The LDS Church and African Americans THE PRIESTHOOD BAN
 

Mormons experienced a more fundamental problem in dealing with whether they were black Americans, black Brazilians, or black Africans.  Whether blacks should be integrated into the regular wards and branches was almost a mute issue because there were few black members.  This stemmed from the policy that until 1978 barred black men from the lay priesthood.  After Joseph Smith's death a policy developed which prevented black men from holding certain church positions open to men of all other races.  Black men and women were also excluded from receiving temple ordinances.

Like most Northerners, early Latter-day Saints opposed slavery.  But like nearly all Euro-Americans, they believed that blacks were [p.23] mentally and morally inferior.  At least two black men, Elijah Abel and Walker Lewis, were ordained during Joseph Smith's lifetime.  Religious discrimination can nonetheless be traced to Smith's early statements.  In 1841 he said that biblical Ham had been cursed with a dark skin by his father Noah and that this curse continued to the "posterity of Canaan." The next year he identified "negroes" as "sons of Cain." In May 1844 just before his death, he declared, "Africa, from the curse of God has lost the use of her limbs."23 Such rhetoric was not unique to Mormons.  Southerners also linked blacks with Ham and Canaan as did Northerners who argued against abolition.24

After Smith's death in 1844, Mormon opinions about blacks became more prejudiced.  A church newspaper, the Times and Seasons, reiterated Smith's statement in 1845 that blacks were "the descendants of Ham." Apostle Orson Hyde subsequently wrote that blacks "did not take an active part on either side" in a pre-earth life conflict between Satan and a pre-mortal Jesus.

Anglo spirits, according to Hyde, supported Jesus, while those who sided with Satan were denied an earth existence.  By the time Mormons had reached Winter Quarters, Nebraska, on their way west, Apostle Parley P.  Pratt could declare that William McCary, a self-proclaimed prophet, had "the blood of Ham in him which linege [sic] was cursed as regard [to] the priesthood."25

These 1840s statements shaped Mormon views.  No blacks were ordained after that period although previous ordinations were not rescinded.  Although Elijah Abel was a faithful member the rest of his life, he was not allowed to receive temple blessings.  Jane Manning James, a black woman who joined the church, moved to Nauvoo, and then traveled to Utah, also petitioned leaders to receive her temple endowment but was denied.26

Over the years Mormons continued to reinforce priesthood denial by attributing apocryphal statements to Joseph Smith.  In 1879 Abraham O.

Smoot, a former Southerner who served a mission there, [p.24] claimed that Joseph Smith had told him in 1843 "what should be done with the Negro in the South, as I was preaching to them.  He said I could baptise them by consent of their masters, but not to confer the priesthood upon them."27

In 1887 Apostle George Q.  Cannon asserted that "the Prophet Joseph Smith taught this doctrine: That the seed of Cain could not receive the priesthood nor act in any of the offices of the priesthood." In 1904 Joseph F.  Smith, then church president, assumed the policy had come from Joseph Smith and, four years later, claimed that Abel's priesthood "ordination was declared null and void by the Prophet himself' because of his "blackness."28 In fact, Abel had participated in the Third Quorum of Seventies up until 1883.  Joseph F.  Smith himself had even ordained Abel to go on a mission in 1884, a mission Abel was unable to complete because of illness.29

The First Presidency did not issue an official public statement of priesthood denial until 1949: "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."30 The statement was a reaction to the growing number of blacks moving to Utah during World War II.

In 1963 the First Presidency tried with limited success to separate priesthood exclusion from the Civil Rights movement.  In an official statement, they said: "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 on 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 [p.25] enjoyment of full civil rights by any person regardless of race, color, or creed."31 Church observers generally agree that this statement was made because the NAACP had threatened to picket Temple Square.  The statement, a concession that prevented such action, continued by affirming equal opportunities in housing, education, and employment while still maintaining the right of the church to deny priesthood.

Just a few weeks after this statement was issued, Joseph Fielding Smith, the son of Joseph F.  Smith and later church president, told Look magazine, "'Darkies' are wonderful people and they have their place in our church." The next year he stated that "the Lord" established priesthood denial.32

In 1965 the NAACP, noting that the church-owned Deseret News had not endorsed a state civil rights bill, threatened to picket the church's administration building.  The newspaper responded by confirming the 1963 church statement, and the state legislature passed the public accommodations and fair employment acts.33 Yet not all church leaders supported civil rights.  Ezra Taft Benson, then an apostle and later church president, claimed that the movement was "fomented almost entirely by the communists."34

As the Civil Rights movement made gains nationwide, Mormonism's exclusionary policy came under repeated attack.  In addition to NAACP action, universities refused to play Brigham Young University in athletic events.  Black members of the New York City Planning Commission threatened to block construction of a Mormon-owned building near the Lincoln Center.

The NAACP filed a suit against the Boy Scouts of America because a black could not be a scout leader in Mormon patrols.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir canceled an engagement in New England because black clergy opposed its appearance.35

Coupled with national pressure came growing dissent from within the church.

Lowry Nelson, a Mormon sociologist, wrote to the church's leadership in 1947 protesting the exclusionary policy.  In 1952 he announced his public opposition in Nation.  Sterling McMurrin, a [p.26] philosophy professor at the University of Utah, also corresponded with LDS church leaders and spoke against the Mormon view of blacks during the 1960s.36

In 1969 the counselors of then incapacitated church President David O.

McKay signed a statement confirming priesthood denial but omitting references to Cain and Ham and to a premortal life.  "From the beginning of this dispensation," the statement read, "Joseph Smith and all succeeding presidents of the Church have taught that Negroes, while spirit children of a common Father, and the progeny of our earthly parents Adam and Eve, 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 men."37 This concession was insufficient.  LDS historians and sociologists tracing the roots of the policy could find no historical evidence that it was based on revelation.38

At the same time some Mormon activists tried unsuccessfully to force the issue.  Douglas A.  Wallace, a Vancouver, Washington, attorney, baptized and ordained a black, Larry Lester, in 1976.  The ordination was declared void and Wallace was excommunicated.  In 1977 Bryon Marchant, a Boy Scout leader in Salt Lake City, was excommunicated for voting against Spencer W.  Kimball as church president at general conference in protest of the church's racial policies.39 Other members lobbied church leaders in other ways.40 Still the church held firm, enduring bad publicity and refusing to engage in debate.

By 1978 most protests had died down.  Doubtless many Mormons experienced increased social, educational, and professional contacts with blacks as a result of the Civil Rights movement.  They sensed that the nation had moved to a new place and felt the gap between the [p.27] nation's and church's positions.  However, few if any expected the policy to change soon, which may explain the shock that accompanied the First Presidency's 9 June 1978 declaration:

As we have witnessed the expansion of the work of the Lord over the earth, we have been grateful that people of many nations have responded to the message of the restored gospel, and have joined the Church in ever- increasing numbers.  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, and witnessing the faithfulness of those from whom the priesthood has been withheld, 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, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows there from, including the blessings of the temple.  Accordingly, all worthy members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color.  Priesthood leaders are instructed to follow the policy of carefully interviewing all candidates for ordination to either the Aaronic or the Melchizedek Priesthood to insure that they meet the established standards for worthiness.

We declare with soberness that the Lord has now made known his will for the blessing of all his children throughout the earth who will hearken to the voice of his authorized servants, and prepare themselves to receive every blessing of the gospel.  ...

From Jessie L.  Embry, Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons.  Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994. Chapter 2


CAUSES OF THE REVELATION

Most observers agree that foreign trends had more impact on the policy change than external pressure or internal debate. Non-Mormon historian Jan Shipps, writing in Christian Century, explained: "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."41

At least two pressure points can be identified. First, since at least 1946 blacks in Nigeria had been asking for missionaries to come to that country and had organized churches using the Book of Mormon.42 At one point in 1963 missionaries were called, but the Nigerian government refused to admit them after learning of the priesthood restriction. Some general authorities also questioned committing resources to Africa at all. Still, LaMar Williams, an employee of the missionary department, visited the would-be Mormons in Nigeria several times and was impressed with their spirit and eagerness to accept the church, including priesthood restriction.43

Second, church membership in Brazil had grown enormously during the 1960s and 1970s. 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. Complicating the .problem was the perplexity of determining which deceased men were "eligible" (that is, not black) for proxy ordinations to priesthood.44 (Mormons believe in vicarious proxy baptisms, priesthood ordinations, and marriages for the dead.)

A third important ingredient in the timing of the revelation was the personality of church president Kimball. Long viewed as the "Lamanite apostle," Kimball also supported other ethnic groups. At general conference in April 1954, he commented, "It pleases me greatly to notice that at each succeeding conference there is a larger sprinkling of Japanese and Chinese brothers and sisters; of Hawaiians and other islanders; of Indians, Mexicans, Spanish-Americans, and others." Kimball explained his talk would be "on behalf of those minorities." While most of the talk focused on Native Americans as part of the tribe of Israel, he denounced racial prejudice as "a monster.

... Often we think ourselves free of its destructive force, ut we need only to test ourselves. Our expressions, our voice tones, our movements, our thoughts betray us .... Until we project ourselves into the very situation, we little realize our bias and our prejudice."45

Kimball was well acquainted with black Mormons. For example, when he went to Brazil, he often visited with black members there. Helvecio Martins, who became a general authority in 1990, was present at the cornerstone laying for the Brazilian temple in 1977. Kimball called him to the podium, embraced him, and told him, "Brother, what is necessary for you is faithfulness. Remain faithful and you will enjoy all the blessings of the Church."46 According to Edward L. Kimball, "My father always had a personal feeling for minorities, deprived people."47

President Kimball's own discussion of the announcement focused on human needs of church members. Speaking to missionaries in South Africa in October 1978, he confided:

I remember very vividly that day after day I walked to the temple and ascended to the fourth floor where we have our solemn assemblies and ...

our meetings of the Twelve and the First Presidency. After everybody had gone out of the temple, I knelt and prayed. I prayed with much fervency.

I knew that something was before us that was extremely important to many of the children of God. I knew that we could receive the revelations of Lord only by being worthy and ready for them and ready to accept them and put them into place. Day after day I went alone and with great solemnity and seriousness in the upper rooms of the temple, and there I offered my soul and offered my efforts to go forward with the program.48

During one of the sessions at the dedication of the Brazilian temple, Kimball mentioned his extended pleadings in prayer. He said that the policy of priesthood exclusion was one he had always defended and supported. He pledged to the Lord that he would continue to support it but sought to know "if there was any way at this time that the destiny of lack people in the Church could be changed." It was after that long petitionary process that he received the answer.

Other general authorities were touched by the plight of Brazilian members. During Kimball's prayer dedicating the Brazilian temple, Gordon B. Hinckley, Kimball's first counselor, wept and during his address spoke tenderly about the revelation. He said the First Presidency had been aware that black members in Brazil had given financial support to the temple, never expecting to enter the building themselves.49

Apostle James E. Faust, who supervised church activities in Brazil, recalled in an oral history interview how black members had worked alongside whites to construct the temple. He told the First Presidency that black members helped "to make blocks for the temple just like anybody else." He remembered that church leaders had discussed the priesthood revelation prior to its public announcement.50

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie provided the most detail. Speaking to a group of Church Educational System employees, he set the scene as the first Thursday in June, a day when the First Presidency and apostles regularly met in the Salt Lake temple. Except for those ill or out of town, everyone was present. They had come fasting, which was also customary, and after a three-hour meeting also attended by the Seventies, the Twelve and the First Presidency remained in session. McConkie recalled: "When we were... by ourselves in that sacred place where we meet weekly..., President Kimball brought up the matter of the possible conferral of the priesthood upon those of all races. That was a subject that the group of us had discussed at length on numerous occasions in the preceding weeks and months."

Kimball told about his prayers. McConkie continued: "He said that if the answer was to continue our present course of denying the priesthood to the seed of Cain, as the Lord had theretofore directed, he was prepared to defend that decision to the death. But, he said, if the long sought day had come in which the curse of the past was to be removed, he thought we might prevail upon the Lord so to indicate." Kimball then asked for comments, and McConkie recalled those present "all esponded freely .... There was a marvelous outpouring of unity, oneness, and agreement in the council."

After two more hours Kimball asked if they could have a formal prayer and if he could be the voice. McConkie continued, "It was during this prayer that the revelation came. The Spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon us all; we felt something akin to what happened on the day of Pentecost and at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple." The message was that the priesthood was to go to all, regardless of color or race, "solely on the basis of personal worthiness. And we all heard the same voice, received the same message, and became personal witnesses that the word received was the mind and will and voice of the Lord."51

Ten years after the revelation, Elder Hinckley spoke at a "fireside" sermon for teenage boys. Looking back ten years he recalled his feelings during that "remarkable" experience and clarified the sequence. The meeting described by McConkie had occurred a week before the revelation was announced on 1 June 1978. On the first Thursday of each month, the general authorities gather for a testimony meeting. After the Seventies left, President Kimball offered a prayer. Hinckley did not recall the exact words but said he felt the heavens open. "The spirit of God was there, and by the power of the Holy Ghost" he was assured that all men should receive the priesthood. There were no rushing winds, "but there was a pentecostal experience because the Holy Ghost was present." A week later on 8 June 1978, the announcement was made to the Seventies and other general authorities. A statement was issued to the press on 9 June 1978. Hinckley added, "Gone now was every element of discrimination; extended was every power of the priesthood of God."52

Heber Wolsey, director of the LDS Public Communications Department, was assigned to make the dramatic announcement that stopped presses across the nation. Time magazine initially planned to run the news as its cover story.53 There was a rush to collect the reactions of black Mormons, scholars of Mormonism, leaders of other religious groups, and black leaders.

Most of the responses were positive. Jimmy Carter, then president of the United States, wrote President Kimball, "I welcome today your announcement .... I commend you for your compassionate prayerfulness and courage in receiving a new doctrine. This announcement brings a healing spirit to the world and reminds all men and women that they are truly brothers and sisters."54 Stealing McMurrin called "it the most important day for the church of the century."55

When one non-Mormon ecclesiastical leader called it simply an internal matter, the non-Mormon newspaper, The Salt Lake Tribune, editorialized: "If Salt Lake City and Utah were not so closely identified with the LDS church and all Utahns not in some way affected by its policies, this significant action could be called a strictly Mormon matter. But it is much more than that. In a very real way a burden has been lifted from all Utahns, whether members of the LDS faith or of other beliefs."56 The Church News, a weekly tabloid insert in the church-owned Deseret News, carried a story entitled "Priesthood News Evokes Joy" in its 17 June 1978 edition that included reactions from black members.57

The excitement continued as ordinations immediately began. Joseph Freeman, Jr., who lived in Salt Lake City at the time, reportedly the first black elder ordained, was interviewed repeatedly. Robert Lang, who joined the church in 1970 after talking to a Mormon store owner, recalled that, besides calls from friends, "someone from the Salt Lake newspaper called to interview me .... The following weekend Channel Two n Los Angeles called and wanted to interview me and [p] my wife down in front of the temple."58 Lang later became president of the Southwest Los Angeles Branch in the Watts area.

Ironically, Douglas Wallace called the development "a revelation of convenience" like the 1890 manifesto banning polygamy. He thought the change would have "very little impact unless the church begins to work among minorities,"59 which it did in fact.
 

ATTITUDES TOWARD EQUALITY

What had been Mormon attitudes towards blacks, and did those views change with the policy? The Salt Lake branch of the NAACP issued a statement of mingled congratulation and reproof in response to the announcement: "We have been of the opinion for many years that your prior practice of exclusion of blacks from progression... has extended into secular affairs and has done much to sustain discrimination in areas of employment, education, and cultural affairs."60 It is difficult to prove or disprove this statement. It is true that Marian Anderson was not allowed to stay at the church-owned Hotel Utah when she toured Utah in concert during World War II.61 Marion D. Hanks, retired from the First Quorum of Seventies, recalled that after World War II blacks from the Phoenix College in Arizona stayed at his mother's because they could not find other lodgings when their group performed in Salt Lake City.62 Anecdotal reports of blacks begin discriminated against at Brigham Young University and at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, occasionally still surface.

These experiences are not unique to Mormons. Mirroring national attitudes, most Mormons held pro-Civil Rights views. Using material gathered by Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark, Mormon sociologist Armand L. Mauss argued as early as 1966 that Mormons' "secular attitudes towards Negroes" were similar to those of the nation as a whole. Using three LDS congregations in northern California, Mauss found "no systematic differences in secular race attitudes... between Mormons and others." The differences he did find were related more to education, occupation, and rural/urban settings than Mormon orthodoxy.63 Over two decades later Roof and McKinney reached a similar conclusion. Mormons as a group were slightly more willing to accept minority rights than national averages and were considerably more willing to do so than white fundamentalist/pentecostal churches.64

An important exemplar of changing attitudes was Apostle McConkie, who had become a prolific theologian. His 1966 Mormon Doctrine, used by some members as a dictionary of theology, contained the following justifications for the black exclusion policy: "Those who were less valiant in pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them are known to us as the negroes. Such spirits are sent to earth through the lineage of Cain." He went on: "Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty."65 Two months after the announcement, he declared to a group of church-employed teachers:

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 understanding 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 the first day of June of this year 978. 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. We now do what meridian Israel did when the Lord said the gospel should go to the gentiles. We forget all the statements that limited the gospel to the house of Israel, and we start going to the gentiles.66

SUMMARY

The LDS church, which arose at the same time as other nineteenth-century utopian organizations, survived far beyond the others. As it eliminated polygamy and other practices viewed as un-American, it moved closer to mainstream U.S. churches. Like other religions it has not been sure how to deal with ethnic groups who are not a part of that middle-class upperwardly mobile image. As a consequence policies concerning native Americans, Hispanics, and others have varied over the years, driven simultaneously by Christian feelings and procedural awkwardness. The policy towards blacks was stable during the long period in which they were denied priesthood ordination, an exclusion explained at various extremes as God's curse and a mystery with reasons known only to God. In actuality the Mormon policy was not much different from that of other white churches.

An important and unique barrier for blacks was lifted in 1978 when the First Presidency announced a revelation allowing priesthood for all men regardless of race, and proselyting began among blacks worldwide. Though responses have varied, most of those by Mormons and non-Mormons have generally been positive, even celebratory.

Jessie L. Embry, Black Saints in a White Church


Jane Manning James
 

A free-born servant, Jane Elizabeth Manning was born in the late 1810s or early 1820s and grew up in Connecticut during the 1820s, earning her living as a domestic. When Mormon missionaries came to the area, she listened and along with other family members joined the church. In 1843 eight members of the Manning family started toward Nauvoo but became separated at Buffalo, New York, when they were refused passage on a boat because they were black. The Mannings set out on foot and, after experiencing illness, threatened imprisonment, and extreme cold, finally arrived in Nauvoo where Joseph Smith welcomed them into his home. Before the Latter-day Saints left Nauvoo, Jane Manning married another black Mormon, Isaac James. James, a native of New Jersey, had converted to Mormonism in 1839 at the age of nineteen and immigrated to Nauvoo. Their first son was born at Winter Quarters in 1846. The couple had six more children in Utah. In 1869 Isaac left the family, selling his property to Jane. He returned to Salt Lake City approximately twenty-one years later just before he passed away. When he died in 1891, Jane held his funeral in her home.

Jane Manning James was a member of the female Relief Society and donated to the St. George, Manti, and Logan temple funds. She repeatedly petitioned the First Presidency to be endowed and to have her children sealed to her. During the time that Isaac was gone, Jane asked to be sealed to Walker Lewis who, like Elijah Abel, had beenordained during Joseph Smith's lifetime.

After Issac died, Jane asked that they be given the ordination of adoption so they would be together in the next life.9 She explained in correspondence to church leaders that Emma Smith had offered to have her sealed to the Smith family as a child. She reconsidered that decision and asked to be sealed to the Smiths. Permission for all of these requests was denied.

Instead the First Presidency "decided she might be adopted into the family of Joseph Smith as a servant, which was done, a special[p.41] ceremony having been prepared for the purpose." The minutes of the Council of Twelve Apostles continued, "But Aunt Jane was not satisfied with this, and as a mark of dissatisfaction she applied again after this for sealing blessings, but of course in vain."10

Jane Manning James bore a testimony of Mormonism to the end of her life: "My faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is as strong today, nay, it is if possible stronger than it was the day I was first baptized. I pay my tithes and offerings, keep the word of wisdom, I go to bed early and rise early, I try in my feeble way to set a good example to all." When she died in 1908, church president Joseph F. Smith spoke at her funeral.11

Footnotes:

10 "Excerpts from the Weekly Council Meetings of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, Dealing with the Rights of Negroes in the Church, 1849-1940," George Albert Smith Papers, University of Utah, quoted in Henry J.

Wolfinger, "A Test of Faith:Jane Manning James and the Origins of the Utah Black Community," 18, Manuscript Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. Wolfinger's study was also published in Social Accommodations in Utah (Salt Lake City: American West Center occasional papers, University of Utah, 1975).

11 Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, "Jane Manning James," Ensign 9 (Aug. 1979): 26-29.

Jessie L. Embry, Black Saints in a White Church, p.40


Los Angeles Times  Monday, May 18, 1998

Mormons May Disavow Old View on Blacks

By LARRY B. STAMMER, Times Religion Writer

T wenty years after the Mormon church dropped its ban against African Americans in the priesthood, key leaders are debating a proposal to repudiate historic church doctrines that were used to bolster claims of black inferiority. ...

Copyright Los Angeles Times


LDS DOCTRINE (())

KSL TV Channel 5 online, Salt Lake City

http://www.ksl.com/TV/newslocb.htm

The Los Angeles Times is reporting today the LDS Church is poised to disavow church doctrines and statements once used to support claims that blacks are inferior. The newspaper reports that church officials are seeking a way to retract statements and doctrines made by some former leaders. A Church spokesman says the article is totally erroneous, and the Church will issue a statement later today.


LA Times online, Tuesday, May 19, 1998

Mormons Deny Black Doctrine Report By MIKE CARTER, Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY--

Copyright Los Angeles Times


LDS Leaders Haven't Discussed Racial Disavowal

by peggy fletcher stack the salt lake tribune


MORMON PLAN TO DISAVOW RACIST TEACHINGS JEOPARDIZED BY PUBLICITY

BY LARRY B. STAMMER, TIMES RELIGION WRITER

Los Angeles Times May 24, 1998 Copyright 1998 Times Mirror Company


From mormon-news: Forwarding permitted with footer included

May 18, 1998

Los Angeles Times Story on Blacks and the Priesthood First Presidency "We have read the story which appeared in the May 18, 1998, Los Angeles Times, and are surprised at its contents.  The matter it speaks of has not been discussed by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve.

Since the 1978 revelation granting the priesthood to all worthy males, millions of people of all races have embraced the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and are enjoying full blessings of membership in the Church.

 The 1978 official declaration continues to speak for itself."

From mormon-news: Mormon News and Events Send join and remove commands to: majordomo@Mailing-List.net Put appropriate commands in body of the message:To join: subscribe mormon-news Digest: subscribe mormon-news-digest.



 
 
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