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
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. 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.) CIVIL RIGHTS: TOOL OF COMMUNIST DECEPTION |
AuthorI 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. Archives
June 2023
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