The Lowry Letters: How one euro-settler stood up to his first presidency for their white-supremacist anti-Blackness

Lowry Nelson. Professor of Sociology

Cover page of the "Lowry Letters" held at Utah State University

This is a story about an 1947 exchange of letters between Mormon sociologist, Dr. Lowry Nelson and his First Presidency – George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay.

First Nelson gets a letter from his old buddy Heber Meeks. Meeks wrote: “At the request of the First Presidency I visited Cuba in view of doing missionary work on that island.” Having learned that Nelson had recently spent time in Cuba, Meeks wanted to pick his brain. 

With questions like “Are there groups of pure white blood in the rural sections?” “Are they maintaining segregation from the Negroes?” And, will “doing missionary work in Cuba in view of … the ignorance and superstition of the people and their being so steeped in Catholicism?”
Sincerely your brother, Heber Meeks, Mission President

Heber Meeks, Mission President

Nelson responds: “The attitude of the Church in regard to the Negro makes me very sad.” Nelson did not know “that there was a fixed doctrine on this point” and refuses to believe it.

“I do not believe that God is a racist ... If the Church has taken an irrevocable stand, I would dislike to see it enter Cuba or any other island where different races live… For us to go into a situation like that and preach a doctrine of "white supremacy” would, it seems to me, be a tragic disservice ... There are no pure races, on this anthropologists are in general agreement… And to teach them the pernicious doctrine of segregation and inequalities among races where it does not exist would be tragic. It seems to me we just fought a war over such ideas.
Sincerely, Lowry Nelson"

(Seems like a good time to note that Mormons saw an “unusual opportunity” in Nazi “racial question” as "It was always difficult for genealogical workers to get into (German peoples) archives.” because they didn’t want their dead ancestors baptized by the Mormons. But “due to … the almost necessity of proving that one's grandmother was not a Jewess” those archives were opened.)

So, Nelson is really disturb about this “doctrine of ‘white supremacy’” and writes to the Prophet for clarity. 

“Dear President Smith:
Perhaps I am out of order, so to speak. I have done so … with the impression that there is no irrevocable church doctrine on this subject. I devoutly hope that such crystallization has not taken place. The many good friends of mixed blood … (I met in Cuba) would be shocked indeed if I were to tell them my Church relegated them to an inferior status ... As I told Heber, there is no doubt in my mind that our Church could perform a great service in Cuba, particularly in the rural areas, but it would be far better that we not go in at all, than to go in and promote racial distinction.”
Sincerely, Lowry Nelson"



The First Presidency responds:

“The basic element of your ideas and concepts seems to be that all God’s children stand in equal positions before Him in all things.” But  this is contrary to the very fundamentals of God’s dealings with Israel… We are aware that some Higher Critics do not accept this, but the Church does.
“From the days of the Prophet Joseph even until now, it has been the doctrine of the Church, never questioned by any of the Church leaders, that the Negroes are not entitled to the full blessings of the Gospel.
“Furthermore, your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and White races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the ancient patriarchs till now.
They finish by saying, we know you academics are tryna “breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.
Faithfully yours, George Albert Smith, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay. The First Presidency"

J. Reuben Clark, Jr., George Albert Smith, and David O. McKay. The First Presidency

Nelson responds with a fairly long letter.

He thanks the First Presidency for their letter, but lets them know it was “a disappointment.”

He starts sort of thinking out loud about how it’s strange he’s never had to confront this doctrine before. Like they talked abt it in Priesthood meetings with people who had never seen a Black person, “let alone…lived in the same community.” But there was never really any scripture on it.

He then starts getting sociological talking about “certain basic principles” of societies. One of which is “social change…forever in a state of flux.” 

So, he says, “the early Hebrew” idea of race or ethnicity is rooted in their ethnocentrism – in the fact that they were a monoculture. Because they didn’t spend time with people with different melanin content they assumed people with different melanin were inferior. 

But Jesus came to end the old ways. And this ethnocentric doctrine “does not square with the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
Sincerely your brother, Lowry Nelson. Professor of Sociology



The First Presidency respond: “We feel very sure that you understand well the doctrines of the Church.They are either true or not true. Our testimony is that they are true.” So we’re not “impressed by the reasonings of men however well-founded they may seem to be.” They advise Nelson not to get lost in “worldly learning” as he has too much potential to do good. 

“We therefore prayerfully hope that you can reorient your thinking and bring it in line with the revealed word of God.”
Faithfully yours, THE FIRST PRESIDENCY

Lowry Nelson. Professor of Sociology

I guess knowing that he’s not convincing his Prophets of anything he publishes an essay five years later title “Mormonism and the Negro” in “The Nation” magazine. 

I think this part is really important for us to read so I’m posting the whole thing. 

“A very real difficulty is the fact that those who disapprove of the church's attitude have no way of expressing their point of view. It is safe to say that most of the one million members give passive assent to the present policy.

For most of those living in Utah and adjacent states the Negro question is academic; they hardly ever see Negroes, much less live in the same community with them. In any case, they would find comfortable agreement with the white-supremacy idea because of latent historical prejudices which they share with so many other white people. However, my knowledge of the deep humanitarianism of the Mormon people leads me to think that if the question could be openly discussed they would line up on die side of justice.
​
Such open discussion, especially in print, however, is a perilous undertaking for any member. It automatically leaves him open to the charge of "disobedience to constituted authority" which may lead to his being excommunicated. The upshot is that discussions by interested persons are largely subrosa (done in secret).”

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Collection of images by Lowry Nelson from his year (1945-46) in Cuba. (see more)