Those who believe that the Church ‘gave in’ on the polygamy issue and subsequently should give in on the Negro question are not only misinformed about Church History, but are apparently unaware of Church doctrine ... Therefore, those who hope that pressure will bring about a revelation need to take a closer look at Mormon history and the order of heaven. Elder John L Lund, The Church and the Negro pp.104-105, 1967
For many years a slave trade in Indian children, especially from the poor Shoshonean tribes, had flourished along the Spanish Trail. Since Mormons regarded Indians as Lamanites of the Book of Mormon who were cursed with dark skin but were destined to be redeemed, they were sympathetic to their cause. Brigham Young advised the Saints to ‘buy up the Lamanite children as fast as they could, and educate them and teach them the gospel, so that not many generations would pass ere they would become a white and delightsome people.’ On 7th March 1852, the legislative assembly of the Utah territory had passed an Act legalizing Indian slavery. Ironically, as a result of this act, Mormons themselves indentured Indian children.
Venus, freed slave of early Mormon pioneer Elizabeth Redd, was originally given to Elizabeth as a wedding present. She came with the Redd’s to Utah Territory in 1850. She was a midwife and lived in Spanish Fork where she faithfully attended the LDS Church. However, she was never allowed to attend the temple. Kate Carter relates:
‘Some of the Spanish Fork people remember Venus as being tall, very polite and quiet and always immaculate in her dress. She had a great desire to go to the temple, and when she found that the temple was closed to Negroes, she scratched her arm until it bled and said: ‘See, my blood is as white as anyone’s.’’ [The Negro Pioneer, p523] Confused, board post 5th August 2009, ‘Indian and Negro Slavery in Utah – Venus’ Plight’ citing George D Smith editor ‘An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton’ (An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton 1995)
OK, the church finally relented in 1978 and gave black men the opportunity to receive the priesthood. But what about this other cursed group? According to D&C 121:21 there are some men, apparently even though they may join the church and be faithful, obedient, tithe-paying members, are barred from ever receiving the priesthood.
They are the descendants of Joseph Smith’s Missouri enemies:
They [the persecutors] shall not have right to the priesthood, nor their posterity after them from generation to generation (D&C 121:21). Confused, board post 18th September 2009, ‘Doctrine & Covenants 121 is a Utah Edition Fabrication’
Until 1979 you couldn’t be black and be a deacon or an elder of the Mormon Church ... It was an officially racist organisation ... The Mormons had to be told they were un-American when they practised polygamy. Christopher Hitchens, interview Fox News
It’s one thing to distort history, quite another to invent it. Kathy Erickson ... claims that the federal government threatened the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with its tax-exempt status in 1978 because of the Church’s position regarding Blacks and the priesthood.
We state categorically that the federal government made no such threat in 1978 or at any other time. The decision to extend the blessings of the priesthood to all worthy males had nothing to do with federal tax policy or any other secular law. Bruce L Olsen, Church Public Affairs department, Salt Lake Tribune 5th April 2001
cf.
I was quite surprised by LDS PR man Bruce Olsen’s attack ... regarding the Mormon Church’s motivations for abandoning its anti-Black doctrine ...
His bold assault is particularly amazing in light of the fact that history ‘distortion’ and ‘invention’ have been trademarks of Mormonism since its inception. Of course, the risk in Mr Olsen’s gallant tossing of the gauntlet is that someone might just pick it up.
For example, it didn’t take much investigation to discover that in 1981 the Solicitor General of the United States, Rex Lee, a Mormon, rescued himself from a case against Bob Jones University.
In that case, the US government was threatening to revoke Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status because of its racist policy of prohibiting interracial dating.
When asked why he took himself off the case, Mr Lee explained that previously when representing the Mormon church in a similar case, he had argued that the church should retain its tax-exempt status despite its racist policies and felt conflicted from arguing an opposing view in the Bob Jones case. Gary Anderson, letter Salt Lake Tribune; viz also Lincoln Caplan, The Tenth Justice
... [We] learned from a source within the Church that Church leaders were very concerned that they were going to lose their tax exempt status on property they own in the United States.
In the months just prior to the revelation, Church leaders were carefully watching developments in a case in Wisconsin in which an organization was about to lose its tax exempt status because of racial discrimination.
The Church leaders finally became convinced that the tide was turning against them and that they would lose their tax exempt status in Wisconsin and eventually throughout the United States because of their doctrine of discrimination against Blacks ...
[It] may very well have been the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Salt Lake City Messenger no 41 December 1979, ‘Death of the Anti-Black Doctrine’
[A]nti-Mormons urged for boycotts of recordings of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the cancellation of vacations to Utah.
The NAACP initiated several lawsuits against Mormon Boy Scout troops, charging that Church policy was foisting racism on minority Scouts ...
Several professional consulting firms which the Church had previously hired for other matters suggested to Church leaders that they reconsider the status of Blacks in the Mormon Church as part of a major overhaul of church policy ...
Worst of all, the IRS suggested that the racial policies of the Mormon Church might justify a suspension of its tax-exempt status. Lorraine Hewlett, board post 17th June 2004, ‘The Second Great Accommodation’
Salt Lake City – The man who cast the first vote in modern history against a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been excommunicated and fired as chapel janitor.
Byron Marchant, 35, of Salt Lake, is the second opponent of the church policy withholding the priesthood from blacks to be excommunicated in the last two years.
All faithful Mormon males 12 years and older except blacks are trained to hold priesthood offices.
Marchant, who is white, said he will appeal the excommunication by the High Council Court In his stake (diocese), and a church spokesman said Saturday the appeal would go to the First Presidency – the three top leaders.
Marchant was called to a church court before the church’s semi-annual conference two weeks ago after he announced a demonstration questioning the church policy. Associated Press 16th October 1977
To whom it may concern: You should be aware that Don Jesse, official spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is telling journalists and non-mormon inquirers that the Church ‘has never taught that black people were cursed nor the descendants of Cain. Some members of the church may have held that view in the past, but it was never sanctioned by church leaders’. When asked why black men could not hold the Priesthood before 1978, Mr Jesse responded: ‘Now that’s a good question! We really don’t know the answer. Many people have speculated or tried to provide answers, but we really don't know the reason’. Life After online article ‘Curse of Cain’
We’ve always counseled in the Church for our Mexican members to marry Mexicans, our Japanese members to marry Japanese, our Caucasians to marry Caucasians, our Polynesian members to marry Polynesians. The counsel has been wise. You may say again, Well, I know of exceptions. I do, too, and they’ve been very successful marriages. I know some of them. You might even say, I can show you local Church leaders or perhaps even general leaders who have married out of their race. I say, Yes – exceptions. Then I would remind you of that Relief Society woman’s near-scriptural statement, We’d like to follow the rule first, and then we’ll take care of the exceptions. Boyd K Packer
The writer has been privileged to sit at table with several members of the Catawba tribe of Indians, whose reservation is near the north border of South Carolina. That tribe, or most of its people, are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those Indians, at least as many as I have observed, were white and delightsome, as white and fair as any group of citizens of our country. I know of no prophecy, ancient or modern, that has had a more literal fulfilment. George Edward Clark, Why I Believe p129
I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today ... The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos, five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation. At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl – sixteen – sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents - on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather ... These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness. Spencer W Kimball, general conference address 1960