Black people and Mormonism

During the history of the Latter Day Saint movement, the relationship between Black people and Mormonism has included enslavement, exclusion and inclusion, and official and unofficial discrimination.

What began during founder Smith's lifetime as an estimated 100 free and enslaved Black Mormons, 500,000, over 700,000, and one million. and at least five LDS Church temples in Africa. Fourteen more temples are at some stage of development or construction on the continent, in addition to several temples among communities of the African diaspora such as the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The Community of Christ has congregations in twelve African nations, with membership increasing. After the Mormons were expelled from Missouri, Smith took an increasingly strong anti-slavery position, and several Black men were ordained to the LDS priesthood.

New York era (1820s and early 1830s)

The first reference to dark skin as a curse and mark from God in Latter Day Saint writings can be found in the Book of Mormon, published in 1830. It refers to a group of people called the Lamanites and states that when they rebelled against God they were cursed with "a skin of blackness" ().

The mark of blackness was placed upon the Lamanites so the Nephites "might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction" (). The Book of Mormon records the Lord as forbidding miscegenation between Lamanites and Nephites () and saying they were to stay "separated from thee and thy seed [Nephites], from this time henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them" ().

However, states: "[The Lord] inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come, black and white, bond and free, male and female...and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile." Although the Lamanites are labelled as wicked, they actually became more righteous than the Nephites as time passed ().

Throughout the Book of Mormon narrative, several groups of Lamanites did repent and lose the curse. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies or Ammonites "open[ed] a correspondence with them [Nephites], and the curse of God did no more follow them" (). There is no reference to their skin color being changed. Later, the Book of Mormon records that an additional group of Lamanites converted and that "their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites… and they were numbered among the Nephites, and were called Nephites" ().

The curse was also put on others who rebelled. One group of Nephites, called Amlicites "had come out in open rebellion against God; therefore it was expedient that the curse should fall upon them". () The Amlicites then put a mark upon themselves. At this point, the author stops the narrative to say "I would that ye should see that they brought upon themselves the curse; and even so doth every man that is cursed bring upon himself his own condemnation."() Eventually, the Lamanites "had become, the more part of them, a righteous people, insomuch that their righteousness did exceed that of the Nephites, because of their firmness and their steadiness in the faith." ()

The Book of Mormon did not countenance any form of curse-based discrimination. It stated that the Lord "denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile". (). In fact, prejudice against people of dark skin was condemned more than once, as in this example:<blockquote>O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God. Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness... ().</blockquote>

Missouri era (early 1830s to 1838)

In the summer of 1833 W. W. Phelps published an article in the church's newspaper, seeming to invite free Black people into the state to become Mormons, and reflecting "in connection with the wonderful events of this age, much is doing towards abolishing slavery, and colonizing the blacks, in Africa." Outrage followed Phelps' comments, (Roberts [1930] 1965, p. 378.) and he was forced to reverse his position, which he claimed was "misunderstood", but this reversal did not end the controversy, and the Mormons were violently expelled from Jackson County, Missouri five months later in December 1833. The biological use of the term species was first defined in 1686. In 1838, Joseph Smith answered the following question while en route from Kirtland to Missouri, as follows: "Are the Mormons abolitionists? No ... we do not believe in setting the Negroes free." (Smith 1977, p. 120)

By 1839 there were about a dozen Black members in the Church. Nauvoo, Illinois was reported to have 22 Black members, including free and enslaved individuals, between 1839–1843 (Late Persecution of the Church of Latter-day Saints, 1840).Beginning in 1842, Smith made known his increasingly strong anti-slavery position. In March 1842, he began studying some abolitionist literature, and stated, "it makes my blood boil within me to reflect upon the injustice, cruelty, and oppression of the rulers of the people. When will these things cease to be, and the Constitution and the laws again bear rule?" (History of the Church, 4:544).

On February 7, 1844, Joseph Smith wrote his views as a candidate for president of the United States. The anti-slavery plank of his platform called for a gradual end to Black enslavement by the year 1850 . His plan called for the government to buy the freedom of enslaved persons using money from the sale of public lands.

Joseph Smith's views

thumb|alt=Painting of Joseph Smith|Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, expressed a range of views about Black people throughout his life.

Joseph Smith's views on Black people varied during his lifetime. As founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith included Black people in many ordinances and priesthood ordinations but had differing views on racial segregation and the curses of Cain and Ham. He shifted his views on slavery several times, eventually taking an anti-slavery stance later in life. During the Missouri years, he tried to maintain peace with the members' pro-slavery neighbors; Smith published an essay sympathetic to slavery the following year, arguing against a possible "race war", providing justification for slavery based on the biblical curse of Ham, and saying that northerners had no "more right to say that the South shall not hold slaves, than the South have to say that the North shall." During the Nauvoo settlement, Smith began preaching abolitionism and equality of the races. He called for "the break down [of] slavery" during his 1844 presidential campaign, and wanted to free all enslaved persons by 1850. Although Abel received his washing and anointing temple ordinance under Smith, After Smith's death, Brigham Young barred Black people from temple endowments, marriage sealings, and the priesthood. A century later, in a 1949 statement, the First Presidency (the church's highest governing body) said that Black people were not entitled to the full blessings of the gospel and cited previous revelations on preexistence as justification.

Curses of Cain and Ham

thumb|upright=0.7|alt=Painting of Noah cursing Ham|Noah cursing Ham. Smith and Young taught that Black people had the [[curse of Ham Smith believed that dark skin marked people of Black African ancestry as cursed by God.

Under Smith's leadership, Brigham Young seemed open to Black people holding the priesthood. As Smith's successor, he used the biblical curses as justification for barring Black men from the priesthood, banning interracial marriages, and opposing Black voting rights. Young said that God's curse on Black people would someday be lifted, and they would be able to receive the priesthood after death. Smith's canonical scripture, the Pearl of Great Price, described the mark of Cain as dark skin; as church president, Young said: "What is the mark [of Cain]? You will see it on the countenance of every African you ever did see". In another biblical account, Adam's eighth great-grandson Ham discovered his father Noah drunk and naked in his tent. Because of this, Noah cursed his grandson Canaan (Ham's son) as "servants of servants". Although LDS scriptures do not mention the skin color of Ham or that of his son, Canaan, some church teachings associated the Hamitic curse with Black people and used it to justify their enslavement. After the 1978 revelation, patriarchs sometimes did not declare lineages for Black members; since then, some Black members have requested (and received) a patriarchal blessing which includes a lineage.

Righteous Black people will become white

Early church leaders taught that after death and resurrection everyone in the celestial kingdom (the highest tier of heaven) would be "white in eternity." They often equated whiteness with righteousness, and taught that God made his children white in his own image. A 1959 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that most Utah Mormons believed that "by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become white and delightsome." The church also taught that the skin of white apostates would darken, and in the temple endowment ceremony (until at least the 1960s) Satan was said to have black skin.

Several Black Mormons were told that they would become white. Hyrum Smith told Jane Manning James that God could give her a new lineage, and promised her in his patriarchal blessing that she would become "white and delightsome". In 1836, Elijah Abel was similarly promised that he would "be made ... white in eternity". Darius Gray, a prominent Black Mormon, was told that his skin color would lighten. In 1978, apostle LeGrand Richards said that the curse of dark skin for wickedness and the promise of white skin through righteousness applied only to Native Americans, and not to Black people. A Sunday School teacher was removed from their position for teaching from this essay in 2015.

Slavery

right|thumb|upright=0.7|alt=Photo of Biddy Mason|[[Biddy Mason was one of 14 Black people who sued for their freedom after being illegally held captive by white Mormons in San Bernardino, California.]]

Initial Mormon converts were from the North and opposed slavery, which caused contention in the slave state of Missouri. The church leadership then began distancing itself from abolitionism, sometimes justifying slavery with Biblical teachings. Several white people who enslaved Black people joined the church and brought their enslaved people when they moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, and the church discouraged influencing enslaved people to be "dissatisfied with their condition".

thumb|upright=0.7|alt=Formal, colorized photo of a standing Green Flake|[[Green Flake was an enslaved man who along with Hark Lay Wales and Oscar Crosby reportedly drove the first wagonloads of LDS pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.]]

The Utah Territory, under Young's governance, legalized the purchase of Black and Native American people for enslavement in 1852. Later that year Young congratulated the legislature stating the legislation had the desired effect and "nearly freed the territory of the colored population." Utah's slavery laws contrasted with those of the Southern states in permitting an enslavement closer to indentured servitude than to the South's plantation slavery. Twenty-six Black people were enslaved in the Utah Territory, according to the 1850 census, and twenty-nine were reported in the 1860 census. Members bought and sold people, gave the church enslaved people as a tithe, and recaptured those who escaped their enslavers. In California, Black enslavement was illegally tolerated in the Mormon community of San Bernardino despite California laws banning the practice. After the Civil War, the US government freed enslaved people and allowed many Black adults to vote. Although Church leaders opposed the KKK, several LDS members were Klan members.

Civil rights

After the Civil War, little changed on church stances towards Black people and their rights until the civil rights movement. The NAACP criticized the church's position on civil rights, led anti-discrimination marches and filed a lawsuit against the church in response to its practice of not allowing Black children to be Boy Scout troop leaders. Students from other schools protested against BYU's discriminatory practices and the church's racial restrictions. The church issued a statement supporting civil rights, and changed its Boy Scout leader policy. The apostle Ezra Taft Benson criticized the civil rights movement and challenged accusations of police brutality.

In 2017, local church leaders in Mississippi and the NAACP began to work on projects to restore the NAACP office where Medgar Evers had worked. The following year, it was announced that the church and the NAACP would begin a joint program for the financial education of East Coast residents in Baltimore, Atlanta and Camden, New Jersey. In 2019, church president Russell M. Nelson spoke at the national convention of the NAACP in Detroit. In June 2020, a spokesperson for the NAACP said there was "no willingness on the part of the church to do anything material ... It's time now for more than sweet talk."

In the church's October 2020 general conference, leaders denounced racism and called on church members to take action against it. Nelson asked church members to "lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice." That month, in a speech at BYU, apostle Dallin H. Oaks denounced racism, endorsed the message that "Black lives matter" (discouraging its use to advance controversial proposals), and called on church members to root out racist attitudes, behavior and policies.

Segregation

During the first century of its existence, the church discouraged social interaction or marriage with Black people and encouraged racial segregation in its congregations, facilities, and university, in medical blood supplies, and in public schools. Joseph Smith supported segregation, saying: "I would confine them [Black people] by strict law to their own species". Until 1963, many church leaders supported legalized racial segregation; David O. McKay, J. Reuben Clark, Henry D. Moyle, Ezra Taft Benson, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, and Mark E. Petersen were leading proponents.

Black families were told by church leadership not to attend church, or chose not to attend after white members complained. Church leaders advised members to buy homes so Black people would not move next to LDS chapels. Church leaders opposed desegregation in public schools and at BYU.

Interracial marriage

Nearly every decade for over a century, from the church's formation in the 1830s until the 1970s, saw denunciations of interracial marriage; most focused on Black–white marriages. On at least three occasions (1847, 1852, and 1865), Brigham Young taught that the punishment for Black–white marriages was death; the killing of a Black–white couple and their children was part of a blood atonement which would be a blessing to them. Young also said that if the church approved of white intermarriage with Black people, it would be destroyed and the priesthood would be taken away.

Until (at least) the 1960s, the church penalized white members who married Black people by prohibiting both from entering temples. The temple and priesthood bans were lifted in 1978, but the church still discouraged marriage across ethnic lines. Until 2013, at least one official church manual continued to encouraging members to marry within their race.

LDS Temple and priesthood restriction

thumb|alt=Photo of Brigham Young|upright=0.7|Brigham Young led a branch of followers to Utah and, as governor, legalized Black enslavement and enforced a temple and priesthood ban that would last for over 120 years.

Although a few Black men were ordained to the priesthood under Smith before his death in 1844, from 1849 to 1978 the Brighamite LDS Church prohibited anyone with real (or suspected) Black ancestry from taking part in ordinances in its temples, serving in significant church callings, serving missions, attending priesthood meetings, being ordained to a priesthood office, speaking at firesides, Non-Black spouses of Black people were also prohibited from entering temples. Because temple ordinances are considered essential to enter the highest degree of heaven, the exclusion meant that Black people were banned from exaltation.]]

During the early years of the Latter Day Saint movement, at least two Black men became priests: Elijah Abel and Walker Lewis. Other prominent Black members of the early church included Jane Manning James, Green Flake, and Samuel D. Chambers.