Unsettling Mormonism
an archive of unsettling histories, mythistories, and mystories
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism
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This is my testimony of the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which my entire family have been followers of since 1884.  Mormon Mythistries I’d like to bear my testimony: I know this church is an overtly white-settler-Christian-imperial-capitalist-hetero-supremacist corporation which refuses to apologize, acknowledge, or be accountable to the ongoing harms they’ve enacted. I know Joseph Smith was a pedophile, (attempted) murderer, & con-man who stole millions in contemporary dollars from his members and constantly ran from being held accountable for any of his crimes. I know Brigham Young was an imperial genocidal terrorist who also controlled his own people (my ancestors) through blood-atonements (divine murder) & other abuses of power. I know The Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and D&C were made up by Joseph Smith as part of his financial con in the form of a religious corporation and they are each book teaches that white-supremacy, heteropatriarchy, settler-colonialism, classism, Christian-supremacy, & antisemitism are divine. I know the Mormon doctrine of eternal families is rooted in anti/philosemitism, misogynistic polygamy, and classist pedophilic eugenics—that Joseph threatened to murder his own wife in the same revelation in Joseph describes the doctrine of eternal families & polygamy. I know Mormon temples, priesthood, and Israeli-identity are examples of anti/philosemitic, hetero-patriarchal, and white-Christian-settler-supremacist practices. I know Mormon end-times beliefs are far-right, Christian-Nationalist/supremacist, anti-queer, and contribute to the destruction of the livability of our planet (the only one we’ll ever know). I know this church sided with & assisted Nazis during & after WWII—that its leaders (using their religious and US gov authority) actively fought against allowing Jewish refugees (even those converted to Mormonism) from emigrating to the U.S. I know the contemporary church uses their mass fortune (the results of the financial con that their founder started) to defend, enable, and assist child abusers while they abuse survivors of child abuse—and to create deadly anti-queer laws globally. I know they use their missionary program to colonize Indigenous Peoples across the world spreading this white-Christain-supremacy & nationalism comminting genocide through cultural assimilation. I know the Mormon God is openly white-supremacist as he uses whiteness as a mark of his Chosen People and uses “a skin of blackness” as a mark of evil. And openly advocates for segregation and anti-miscegenation (in both scripture and the words of his prophets). I know the current Prophet & other leaders were all grown ass men as this church assisted Nazis, committed genocide through the Lamanite Placement Program, openly practiced anti-Black segregation, fought against civil rights, homosexual marriage rights, and women’s rights. And they do it all with the word love on their lips. I know this church learned everything it knows from the U.S. settler-colonial project in which it was conceived. That the only thing Mormon leaders and the U.S. government have ever fought over is who will dominate the masses, the land, and it’s Peoples. I know that it is our responsibility as heirs & products of these projects to, like Jesus, destroy those which seek to hoard and abuse power and wealth through the subjugation and exploitation of people and that which gives us all life. Amen This essay is also featured in Testimony "Vol. 3" by Related Records
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 Six months after Joseph Smith organized his church he sent missionaries to the Cattaraugus Tribe & other Indigenous Peoples. Joseph commanded these missionaries to marry these Indigenous women so “that their posterity may become white & delightsome.” But Mormon leaders sought greater goals than just the assimilation of their supposedly fallen brother –– They sought an army & insurrection, they sought empire. Mormonism is founded on the belief that we are in the Latter-days, or End-times. These End-Times will culminate in the return of Jesus as the King of a global Mormon Zion (empire). To bring this to pass Mormons must prepare their Zion through the overthrow of the fallen U.S. ––specifically with an army of converted Indigenous Persons. This belief is shown in the White Horse Prophecy, said to be given by Smith in 1843: “You will see the Constitution of the U.S. almost destroyed, it will hang is if by a thread…it will be saved by the efforts of the White Horse (Mormons) & the Red Horse (converted Lamanites) who will combine in its defense.” A statement on prophecy on this church's website reads: "The so-called 'White Horse Prophecy' is based on accounts that have not been substantiated by historical research & is not embraced as Church doctrine." Yet as you can read in the second half of this post, leaders have repeated this prophecy throughout this church’s history, including politicians. And as you can read below, Mormon leaders were clearly gathering an army to fight against the U.S. as part of their Zion-building settler-project. So, whether those words were spoken by Smith or not, this Prophecy is in fact, “substantiated by historical research," despite what the current leadership claims. Or as Mormon insurrectionist Ryan Bundy says: “Whether the church calls it doctrine or not, we got quotes from several prophets reiterating that…I take the words of the prophets both modern & previous ones seriously. That’s what I’ve read…that’s what I believe.”  Mormon U.S. Insurrection & Indigenous Assimilation“I tell you the (Indigenous People) of these mountains will yet be a shield to this people if we do right and…look to these poor degraded natives.” - Wilford Woodruff “It would seem that it’s the fate of the Indian as a race to be wiped out and become extinct…but hope lies for them in the fact that God foretold He would not permit their utter destruction…I am looking to the fulfillment of all things that the Lord has spoken, Zion is bound to rise and flourish. The Lamanites will blossom as the rose on the mountains.” - Wilford Woodruff “The Latter-day Saints in these mountains never can have the privilege of going back to Jackson County and building…the New Jerusalem … until quite a large portion of (Indigenous People) go back with us.” - Orson Hyde “President Young in his address to the Saints…said (U.S. Pres) Polk…had a hand in the death of Joseph and Hyrum. And that they should be damned for these things. If they ever sent any men to interfere with us here, they shall have their throats cut. With uplifted hands to Heaven (Young) swore…that he would never cease…to make every preparation and avenge blood of the Prophets and Saints. That he intended to have every hole and corner from the Bay of Francisco to Hudson Bay known to us. And that our people would be connected with every tribe of Indians throughout America. And that our people would yet take their squaws, wash and dress them up, teach them and raise up children by them. And not many generations hence they will become a white and delightsome people. In no other way will it be done.” - Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, July 28, 1847 (Mormons had been in so-called Utah for only four days) “Young..counselled the brethren to buy up the Lamanite children as fast as they could and educate them and teach them the gospel so that not many generations they would be a white and delightsome people for the Lord could not have devised a better plan than to have put us where we are in order to accomplish this thing.” - Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, May 12, 1851 “By and by (Indigenous People) will be the Lord’s battle ax in good earnest.” - Brigham Young to Las Vegas Fort missionaries 1855 "If the Lord blesses us…we can have 1000 brave warriors on hand in a short time to help quell the eruption (the Utah War) that might take place in the principalities.” - John Steele, Las Vegas Fort missionary 1855 “Young said that the U. S. are fools to…send out troops to fight us. This season we shall whip them out; then they will send out reinforcements; then we shall have the Lamanites with us and the more the United States send out, the worse off they will be, for they will perish with famine.” - Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, August 2, 1857 (Utah War started a month earlier) Young said “If the government of the United States persists in sending armies to destroy us, in the name of the Lord, we shall conquer them…I shall not hold the Indians still by the wrist any longer for white men to shoot at them, but I shall let them go ahead and do as they please and I shall carry the war into their own land…You may tell them they must stop all emigration across this continent. The Indians will kill all that attempt it.” - Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, September 13, 1857 (Mountain Meadows Massacre started 7 days prior and ended on the 11th) “Elder John D. Lee also arrived with an awful tale of blood. A company of California emigrants of about 150 men, women and children, many of them belonged to the mob in Missouri and Illinois…They wanted to do all the evil they could, so they poisoned the springs of water; several of the saints died. The Indians became enraged at their conduct and they surrounded them on a prairie, but the Indians fought them 5 days until they killed all their men about 60 in number. They then rushed into their corral and cut the throats of their women and children, except some 8 or 10 children, which they brought and sold to the whites.” - Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, September 29, 1857. (Elder Lee was the organizer and an enactor of this massacre. No Indigenous Peoples participated in this massacre. Mormons continued to blame Nuwu for this for 150 years.) “President Heber C. Kimball..said that the United States would not go down very speedily, but gradually…and he was satisfied that the Indians would do their rough work in a great measure before they embraced the Gospel.” - Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, January 9, 1858 the White Horse Prophecy“This Nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to peices [sic] and tumbling to the ground and when the Constitution is upon the brink of ruin this people will be the Staff upon which the Nation shall lean and they shall bear the constitution away from the very verge of destruction.”
- Founding Pres. Joseph Smith 1840 “When the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have to call for the 'Mormon' Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it." - 2nd Pres. Brigham Young, 1855 "You and I have heard all our lives that the time may come when the Constitution may hang by a thread... if we are to live as a Church, and progress, and have the right to worship... we must have the great guarantees that are set up by our Constitution." - Served in 1st Pres. under 3 Prophets, U.S. Sec of State & Ambassador, J. Reuben Clark, 1942 "I have always felt that they meant that sometime the question of whether we are going to proceed on the basis of the Constitution would arise and at this point government leaders who were Mormons would be involved in answering that question." - U.S Sec. of Housing & Michigan Governor, George Romney, 1967 "I have faith that the Constitution will be saved as prophesied by Joseph Smith. But it will not be saved in Washington… It will be saved by enlightened members of this Church – men and women who will subscribe to and abide by the principles of the Constitution." - U.S. Sec of Ag. & 13th Pres. Ezra Taft Benson, 1986 “Religious freedom is going to go down the drain, too… I’ve never seen it worse than this, where the Constitution literally is hanging by a thread.” - U.S. Sen. of Utah for 42 years, Orrin Hatch, 2000 “Our Constitution was being violated. That it was hanging by a thread.” - Mormon insurrectionist Ammon Bundy on his armed take-over of the Malheur Nat’l Wildlife Refuge, 2016 “I testify of the divinely inspired Constitution of the United States and pray that we who recognize the Divine Being who inspired it will always uphold and defend its great principles.” - Dallin H. Oaks, 2021 “Whether the church calls (the White Horse Prophecy) doctrine or not, we got quotes from several prophets reiterating that. What the church’s official position on it or not, that I don’t know. I take the words of the prophets both modern and previous ones seriously.That’s what I’ve read, that’s what I’ve heard, that’s what I believe.” - Mormon insurrectionist Ryan Bundy Mormons, Jews, and Nazis Collage featuring the Mesa AZ baptismal room (a Lamanite temple). In the baptismal font stand a group of Jews inside of a concentration camp, Hitler with his head bowed, and Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. Helmuth Hübener looks in through both entrances. Mormons vicariously baptized about 650,000 Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. They’ve also baptized Hitler and other famous Nazis. “Holocaust victims (were killed because) they were Jews. Now [this church] is basically killing them again by eliminating their Jewishness.” - director of the Anti-Defamation League. For some Jews it's a reminder of when their People were given the choice to be baptized or be killed. In 1995, this church agreed to remove 380,000 names of Jews murdered in the Holocaust from their baptismal records and stop this practice. They got caught baptizing Jews killed in the holocaust again in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2012, & 2017.         Unfortunately the worst part of this story isn't that Mormons wouldn't stop baptizing dead Jews after repeatedly being asked to, but how Mormons end up with the genealogy records of Holocaust victims in the first place. In Pre-Nazi Germany, Germans kept their records closed from Mormons so that their ancestors didn't get converted in their deaths. But when Nazis began forcing folks to prove their “Aryan blood” the records were opened. And Mormons took "advantage of the... unusual opportunity.” Through their genealogy work in Nazi Germany this church helped Hitler identify Jews. Then Mormons did posthumous temple work for these same people against their living-relatives’ wishes. 
A 1933 Deseret News article published in the church section praised this "unusual opportunity" as well as many of the programs and practices of Hitler and his Nazi party. Most of the praised programs were things this church shared with the Nazis, like "Fast Sundays", the abstinence guidelines of the Word of Wisdom, and a general focus on making “capable bodies and clear brains … trained like athletes.”  Heber J. Grant visiting Nazi Mormons in Nazi Germany in 1937 In 1937, under a Nazi flag, Prophet Grant instructed German Mormons to ““Stay here. Keep the Commandments…We want to keep the Church intact and the missionaries working.”
Hitler and Hübener Collage featuring a Mormon temple sealing room with Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, kneeling at the alter. Helmuth Hübener glares in through the window and a mirror. In 1993 in the Jordan River Utah temple (named after the Jordan river in Palestine) Adolf Hilter and Eva Braun were sealed together for time and all eternity. But this church doesn’t want you to know that. In 1998, Don McAreavy asked FamilySearch (this church genealogy arm) if any temple work had been done for Hilter. Seven months and several emails later FamilySearch finally lied and said no. They also attempted to scrub these records from their index. But Mormon Baptism researcher Helen Radkey found these records anyway and wrote about it: “The Mormon Church Attempts to Conceal Temple Records for Adolf Hitler”. This church hid their relationships with Hitler and continued/s to baptize Jews Hitler massacred against the wishes of their living relatives. And even though Mormon helped train the 1936 Nazi Olympics basketball team, there is one Mormon famous for resisting the Nazi party: Helmuth Hübener.  Helmuth Hübener mug shots from the day he was executed by Nazis. Helmuth was youngest resistance fighter executed by Nazi Germany. He'd just turned 17 when he was beheaded at Plötzensee Prison. "German boys! Do you know the country without freedom, the country of terror and tyranny? … Yes you are right; it is Germany – Hitler Germany! Through their unscrupulous terror tactics against young and old, men and women, they have succeeded in making you spineless puppets to do their bidding." - anti-Nazi pamphelt written & distrubed by Helmuth Hübener Helmuth Hübener was a Mormon German boy who was beheaded in 1942 for his opposition to the Nazi regime. When President Grant visited the Nazi Mormons in 1937, he encouraged members to fall in line with the Nazis in order "to keep the church intact." Because of this Prophet's words, Helmuth was seen as a troublemaker by most in his congregation. His Nazi Mormon Branch President even excommunicated Helmuth after his arrest, though he did so without the consent of the First Presidency. About 30 years after his execution Brigham Young University's theater department put on play about Helmuth. Apostle and furture Prophet Thomas S. Monson went to see it, but according to witnesses, he didn’t seem to like it . Two days later BYU President Dallin H. Oaks canceled the play. At this same time, (1970s) President Oaks was also spying on and torturing gay BYU students, mostly within the theater department.  Helmuth Hübener, flanked by his friends and accomplices Rudolf "Rudi" Wobbe (left) and Karl-Heinz Schnibbe (right) White supremacy in genealogyPart 1 is about how Mormonism foundationally used genealogy to reify its white-supremacist doctrines which teach that Euro-Mormons—as the keepers of the keys of THE “One True Church,” and descendants of Ephraim’s tribe of Israel—are God’s Chosen Race and People. Part 2 is about how this shows up in Mormon temple work, eternal families, & genealogy. Part 3 is on the classist, femicidal violences of Mormon doctrine on Eternal Families, Polygyny, and Godhood. Part 4 shares my personal experience with using genealogy in an anti-racist way. Part 5 is on the ways antisemitism and anti-Indigeneity overlap in Mormonism Part 6 builds on part 5 through a critical analysis of the art and history in the Manti temple and it's grounds. Part 7 addresses the Baptisms for the Dead that Mormons did for Jews killed in the Holocaust along with Hitler and other Nazis.
This post is less about the 1978 Revelation on Mormon anti-Blackness, or Official Declaration 2, as it is about why it happened at all. In that spirit, we're starting where we left off with the two official statements on on Mormonism and anti-Blackness. David O. Mckay signed both the 1949 and 1969 church statements on their anti-Black doctrine and practices. He became President two years after the first statement and died just after the release of the second one. During McKay's presidency (‘51-’70), which aligns almost directly with the Civil Rights Era, membership in this church tripled. So, one can assume that the amount of money this church was recieving in tithes also tripled. This assumption is backed up by the fact that, by the late ‘70s this church’s investment account, now known as Ensign Peak Advisors, was estimated to be worth over $1B. Today, its estimated worth is $100B. Also by the 70's the church leadership realized that a major impediment to their membership growth, and thus economic growth, was their white supremacy. If you limit who can be a full member of your organization, you limit how many people will be a paying member of your organization. Thus, I believe the overt anti-Blackness of this church was ended not due to social pressure nor to God’s will, but because their white-supremacist practices were in the way of their money. This church’s population grew nearly 3x in the previous two decades. To continue to grow, especially in so-called Latin America, they had to expand who could join & pay tithes to their church. Ongoing in the present, in 2018 President Nelson told members in Kenya that “Dowry is not the Lord’s way” and that instead they should be focused on tithing. "We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation," Nelson said. "That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing." (See also: prosperity doctrine). Never mind that colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism has repeatedly stolen the wealth of these peoples, destabilized their governments, and destroyed their cultures and lands.  President Spencer W. Kimball searching, pondering, and praying The 1978 Revelation on |
| PROTEST: The UT NAACP threatened to picket the Oct ‘63 gen con but dropped the plan when Pres. Brown promised to read a statement supporting full civil rights. In 1965, the same year as the Selma March, 300 protesters marched to the Church Office Building demanding that the Church endorse a civil rights bill then languishing in the Utah legislature. Later protests were concentrated against BYU athletics, as the school practiced Anti-Black segregation. From ‘68 & ‘70 at least 12 protests occurred during BYU’s sports games. Opposing teams would refuse to play or wore black armbands in protest. Many students petitioned their universities to refuse to play BYU. Stanford did stop playing BYU. But by the late 70’s, when the ban was lifted, protests were few and far between. |  Selma March, 1965 |
2019 First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at their new Rome, Italy temple. Of the 15 men, 14 are of European-descent even after 45 years of disavowing their white-supremacy.
| BLOOD TROUBLE: As this church further grew into an international imperialist institution they began to run into trouble determining if a person has “one-drop” of African blood. In the segregated US and South Africa this wasn’t an issue because the white population was deeply white-supremacists and legislated segregation. But in places like Brazil where race was determined by colorism rather than by genealogy and interracial marriage was common this church struggled to know who could and couldn’t hold priesthood. Additionally church members in Brazil, having not culturally internalized anti-Blackness in the ways we have in the US, found the church’s white-supremacist practices to be icky. |  Jim Crow sign I altered for this post |
In ‘75 Pres. Kimball announced the construction of a temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil. About 80% of Brazil’s population was estimated to be at least partly of African descent, though records are sparse. This lack of genealogical records and the difference in cultural understandings of race made church leaders realize that enforcing their temple ban would be very difficult. The Sao Paulo temple was completed the same year the Priesthood Revelation was released.
 São Paulo, Brazil temple under construction |  São Paulo, Brazil temple |
BLOOD MONEY:
To raise funds for this temple, in the late 70’s some South American members donated the gold from their dental work to this church. In ‘97, Pres. Faust showed off some these gold teeth to encourage members to sacrifice for their church.
That same year, Faust also helped found this church’s investment fund, Ensign Peak Advisors, which by the late 70’s was estimated to hold about $1B
To raise funds for this temple, in the late 70’s some South American members donated the gold from their dental work to this church. In ‘97, Pres. Faust showed off some these gold teeth to encourage members to sacrifice for their church.
That same year, Faust also helped found this church’s investment fund, Ensign Peak Advisors, which by the late 70’s was estimated to hold about $1B
President James E. Faust at the São Paulo, Brazil temple in 1978 with a Black family.
| REVEALED & RESCINDED: Spencer W. Kimball got a special key for a special room and prayered there at night for many nights until he invited all the top 15 together for a prayer in which it was revealed that this church needn’t practice overt anti-Black segregation anymore. (Only heteropatriarchal segregation from this day forth) |  |
 President Dallin H. Oaks with a smug grin. | OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FUTURE: In 2018, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Revelation, Oaks spoke of those who wish to look back and understand why the ban was there at all. He advises: “most in the Church, including its senior leadership, have concentrated on the opportunities of the future rather than the disappointments of the past.” Which is advisable in a church that officially does not give apologies. |
Does neoliberal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion actually fight white supremacist capitalism––or––does it just expand who gets to wield the white-supremacist capitalist power to oppress while bringing Black, Indigenous, Brown, and queer people, and women into environments designed to harm and exclude those persons?
Did the rescinding of the anti-African ban create less whites supremacist violence in this church?
Did the rescinding of the anti-African ban create less whites supremacist violence in this church?
2019 First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve in Rome Italy temple
| For the first about 150 years Mormon leaders spoke openly in favor of anti-Black segregation. Joseph Smith said he “would confine [Black people] by strict law to their own species" Brigham Young taught that justified enslavement by saying that God cursed Cain, the father of all Africans and made them “servant of servants.” He also taught sexual segregation saying that white men who had sex with Black women deserved to be blood atoned and that apostates would be cursed with black skin “just like the devil.” Taylor taught that Blackness survived the Flood of Noah so that the “devil should have a representation upon the earth” |  Brigham Young by Charles Roscoe Savage, 1855 |
Nearly 100 yrs later, J. Reuben Clark wrote, “The Church discourages social intercourse with the negro race, because such intercourse leads to marriage” which he calls spiritually and biologically “wrong”.
In the 1940s the First Presidency marked that “No special effort has ever been made to proselyte among the Negro race” as “social intercourse between the Whites and the Negroes [leads] to intermarriage, which the Lord has forbidden.” This doctrinal segregation continues currently in the "Aaronic Priesthood Manual" on this church's website which quotes Spencer W. Kimball counciled in 1976: “We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally.”
In 1949, the First Presidency justified their anti-Blackness in their first Official Statement on “the Negro” writing: “The attitude of the Church with reference to the Negroes [is a] direct commandment from the Lord…” brought on by “the conduct of (their) spirits in the premortal existence.”
Leaders even encouraged Euro-settler Mormons to organize “to prevent Negroes from becoming neighbors,” and offered church buildings for these meetings.
In the 1940s the First Presidency marked that “No special effort has ever been made to proselyte among the Negro race” as “social intercourse between the Whites and the Negroes [leads] to intermarriage, which the Lord has forbidden.” This doctrinal segregation continues currently in the "Aaronic Priesthood Manual" on this church's website which quotes Spencer W. Kimball counciled in 1976: “We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally.”
In 1949, the First Presidency justified their anti-Blackness in their first Official Statement on “the Negro” writing: “The attitude of the Church with reference to the Negroes [is a] direct commandment from the Lord…” brought on by “the conduct of (their) spirits in the premortal existence.”
Leaders even encouraged Euro-settler Mormons to organize “to prevent Negroes from becoming neighbors,” and offered church buildings for these meetings.
1938 First Presidency Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, David O. McKay
In 1954, apostle Mark E. Petersen, spoke in favor of segregation saying, “What God hath separated, let not man bring together again” and cited the Lamanites and Nephites, the curse of Cain, and the Israelites and Canaanites as scriptural evidence of the divinity of segregation.
In ‘58 Bruce R. McConkie wrote in Mormon Doctrine that "the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.” The quote remained until 2010 when the book went out of print. Though the book is still available used. I bought my copy at the Mormon-owned thrift store, Deseret Industries.
A 1959 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that this church taught that melanated people were not as righteous in the pre-earth life and that most Utah Mormons believed "by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become 'white and delightsome'.”
In 1965 apostle Spencer W. Kimball told a group of Indigenous BYU students: "Now, the brethren feel that it is not the wisest thing to cross racial lines in dating and marrying.”
That same year BYU administrators began sending rejection letters to Black applicants which cited this church’s pro-segregation beliefs on interracial marriage as the reason for rejection.
With social and political pressure from the civil rights movement (which Ezra Taft Benson called a communist plot) the First Presidency released their second Official Mormon Statement on “the Negro” in 1969 in which they repeated that “the seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God… extending back to man’s pre-existent state."
In ‘58 Bruce R. McConkie wrote in Mormon Doctrine that "the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.” The quote remained until 2010 when the book went out of print. Though the book is still available used. I bought my copy at the Mormon-owned thrift store, Deseret Industries.
A 1959 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that this church taught that melanated people were not as righteous in the pre-earth life and that most Utah Mormons believed "by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become 'white and delightsome'.”
In 1965 apostle Spencer W. Kimball told a group of Indigenous BYU students: "Now, the brethren feel that it is not the wisest thing to cross racial lines in dating and marrying.”
That same year BYU administrators began sending rejection letters to Black applicants which cited this church’s pro-segregation beliefs on interracial marriage as the reason for rejection.
With social and political pressure from the civil rights movement (which Ezra Taft Benson called a communist plot) the First Presidency released their second Official Mormon Statement on “the Negro” in 1969 in which they repeated that “the seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God… extending back to man’s pre-existent state."
1969 First Presidency
One of the early dents in the anti-African/Black salvation ban’s armor came from beyond the U.S. borders. In Brazil, intermarriage between people of African, European, and Indigenous decent created a deeply mixed population which made Mormon blood purity doctrine difficult to enforce. And even though this church actively avoided proselytizing in Black communities, many Brazilian Mormons didn’t understand U.S. classifications of race and how it applied to the priesthood ban, which made their missionary work difficult.
Mark Grover, an “expert on Mormonism in Brazil” writes, “Many (Brazilian) members struggled with this policy which openly discriminated against family members, friends, and occasionally themselves… (and) resulted in limited growth and development for the Church.”
Because of the difficulty of determining this “one drop rule” in Fijians, Indigenous Australians, Egyptians, Brazilians, and South Africans the ban was relaxed in those places so that people with a "questionable lineage" were given the priesthood.
Mark Grover, an “expert on Mormonism in Brazil” writes, “Many (Brazilian) members struggled with this policy which openly discriminated against family members, friends, and occasionally themselves… (and) resulted in limited growth and development for the Church.”
Because of the difficulty of determining this “one drop rule” in Fijians, Indigenous Australians, Egyptians, Brazilians, and South Africans the ban was relaxed in those places so that people with a "questionable lineage" were given the priesthood.
Elder James E. Faust and his wife, Sister Ruth Faust, left, with Helvécio Martins and his family at the dedication of the São Paolo Brazil Temple in November 1978.
Another dent in their anti-Blackness armor came after the publication of "Mormonism's Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview.” by Lester Bush in 1973. BYU vice-president Robert K. Thomas feared that the church could lose its tax exemption status as the article described the church's racially discriminatory practices in detail. This article created internal discussion among church leaders which weakened the idea that the Black salvation ban was doctrinal.
Then miraculously in 1978, the church, through Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, received revelation commanding them to lift the Black salvation ban.
Then miraculously in 1978, the church, through Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, received revelation commanding them to lift the Black salvation ban.
Spencer W. Kimball pondering and praying
Even so, deep anti-Blackness is still perpetuated in this church.
LDS historian Wayne J. Embry interviewed several Black Mormons nine yrs after the church lifted this ban (1987) and found that every one of them reported experiencing "a reluctance or a refusal (from white Mormons) to shake hands with them or sit by them, (as well as) racist comments made to them."
When asked whether the Black salvation ban and its lifting were policy or doctrine, Dallin H. Oaks stated in 1988, "I don't know that it's possible to distinguish between policy and doctrine in a church that believes in continuing revelation and sustains its leader as a prophet.”
Twenty years after that in 2007, Mormon journalist, Peggy Fletcher Stack, reported that Black Mormons still felt unwelcome because of how other members treat them, including being called the "n-word" in the temple and at church.
In June 2016, when some Black Utah Mormon women were asked what they’d want today, one woman said she wished she could “attend church once without someone touching my hair.”
That same year a survey showed that over 60% self-identified Mormons, know or believe that the priesthood/temple ban was God's will.
In June 2020, a spokesman for the NAACP said that there was "no willingness on the part of the church to do anything material ... It's time now for more than sweet talk." In response the church gave more talks. There are still no serious attempts “to do anything material.”
This doctrinal segregation continues currently in the "Aaronic Priesthood Manual" on this church's website which quotes Spencer W. Kimball counciled in 1976: “We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally.”
LDS historian Wayne J. Embry interviewed several Black Mormons nine yrs after the church lifted this ban (1987) and found that every one of them reported experiencing "a reluctance or a refusal (from white Mormons) to shake hands with them or sit by them, (as well as) racist comments made to them."
When asked whether the Black salvation ban and its lifting were policy or doctrine, Dallin H. Oaks stated in 1988, "I don't know that it's possible to distinguish between policy and doctrine in a church that believes in continuing revelation and sustains its leader as a prophet.”
Twenty years after that in 2007, Mormon journalist, Peggy Fletcher Stack, reported that Black Mormons still felt unwelcome because of how other members treat them, including being called the "n-word" in the temple and at church.
In June 2016, when some Black Utah Mormon women were asked what they’d want today, one woman said she wished she could “attend church once without someone touching my hair.”
That same year a survey showed that over 60% self-identified Mormons, know or believe that the priesthood/temple ban was God's will.
In June 2020, a spokesman for the NAACP said that there was "no willingness on the part of the church to do anything material ... It's time now for more than sweet talk." In response the church gave more talks. There are still no serious attempts “to do anything material.”
This doctrinal segregation continues currently in the "Aaronic Priesthood Manual" on this church's website which quotes Spencer W. Kimball counciled in 1976: “We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally.”
Author
I am nicholas b jacobsen, an artist, researcher, historian, educator, and organizer. I am a trans-non binary Euro-settler raised in the Nuwu lands of so-called Utah. My family has been Mormon and Utahn for as long as either of those concepts have existed. My ancestors sacrificed everything--their identities, homelands, jobs, health, & safety to become Mormon, Utahn, U.S. American, & white--to settler their Zion. They also sacrificed their humanities as they committed genocide against Kuttuhsippeh (Goshute), Timpanogos Shoshone, Shoshone-Bannock, Eastern Shoshone, Ute, Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Diné (Navajo). Because my ancestors made my home through Indigenous genocide in their home/lands––I take it as my personal responsibility to unsettle what my ancestors settled, while helping my fellow settlers do the same through reading, writing, art, and community building.
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