested great concern for Native Americans during his long tenure as an apostle. Speaking in the October 1960 General Conference, he made a statement that was seen as powerful advocacy for this dispossessed minority but which also illustrates how language can powerfully inscribe color consciousness: “I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today. . . . For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome as they were promised. . . . The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.”(6)
ONCE IDEAS, EVEN erroneous ones, become internalized to where they work as the lenses through which we unconsciously view the world, it takes a great deal of effort to make them conscious again. And, to some degree, black people in the Church agree or accept—at least partially—the traditional discourse on black spiritual demise; otherwise they would not join. I did not find out about the priesthood ban on blacks until after I 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. I remain a member currently because of my faith in the Church’s basic doctrines and my hope that a more thorough change will occur to undo the traditional racial discourse on blacks still being perpetuated in many corners of the Church. It is not enough to change a social practice, policy or mandate without pushing through the arduous task of rearticulating the discourse that helped to create it.
Many Church members suppose that their leaders are inspired on virtually all matters, including race. But it is impossible for white people, even prophets, to really know blackness unless they develop relationships with blacks that move beyond mere acquaintance, peer, co-worker, or fellow ward member. Without many meaningful intimate relationships with the racialized “other,” how else can we move beyond the profound distortions brought on by the long-standing discourse and the warp of privilege? Even some of the LDS intellectuals who hail discourse on race and speak on those issues summon many of their notions from white sources and cultural spaces. Many seem to me to be cultural tourists, yet they are often called upon to give their “expert” analysis of blackness, just as most official discourse in the Church about the roles and divine nature of women is articulated by men. There is not nearly enough speaking from black spaces that can offer a different interpretation of reality.
Blackness as a discourse that embodies social practice must be reconfigured to provide a different construction of knowledge and truth. Blacks and whites must find new ways of creating mutual cooperation and unity in the Church, and blacks must be given more freedom to speak from the full range of their experience, not just from those experiences that fit comfortably within the predominant discourse. Otherwise, that discourse will never change. 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.
NOTES
1. Immanuel Kant, “On the Different Races of Man.” Found in This is Race: An Anthology Selected from the International Literature on the Races of Man (New York: Schuman, 1950); David Hume, Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1988); John Locke, Two Treatises on Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), chap. 1–6.
2. Some scholars have applied the term “regime of truth” to refer to this type of discourse. For example, much work done in anthropology, sociology, medicine, and law has created a way of talking about race that has inhibited access by many people of color to certain economic, housing, medical, and educational resources. For instance, even as legal scholars discuss the need for the law to be “colorblind,” they are actually acknowledging how “color conscious” it really is. And in popular culture, blacks have been represented as inclined toward criminal behavior, which, in turn, has had wide-reaching effects on criminal conviction rates. Biologists have argued that skin, bone, and hair are linked to all sorts of genetic characteristics, and such ideas have often been used to try to fix and secure human difference. The fallout from such constructions is that many members of racial groups “stay” within their own spaces because of the way these disciplines (law, anthropology, sociology, biology, and religion) have constructed and legitimized these differences. Thus the term “regime of truth” speaks to the fact that the concept of race is far more a social construction than a biological one, and that the term “race” is less a description than an instrument of power.
3. See Latter-day Saint Millennial Star 15 (1853):422, 20 (1858):278; Times & Seasons 4:375–76, 5:395, 6:857; Juvenile Instructor 3 (1868):142.
4. Interestingly, the Ku Klux Klan is one of the few “religious” groups who still teach that blacks descended from Ham. And although not actively perpetuating the doctrine through official channels, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, unlike many world traditions, has not sufficiently distanced itself from this folklore nor the extension by certain LDS leaders that blacks descend not only from Ham but from Cain as well.
5. The primary scriptural basis for this teaching is 2 Ne. 5:21.
6. Spencer W. Kimball, Conference Reports (Oct. 1960): 32–34.
Recently I have been simultaneously reading two books. One is called The Sixties Chronicle, which is basically a pictorial history of the events of the decade from 1960-1969 and also includes first hand accounts and commentary on the events. The other book is a biography of President David O. McKay called David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism and which, although written by two Mormons, is a pretty truthful and fairly unbiased account of President McKay's tenure as Prophet of the LDS Church and isn't shy about tackling controversial issues such as the Church's opposition to the civil rights movement, for example. I'm really enjoying both books immensely, and I've decided that in spite of his faults, I really like David O. McKay. He seems to be a great proponent of free agency, free thinking, and seems (to me, at least) to be a "spirit of the law" kind of individual as opposed to a "letter of the law" individual. That being said, he did also err on the side of inaction at times.
With the recent endorsement of the LDS Church, an ordinance in Salt Lake City which bans employment and housing discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgendered individuals was passed. Many gay rights activists were surprised by the Church's endorsement, and I admit I was surprised as well (but was very pleased by what I see as a positive step). The LDS Church is still adamant that it will not support gay marriage and will continue to fight for what it believes is right as far as that issue is concerned.
Some in the gay-rights community are skeptical, feeling that the LDS Church only did this to save face with those who have a less-than-favorable impression of the church and did it simply to boost their image. That may be true, although it seems to me the LDS Church usually does what it feels is right regardless of how popular those decisions make them.
Some in the gay community are also indignant, feeling that they owe the LDS Church no gratitude for this endorsement when the church is still actively working to deny their civil rights. This is an understandable feeling. I, for one, am grateful for any strides the LDS Church makes in regards to gay rights, just as I am thankful for strides that those in the gay-rights community make in creating an atmosphere of communication rather than antagonism. I think we all have a long way to go, but I am thankful for small steps even if it is "two steps forward, one step back" at times.
As I've been reading about the sixties, I am reminded of how volatile the issue of civil rights and desegregation could be, and although racism still exists today, it is fascinating to see how far the civil rights movement has come. It is interesting to look at the photos in The Sixties Chronicle and be 
reminded of a time not very long ago at all when black people couldn't sit at the same counter as white people or use the same restroom or drinking fountain; black people couldn't attend white schools and were denied employment because of the color of their skin; that a black person couldn't vote or marry a white person; that the whole "separate, but equal" idea was such a sham. One looks at these pictures and sees very plainly that whites were always given preferential treatment. They were given the better jobs, got to sit in the choicest seats, and weren't denied many of the normal things life didn't offer the African-American. And when blacks attempted to fight for their rights, they were assaulted, beaten, hosed, attacked by dogs, intimidated, threatened, and killed, often by the very people whose job it was to supposedly "serve and protect."
As I've read about these issues, it dawns on me that there were many segregationists who probably felt that the threat of civil rights for blacks was completely destroying the foundation of their very lives. They literally felt as if their world would fall apart if blacks were to obtain equal rights. I've seen pictures of a woman holding a picket sign that says, "Integration is a mortal sin." Another sign held by a young man says, "The only way to end niggers is exterminate." Another white man with a gun threatens a black man who is attempting to enter his store. Still another pours hydrochloric acid into a swimming pool where blacks are having a swim-in. Parents pull their white kids out of a school where a little black girl, attending first grade for the first time since desegregation has taken effect, has to be protected by federal marshalls. Police and local government leaders refuse to follow the policies the federal government has laid out concerning desegregation, and it is only through federal government protection that they publicly back down (although in private, they still commit some horrendous acts). A church is bombed and kills several black girls. Civil rights advocates are tortured and killed.
This was not so long ago. Even as I read this book about David O. Mckay, it is interesting to see where the LDS Church stood on civil rights issues. Realizing that church leaders and members were a product of their time, it is still amazing to me to see how blacks were treated by people who professed to belong to a church established by the Savior himself. Most church leaders were opposed to racial integration, including David O. McKay, and were suspicious of the civil rights movement. J. Reuben Clark, Henry D. Moyle, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Ezra Taft Benson, and Mark E. Peterson all opposed civil rights and said things that would certainly be considered racist today, if not then. There was a great resistance to change and progression as far as this issue was concerned.
One man in the First Presidency, Hugh B. Brown, was more progressive in this area and said the following in the October, 1963 General Conference when members of the NAACP threatened to picket Temple Square after being rebuffed in their desire to meet with the First Presidency:
“During recent months both in Salt Lake City and across the nation considerable interest has been expressed in the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the matter of civil rights. We would like it to be known 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.
We again say, as we have said many times before, that we believe that all men are the children of the same God and that it is a moral evil for any person or group of persons to deny to any human being the right to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship, just as it is a moral evil to deny him the right to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience.
We have consistently and persistently upheld the Constitution of the United States, and as far as we are concerned that means upholding the constitutional rights of every citizen of the United States.
We call upon all men everywhere, both within and outside the Church, to commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of God's children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the brotherhood of man."
While not sanctioned by the church at the time as an "official statement," it later was reluctantly elevated to "official" status two years later when NAACP leaders threatened to organize a series of marches in front of the Church Administration Building.
As I've read all these things and thought about today's current climate, I cannot help but see the parallels between the civil rights movement of the 60s, the women's rights movement, and the gay rights movement. Just as whites feared their world would come crashing down as blacks tried to gain equality; just as men thought their worlds was crashing down when women tried to gain equality; so I think many straight people feel the same way as gay people try to gain equality. It was not so very long ago, too, that you could be arrested for being gay or when homosexuality was considered a disease (and some people still feel that it is). Although I do think gay people have suffered discrimination and violence from hate-crimes, I do have to say that I think black people have been treated far more harshly in American history than gay people have (although I do think gay people have been treated very unfairly, too).
It is interesting to me that the LDS Church always seems to be in the rear and very slow on the uptake when it comes to equal rights. Church leaders in the 60s opposed civil rights legislation, and the state legislature consistently shot down bills that would give equal rights to blacks. The church also opposed the Equal Rights Amendment in the 70s. This quote is taken from a Utah history website:
"The attack against ERA seemed, at times, alarmist and hysterical. Equation of ERA with sexual permissiveness, abortion, child care, homosexuality, and unisexuality drew the debate away from the constitutional principal of equality to issues of 'traditional family values.' But the attack did reflect the fears of many about the changing roles of women and men and about the changing form of the family. There seemed to be danger in equality for the ideological/cultural concept of the father as head and provider, mother as nurturer and manager, and children as replicas into the next generation. Many feared the equality would make women more vulnerable and exposed, that men would feel freer to abandon family responsibilities.
Certainly it was these fears which prompted Mormon church leaders to eventually join their financial resources, their promotional skills and their far-flung network of members to the counterrevolution. Church leaders in 1976 described ERA as 'a moral issue with many disturbing ramifications for women and for the family as individual members as a whole.' President Spencer Kimball declared it 'would strike at the family, humankind's basic institution.'
Donations to support the anti-ERA effort were solicited by ward bishops; speeches against the amendment were deemed appropriate at all church meetings, and church buildings were used as an anti-ERA literature distribution points. Church sponsored anti-ERA organizations operated in Florida, Nevada, North and South Carolina, Missouri, Illinois and Arizona."
Likewise today, the Utah state legislature (which is predominantly Mormon) consistently shoots down bills that would protect the rights of gay citizens, and of course we are aware of the financial and grassroots backing that existed from the LDS Church in the fight for the passage of Proposition 8 in California. The parallels with both civil rights for blacks and equal rights for women seem very similar to the current gay-rights struggle vis-à-vis the LDS Church. But just as blacks and women have received more equality over the years (although there is still inequality, racism, and sexism that exists), I think it is inevitable that gay people will receive the rights they long for. I really do think it's a difficult, if not impossible task to stop "this rolling stone."
And just as I think it's hard to look back and read about the way the civil rights movement and battle against the Equal Rights Amendment (which people are still trying to pass) were handled by the LDS Church, I am reminded about the current battle that is happening with gay rights and wonder how history will view the LDS Church. I don't know what will happen or even necessarily what should happen, but I do think gay rights are going to be a reality, especially as the older generation dies and the newer generation, many of whom seem to support gay rights, comes to the forefront. There will be some lost battles, but I think the war will be won, and just as I know there were people who thought their worlds would collapse as blacks and women gained more equality, I think those people who oppose gay rights will be surprised at how little their worlds will really change for the worst. Heck, they might even discover that their worlds are better. Change can be a very good thing, even if some people don't believe it is progress.
I first learned of this book (by Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith) while listening to the podcasts of Mormon Stories by John Dehlin. He featured Darron T. Smith as one of his guests to talk about Blacks and the Mormon Church. Darron was just coming off being dismissed from BYU because of his work on this book (or at least a significant reason).
This whole podcast intrigued me and when he mentioned Black and Mormon I knew I wanted to get my hands on it. This intrigued me because one I am a white Mormon American woman and also from Utah, the main hub of the Church. I grew up in Utah County where we could count on one hand all the people of color in our schools, one Black, two Asian, and two Hispanic. Not a lot of diversity. So I go back to the question of why this should affect me, why should I be interested? Because I never was able to gain a view of that side of the world while growing up. My dad did a pretty good job on teaching us tolerance by his actions, which is so important. So I feel blessed by that. But by the time I came back off my mission, studying Spanish and Applied Linguistics in college I really wanted to gain various perspectives, struggles, cultural ideas and traditions into my own worldview. I had gotten so much of that on my mission and attending college outside of Utah.
I was fed the same folklore of Blacks being descended from Cain and thus the reason they were denied the priesthood and temple covenants for so long, it never sounded right to me, but I never questioned it either. I glossed over the details in the Book of Mormon on Nephites being good and thus white and the Lamanites being bad and thus the curse of darkness came upon them. So with this “white is better” culture and dogma I really began to wonder what other people felt about this. What is a person’s reaction when they find the joy and spirit of the gospel and then find out if they had joined a few decades earlier they would have been denied the most sacred promises of God?
The other reason I find it interesting, intriguing and important is because I feel marginalized as a woman in a male-centered Church. I feel these questions are important to look at and ask. And so I picked up Black and Mormon.
There are eight articles and each focus on various aspects of Blacks in the Mormon Church. I want to focus on the ones that really stood out for me.
“How Do Thing Look on the Ground?” The LDS African American Community in Atlanta, Georgia by Ken Driggs
I found this article so refreshing on how diversity in the United States and in a Mormon ward/branch can find what they are looking for in their worship. I feel too often that worshiping becomes a tradition, the way things have been, and therefore should always be. So to learn that this ward in Georgia can have a spiritual and meaningful sacrament meeting is so amazing! I really want to head down there to Georgia to live at least for one Sunday the wonder that is their ward! I feel that this is important since our Church is our Church meaning that it should incorporate traditions and cultures and backgrounds of those in the congregation.
Another topic it explores is how the racist policies of the Church’s past affect black members of the Church. It’s hard to fathom that the racist folklore is still being passed around in Church, that many missionaries will still use those false ideas to explain it all away when it only brings more hurt.
I have also found the stories in this article to be inspiring, because despite the racist policies and doctrines of the Church many still stay and find their own peace and answers from God.
Unpacking Whiteness in Zion: Some Personal Reflections and General Observations by Darron T. Smith
I really loved this article by Darron. He puts it all out there on the table for us white people and I find that refreshing and once I think about it, so true.
Darron explains:
"Whiteness is a cultural and social construction, a system of structural privileges that advantages whites in way the people of color do not experience. Whiteness is not only limited to bodies and skin color but also to ideas, knowledge production, values, and beliefs that are held as the norm…People of color are rarely seen in movies except as villains or as sidekicks to the white protagonists. Books, greeting cards, children’s toys, billboards, and popular magazines are overwhelmingly situated in whiteness…Whiteness as a protected and often guarded entitlement goes unnoticed and, because unnoticed, also unchallenged. As a result, white people are either unable or unwilling to recognize how their elite position enables them in numerous and significant ways." (p. 151)
I’ll never understand what it’s like to be looked at differently, treated differently because of my skin color, my traditions, and my background. So let’s talk about it, get it out there in the open.
Never in church do I recall anyone asking the questions about why blacks were denied the priesthood or any whys really. I was just recently talking to my dad about this and he finally admitted that ‘yes, mistakes were made.’ But even being a history major he fully believes that the Church has never been racist, that during the Civil War the North was not racist and the South was; two very big dichotomies that allow us to see things as either or, black or white, and nothing in between. Could Brigham Young still be considered an inspired prophet while holding racist theories and ideas? Well, yes. The Lord can only work with what He’s got so if that means he’s got lots of bigoted white folks I guess that’s what he’ll have to use. So old traditions are going to get in the way, thus we’ll continue to get older, white, and usually American, but now spreading to Western Europe general authorities.
I feel it’s extremely important to talk about race issues, women’s issues, culture, traditions, and well, all issues within the Church. Where is a better place to discuss it than in Church with our fellow worshipers?
To me this book brought to light the good, the bad, and the ugly within the Church. It’s important to recognize what needs to be talked about before we can actually talk about it. I’ve been so enlightened by reading this book, so much more aware how my actions or lack thereof can leave a permanent mark. Granted, I’m living in Utah County once again and find diversity lacking, but now when it does come up I have more enlightenment and knowledge to share with others. It’s my responsibility to destroy the awful folklore that I hear and see as well as be open to new ideas as diversity continues to grow and hopefully, in turn help others on this path as well.
(Originally published in 2003)
