CIVIL RIGHTS: TOOL OF COMMUNIST DECEPTION, by Ezra Taft Benson. General Conference, September 29, 1967

1936 - This church’s 1st official statement against communism
1949 - 1st official statement on their anti-Black doctrines and policies. 
1966 - 2nd official anti-communist manifesto. 
1969 - 2nd anti-Black manifesto 

This church has published two official statements defending their anti-Blackness and two decrying communism. During that time (WWII & Civil Rights era) they released zero statements against Nazism , white-supremacy, or fascism. (Though Deseret News did print articles in support of Nazis)

As Civil Rights organizers fought against anti-Black segregation, this church was fighting for their religious freedom to practice and preach anti-Black policies and doctrines. In this church’s collective mind, Black people were in their divine place in God’s “caste system”––they already had all the rights God has given them. 

Ironically, it was Ezra Taft Benson’s mission trip to post-Nazi Germany that led to him to being so firm in his anti-communism. He blamed the hardships of Germans on the rise of communism from the ashes of fascism. But for some reason he never thinks that maybe Nazism is what created the devastation and starvation in post-war Germany, not the struggling form of communism that rose in its wake. 

Tho anti-communism and white-supremacy were already a deeply embedded feature of this church when Benson went to Germany. Benson’s mentor, J. Reuben Clark, (known white-supremacist, First President, and US State official) co-authored this church’s 1936 official statement decrying communism as satanic. Clark also co-authored the first public anti-Black statement. And he liked to collected and handed out antisemetic propaganda in the US and Nazi Germany.
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The year after this church released their 1936 anti-communist statement, President Grant spoke under a Nazi flag to Nazi Mormons in Nazi Germany telling them, ““Stay here…We want to keep the Church intact and the missionaries working.” During this time, this church was helping Nazis do their genealogy work in search of Jews to exterminate.

The Venn diagram of Mormonism’s far-right politics, anti-communism, anti-Blackness, white-supremacy, and US-exceptionalism forms a circle.

“In July 1937, the Mormon Prophet Heber J. Grant, spoke to 800 members at a rented meeting hall in Frankfurt. Like all buildings in Nazi Germany, it came with a large swastika flag. On Aug. 7, the Deseret News, the Church-owned Salt Lake City daily, ran this picture. In its news columns, the DN regularly published wire service stories about Hitler’s treatment of Germany’s Jews. But in the religion section, it had no qualms about associating the Church President with Nazi symbolism.” (Nelson, David Conley. Moroni and the Swastika: Mormons in Nazi Germany. University of Oklahoma, 2015.)

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CIVIL RIGHTS: TOOL OF COMMUNIST DECEPTION
by Ezra Taft Benson
General Conference, September 29, 1967

“Yes, it is the precepts of men versus the revealed word of God…The arm of flesh may not approve, not understand, why God has not bestowed the Priesthood on women or the seed of Cain, but God's ways are not man's ways. God does not have to justify all his ways for the puny mind of man.”
- Apostle Ezra Taft Benson, General Conference 1967 

During Fall 1967 General Conference Apostle and future Prophet Ezra Taft Benson taught that the Civil Rights movement was a secret-communist plot. Though many other leaders were against Benson’s far-right activism, this church was in open conflict with the Civil Rights movement as they practiced anti-Black segregation. Benson and his church fully believed that God cursed all African bodies to be inherently inferior. And within this belief festered in his beliefs that communists were running the Civil Rights movement at the expense of the descendants of Africans in the U.S.

After Benson opens his talk chastising those whose “puny minds” might believe Black people deserve basic civil rights, he quotes J. Smith Jr. about how we ought not meddle with God’s curses.

Then drops: “The world largely ignores the first and great commandment--to love God--but talks a lot about loving their brother. They worship at the altar of man. Would Nephi have slain Laban if he put the love of neighbor above the love of God?” 

After reminding us all of how Mormon God approves of divine murder (just not in service of Black liberation) Benson presents his thesis statement: “Now there is nothing wrong with civil rights--it is what's being done in the name of civil rights that is alarming. There is no doubt that the so-called Civil Rights movement as it exists today is used as a communist program for revolution in America.” Then he goes on with a bunch of John Birch Society propaganda to prove his thesis. 

Ezra Taft Benson with Robert Welch, John Birch Society President

And finally offers his solutions to the supposed communist takeover in the form of a Civil Rights movement. His first point is an echo of Brigham Young’s description of Black people as simple and childlike (thus needing to enslaved for their own good.) Benson cautions, “we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group which has been selected by professional communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder.” 

Benson calls for “legislative investigating committee” to “expose the secret communists who are directing the Civil Rights movement.” Basically, relaunch the Red Scare era McCarthy trials and continue the mass arrests of Civil Rights organizers under suspicion of communist activity. / This is happening again now. Our current Cold War against China is leading to arrests of Black / African organizers as communist threats. Like the arrest of 4 U.S. citizens and members of the African People’s Socialist Party by the DOJ for “weaponized” free speech.

He shows another contemporary overlap as he calls for Mormons to “back the blue” so to speak. “We must support our local police in their difficult task of keeping law and order in these trying times…Persistent cries of "police brutality” should be recognized for what they are--attempts to discredit our police.​

“Almost every urban uprising in the country’s history has police violence at its roots”
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​- Mariame Kaba

Then Benson calls for small government, claiming “less government” will solve the U.S.’s civil rights problems. He closes by calling for all members to read the white-supremacist conspiracy theorist, Gary Allen’s “Communist Revolution in the Streets” with an introduction by Mormon white-supremacist conspiracy theorists & friend W. Cleon Skousen. ​

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Brief Timeline of Mormon Anti-Communism, Anti-Blackness, and Nazi support.

1933: "Mormonism in the New Germany." Deseret News article praising Hitler’s new mandatory genealogy program.

1936: "Warning (against Communism) to Church Members"
The First Presidency: Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., David O. McKay

1937: President Heber J. Grant speech to members in Nazi Germany. “Stay here. Keep the Commandments…We want to keep the Church intact and the missionaries working.” 

1930s-1961: First Pres. J. Reuben Clark handed out antisemitic propaganda in Nazi Germany

1947: Report on Visit to Cuba
Mission President Heber Meeks

1947: Lowry letters 
The First Presidency: George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, David. O. McKay

1949: Church Statement on the Negro
The First Presidency: George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, David. O. McKay

1940s-50s: J. Reuben Clarks gave multiple talks in support of segregation and against civil rights such as in 1951 when he said: “...social intercourse between (Euro & African descendants) should certainly not be encouraged because of leading to intermarriage which the lord has forbidden.”

1966: Statement concerning the position of the Church on Communism
Prophet, David O. McKay 

1967: Civil Rights: Tool of Communist Deception
Ezra Taft Benson

1969: Statement concerning the position of the Church on the Negro
The First Presidency: David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, N. Eldon Tanner


Notice this church has never spoken out about the dangers of fascism or told members that it is impossible to be Mormon & fascist or member of a fascist organization (like the John Birch Society). Yet they repeated tell members of the supposed dangers of communism and explicit forbid members from being members of communist organizations.

The reason this church has been so hostile to progressive and liberal members and rarely addresses their foundational problem with far-right militants is because they are a far-right organization.

Always have been.