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The Church of Jesus Christ and Black People 1967

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir

In 1967 President McKay recorded in his diary, "President Brown mentioned that Richard P. Condie, Tabernacle Choir Director, has received an application from a Negro woman [either Marily Yuille or Wynetta Martin], member of the Church to become a member of the Choir. Brother Condie feels that if she is admitted to the Choir, they should have at least one more Negro woman to be with her when they go on trips. In discussing the matter, we felt that if we admitted one or two Negroes into the Choir, we would be opening the doors to other applications that might be received.

​"President Tanner suggested that we take the attitude that every member of the Choir must be a member of the Church worthy of a Temple Recommend, in which event Negro women would be unable to come because colored people are not given recommends to the Temple. In this event, they could not say that we are discriminating. Elder Dyer suggested that we say to this woman that we are not receiving applications at the present time, and we could then make certain that all members of the Choir are members of the Church in good standing and worthy of Temple recommends. President Brown was asked to ascertain from Brother Condie how many non-members are in the Choir as well as those who could not receive Temple Recommends, and also what the repercussions would be if we were to release these people from the Choir."

Gregory Prince recalled, "I grew up in Los Angeles, but I grew up in an area of Los Angeles, West L.A., that in those years was predominantly white, so I didn't have a lot of personal contact with blacks. It wasn't until I became a missionary in 1967 and was sent to southern Brazil that I first had a personal encounter with the policy and with some of its repercussions. 

"Now here I was, a 19-year-old, starry-eyed, idealistic. I wind up in Brazil. I'm sent to my first city, which is a five-hour bus ride over a dirt road. I get there, and my companion and I, the first night that I'm there, visit a family who lived across the street from our apartment. It was a wonderful family. They greeted us graciously. We taught them. It seemed like things were marvelous. I walked out, turned to him and said, 'Wasn't that great?' And he said, 'We can't go back.' 'What?' He says, 'The husband has the blood.' Well, that was the missionary slang meaning he had African descent and was disqualified from holding the priesthood, and therefore we weren't even going to bother. That was a rude awakening that never left me. This family became our friends for the entire time that I was in that city, but there was that gulf that we had created because of this policy. It didn't seem right, but there it was."​

George Romney

On May 4, 1967, the Salt Lake Tribune reported, "Gov. George Romney said Wednesday the Mormon Church's doctrine barring Negroes from priesthood of the church is 'not a racist position.'

"Romney told a news conference his own position on civil rights is not in conflict with his Mormon beliefs.

'People don't understand this church position,' Romney said. He declined, however, to explain it.

'I'm not going to get into a discussion on it because it would inject the church into public affairs,' Romney said.

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) admits Negroes to membership, but denies them access to the priesthood - a prerequisite to the highest degree of 'exaltation' which a Mormon can attain.

"The basis for this is found in the Mormon 'Book of Abraham,' which says descendants of Ham were denied the priesthood.

'I'm not going to undertake to discuss and argue the church's position,' Romney said, 'because I'm not serving or I'm not seeking to serve or I'm not planning to seek to serve in any capacity that would involve other than my status as an American citizen.'

"Romney said his record as a private citizen and as governor of Michigan is evidence of his dedication to the fight against racial discrimination and social justice.

'And if anyone will take the time to ascertain what I think and what I believe and what I've done, why they'll know that no one believes more fully and firmly in human equality than I do,' Romney said.

'As a matter of fact, I would like you to cite a single Republican who has had to demonstrate more thoroughly his refusal to compromise on this area than I have.'

"Romney accused former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace of using a 'growing concern about excessive concentration of power at the federal level' as a guise for racism.

"Wallace wants states' rights, Romney said, to restore segregation in Alabama.

"Romney, a possible contender for the GOP presidential nomination, said the South should reject Wallace's third party proposals.

"Romney Sunday completed a trip to Little Rock, Ark., and Atalanta [sic], Ga. The trip was encouraging, he said.

'I found the southern people very friendly and I was pleased at the reaction to positions I took,' he said.

"In the question-answer period after George Romney's speech in Atlanta, Ga., this week, Negro students were ripping into him with a barrage of hostile questions on the Vietnam war, and the governor of Michigan didn't like it a bit.

"He scanned the basketball court at Morehouse College, looking through rows of folding seats for a friendly face. 'Can't we get onto something else?' Romney said. 'I want a question from a woman.'

"A stout, middle-aged Negro woman came to the platform and identified herself as Dr. Anna Grant, a professor of sociology at the century-old, predominantly Negro Baptist school.

"Politely, she explained that she had studied Romney's Mormon faith and that she had reasons to believe that Mormons are taught the kind of anthropological untruths that would make them believe Negroes are inferior.

'I must confess,' she went on, 'that I don't feel too comfortable about the fact that the Mormon position has not changed... and that you feel that the church does not preach a racist doctrine. I know you cannot change Mormonism but I just wonder how you can be as comfortable in your beliefs as you have indicated?'

"The basketball court and the flanking wooden bleachers rocked with applause from 1,000 persons and the man whom the political pollsters today regard as the sole Republican who could defeat President Johnson in 1968 nervously swept his fingers through the white panels that line his black hair.

"He was facing a moment of truth, much as John F. Kennedy had in 1960 when he faced the Protestant ministers in Houston during his quest for the presidency.

'I appreciate this question being asked,' Romney said, 'because I know from your reaction that it's a question you're interested in.'

"The audience laughed, softly and nervously.

'It is not true,' Romney told them, 'that my faith preaches a racist doctrine. Now it is true that a Negro cannot hold the priesthood in my church.' Romney paused to bring his fist crashing down on the podium and said:

'But I have been raised from childhood with the firm belief that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are divinely inspired documents, and as a result of my background I have fought in my private life and in my public life to eliminate social injustice and racial discrimination.'

"One of Romney's political managers stared at the floor of the basketball court.

"Romney recalled Lyndon Johnson's triumphal inaugural parade.

'When I rode down Pennsylvania Avenue,' he told the Negro audience, 'one of the most amazing experiences of my life occurred. My wife was with me. The little children all the way down from the Capitol to the White House were calling out, "Did you straighten Barry out, George?"'

"Today, Romney added, it is Goldwater who supports the Romney civil rights position 'because the party has basically adopted what the Michigan delegation fought for at the (1964) national convention in San Francisco.'

"Dr. Grant, the sociologist who asked about Romney's faith, wasn't quite satisfied. 'He's simply saying what his personal position is,' she said, 'but he can't explain away his religion... a man of his importance can use his influence to change doctrine.'

"A half hour later, Romney was at the Dinkler Hotel seated at the head table at the weekly luncheon of the Atlanta Rotary Club. The Rotarians sang 'America' and the Negro waiters served the meal and retired from the room until there were no Negroes present.

"After lunch, Romney arose and said, 'I believe it would be a tragedy to the South and to the people of this nation to support a third party, particularly one based on the presumed right of a state to decide whether or not it will extend to all men the rights which they have been endowed [with] by their creator.'

"Finally the governor told the Rotarians how most of the 'impoverished, diseased and dirty people in the world are colored' and how 'our enemies will turn their envy against us unless we make our practices equal our principles.'

"The Rotarians, who cheered him earlier when he had reviled 'the centralization of governmental power in Washington,' did not cheer now.

"The 500 Rotarians stood when a man came to the upright piano to play the National Anthem. The only man in the banquet room to sing the words - softly but still loud enough so all could hear - was George Romney, the Mormon Republican governor of Michigan."

Stewart Udall

On May 16, 1967, Stewart Udall wrote, "Dear President McKay: For many years the question of the status of the Negro in our church has been for me (and, I suspect, for many other Latter-Day Saints as well) an agonizing issue. The hopeful events of recent years - most notably the visible enlargement of human brotherhood, and the spread of the ecumenical spirit among the religions of the world - have served to heighten my own concern over this question.

"I have, at last, decided to speak out on this subject. The essay enclosed will appear in public print in the next few days as a letter-to-the-editor in the next issue of DIALOGUE Magazine.

"I want you to personally know that I have expressed myself with humility and utter honesty - and always with the prayerful thought that my action will, in the long run, help, not harm, the church.

"Most sincerely,
Stewart L. Udall
​Secretary of the Interior"

Two days later the letter was published: "For more than a decade we Americans have been caught up in a revolution in thinking about race and human relationships. The Supreme Court has wisely and effectively related the Constitution to the facts of life in the 20th century; three Presidents and five Congresses have laid new foundations for a society of equal opportunity; most of the churches, with unaccustomed and admirable militance, have enlisted foursquare in the fight for equal rights and higher human dignity."

(This paragraph was cut from the original manuscript.) "Changes in the structure, attitudes, and habits of a society which entail a redefining of human fellowship inevitably present a sharp challenge to the churches. As recently as last November, for example, in the face of warnings by Southern spokesmen that a million or more members might withdraw, delegates to the Methodist General Conference voted to wipe out all racialism in their church organization by 1972.

"The whole future of the human race is now keyed to equality - to the ideal of equal opportunity and of equal civic rights and responsibilities, and to the new dignity and freedom which these would bring. The brotherhood of all men is a moral imperative that no religion and no church can evade or ignore. Enlightened men everywhere see now, as their greatest prophets and moral teachers saw long ago, that brotherhood is universal and indivisible.

"It was inevitable that national attention would be focused on what critics have called the 'anti-Negro doctrine' of the LDS Church. As the Church becomes increasingly an object of national interest, this attention is certain to intensify, for the divine curse concept which is so commonly held among our people runs counter to the great stream of modern religious and social thought.

"We Mormons cannot escape persistent, painful inquiries into the sources and grounds of this belief. Nor can we exculpate ourselves and our Church from justified condemnation by the rationalization that we support the Constitution, believe that all men are brothers, and favor equal rights for all citizens.

"This issue must be resolved - and resolved not by pious moralistic platitudes but by clear and explicit pronouncements and decisions that come to grips with the imperious truths of the contemporary world. It must be resolved not because we desire to conform, or because we want to atone for an affront to a whole race. It must be resolved that we are wrong and it is past the time when we should have seen the right. A failure to act here is sure to demean our faith, damage the minds and morals of our youth, and undermine the integrity of our Christian ethic.

"In her book, Killers of the Dream, the late Lillian Smith - whose life was exposed to all the warping forces of a racist culture - wrote these words:
I began to understand slowly at first, but more clearly as the years passed, that the warped, distorted frame we have put around every Negro child from birth is around every white child also. Each is on a different side of the frame but each is pinioned there. And I knew that what cruelly shapes and cripples the personality of one is as cruelly shaping and crippling the personality of the other.

"My fear is that the very character of Mormonism is being distorted and crippled by adherence to a belief and practice that denies the oneness of mankind. We violate the rights and dignity of our Negro brothers, and for this we bear a measure of guilt; but surely we harm ourselves even more.

"What a sad irony it is that a once outcast people, tempered for nearly a century in the fires of persecution, are one of the last to remove a burden from the most persecuted people ever to live on this continent. The irony is deepened by the circumstance of history that the present practice of the Church in denying full fellowship to the Negro grew out of troubles rooted in earlier pro-Negro policies and actions. It is well known that Joseph Smith held high ideals of universal brotherhood and had strong pro-Negro leanings that were, in a true sense, prophetic. And it is well known that in the beginning the Church accepted Negroes into full fellowship until this practice offended its anti-Negro neighbors. It then settled for a compromise with its own ideals based on a borrowed superstition that the Negroes are under a divine curse. This anomaly is underscored by the fact that the Church has always enjoyed excellent relations and complete fellowship with all other races. (How different have been our associations with the Americans Indians, the Spanish- speaking peoples, the Japanese and Polynesians!) What transformations might take place in our spiritual and moral energies if we were to become, once again, moral leaders in improving the lot of the Negroes as we have strived to do with the natives of the South Seas?

"At an earlier impasse, the Church, unable to escape history, wisely abandoned the deeply imbedded practice of plural marriage and thereby resolved a crisis of its own conscience and courageously faced the moral judgment of the American people. In 1890 for most Church leaders polygamy was a precious principle - a practice that lay at the very heart of Mormonism. Its proscription took genuine courage, but our leaders were equal to the task. By comparison, the restriction now imposed on Negro fellowship is a social and institutional practice having no real sanction in essential Mormon thought. It is clearly contradictory to our most cherished spiritual and moral ideals. ​

"Every Mormon knows that his Church teaches that the day will come when the Negro will be given full fellowship. Surely that day has come. All around us the Negro is proving his worth when accepted into the society of free men. All around us are the signs that he needs and must have a genuine brotherhood with Mormons, Catholics, Methodists, and Jews. Surely God is speaking to us now, telling us that the time is here.

"'The glory of God is intelligence' has long been a profound Mormon teaching. We must give it new meaning now, for the glory of intelligence is that the wise men and women of each generation dream new dreams and rise to forge broader bonds of human brotherhood. To what more noble accomplishment could we of this generation aspire?

"Stewart L. Udall
Washington, D.C."

Letter to Martin Luther King

On May 20, 1967, Edris Head of Wilkinsonville, Massachusetts wrote to Martin Luther King, "Dear Dr. King, I am writing to you because I think it is imperative that the Negro community understand what a line of bull the hierarchy of the Mormon Church is trying to feed the public in its effort to make Romney an attractive presidential candidate. It may be that you already know how false it is, but I've been seeing a lot of Mormon inspired nonsense in the papers, and so far I haven't seen any Negro rebuttal.

"A news release in the Worcester Telegram today says that, while Negros can't hold the priesthood in the Mormon church, they are actively sought as members. That is a lie on one count, and sheer hypocrisy on the other. I used to be a Mormon, and my first doubts about the church were on this subject.

"To begin with, Mormons have no clergy. Every boy, on reaching the age of twelve, is ordained to the priesthood. Repeat, every. The young priests gradually work their way up the stages of the priesthood, and the duties of running the congregation and the denomination which in other churches fall to a professional clergy, are in the Mormon church exercised by the laymen, or 'priests.' As in any other organization, a Mormon woman takes her status from her husband. Women don't hold the priesthood, but it's a rare Mormon church where the officers of the women's organizations aren't the wives of the bishop and his councillors [sic].

"You can see how a Negro family would fit into this, can't you? The man would be the equal of the eleven year old boys, and his wife would share his status.

"As to proselytizing, twenty years ago I came home from school quite pleased that a friend was interested in my talk of religion. My mother was pleased, too (all Mormons are born missionaries) until she realized that the friend in question was black. She explained to me that it was unkind to convert a Negro, because even if she was baptized, she could never participate in the life of the church. She then told me the story of Judge Nephi Bates, a respectd [sic] man in southern Utah, a judge, and a bishop. This poor man was doing his geneology [sic], as all good Mormons do, when he discovered that one of his ancestors had been a Negro. Not only did he relinquish his priesthood and spend the rest of his life sitting in the back of the church, but every person he had baptized was re-baptized. Every couple he had ever married was remarried. The Church was taking no chances, you see.

"Now, this happened a long time ago, but the Mormon church changes slowly. This is the policy George Romney scolded Stuart Udall for criticizing. I can't imagine any Negro in the land voting for a loyal son of such a church. If you weren't already aware of the true state of Mormon affairs, I hope I have been of some service.

​"I think you are the greatest living American, Dr. King, a true disciple of Gandhi and Jesus. Don't let public opinion turn you from the way you know to be right. God bless you. (Mrs) Edris Head"

Responses to Stewart Udall

Stewart Udall's letter received an outpouring of responses both in the pages of Dialogue and in personal correspondence. Many were positive; more were negative. Several chastened him for being a hypocrite when he himself didn't value his priesthood or church membership, failing to understand the doctrine of the Church, and/or being motivated by political ambitions. He wrote in his personal files, "These letters represent a fascinating cross-section of Mormon thought on this issue. As I had no desire to be argumentative, replies were not sent to most of these letters. The one exception was that I did write out longhand replies to most of my friends who wrote in order to thank them for their support."

In a May 19 statement issued by his office, George Romney said, "Ostensibly, Secretary Udall's article in Dialogue and letter to President David O. McKay were written only as an expression of his viewpoint as a member of the church. In light of the fact that church doctrine is not determined by the attitude and expression of the individual members or the leadership, he knows as all other informed members of the faith that his method of accomplishing the religious objective he seeks cannot serve any useful religious service."

​On May 25, Elder Spencer W. Kimball responded to his personal copy, "Dear Stewart: These days, papers and magazines are flooded with articles relating to this matter written by people relatively unknown. Most of them are rehashes. All of them show a woeful ignorance of the subject they so presumptiously attempt to treat.

"I never dignify any of them with a reply or comment but you have sent me a copy of your letter to President McKay with a personal note attached. I am acknowledging that note and my brief reply is to you personally.

"Stewart, I cannot believe it! You wouldn't presume to command your God nor to make demand of a Prophet of God! I wish you had edited it after fasting and prayer. I am not surprised at the Browns and the Greens and the Blacks for they perhaps do not know better but you with your background!

"​For days now, I have deliberated long and earnestly, trying to assess a motive. It couldn't be politics - you would not stoop to that; it coudn't be money - you have enough for your needs. Surely, it couldn't be for prestige and renown - you have that in great abundance. It couldn't be hate or revenge or disloyalty, I am sure. I know you have regard for your forebears and for your people. I have kept wanting to think it was the result of a sincere but ill-advised effort in behalf of the welfare of a minority. I have tried to believe that you just did not understand.

"I have watched you climb to high places in the secular world. I have seen your picture numerous times in countless places. I have read many of your pronouncements and in much that you have done and said, I have been proud of you.

"But my dear Stewart, neither your eminence in secular matters nor your prominence in government circles has justified you in any such monumental presumption. You are here with a little boulder in your hand, but out there beyond this earth is a sun, a galaxy, a universe. You too have clothed this whole matter in ragged, human apparel.

"To such presumption, I must quote the Lord:
​
'And thou shalt not command him who is at thy head, and at the head of the church.' D&C 28:6

"Stewart, I earnestly hope this note may be for your good. I am not angry with you. I am sorry for you.

"Sincere kind wishes.

"Faithfully yours,
Spencer W. Kimball"

Elder Delbert Stapley replied the next day, "Dear Stew: Thanks for your thoughtfulness sending me a copy of your letter dated May 16 to President David O. McKay; also a copy of your article 'An Appeal for Full Fellowship For the Negro', which is to appear in the Dialogue Magazine. This article you released to the press for national consumption.

"No one will question your right to make such a statement, but I sincerely believe you should have submitted the article here to determine the facts before releasing it to the press, because there are some mis-statements. Your statement has done the church a great dis-service. Any misunderstandings within the church should be ironed out among ourselves and not paraded before the world.

"I can visualize your article being a stumbling block to George Romney if he decides to run for President. It certainly creates many difficult problems to him and any other church member seeking State or National office. We in the church, must remember that instruction and guidance come down from above and not from below, otherwise this church would just be another church.

"As you know, the Apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian saints said that the things of man are understood by the spirit of man but the things of God are understood by the spirit of God. Man does not know the mind and will of God, therefore he is not in position to declare against the things God has revealed....

"It was through Israel, particularly through his son Joseph, that all nations of the earth were to be blessed in the latter days. Now can we accuse God of not knowing what he is doing? Because he does not agree with the concepts of man today doesn't prove him wrong. The atheist or the non-christian does not prove that the savior was not the son of God, our law-giver, redeemer and king. What God does man should not attempt to interfere. God himself placed the curse upon the negro and it is up to him and not to man to lift that curse. The church cannot lift the restriction against the negro until God authorizes it. As to the timing, or if it ever occurs, we do not know but must assume that if a negro accepts and lives the gospel, even though there may be some limitations, his opportunities eternally place him in a more favorable position to be rewarded for his faithfulness. We have many negro members in the church. The greater part of them are very faithful and devoted, yet are cognizant of their limitations. We try to be helpful to those who become church members. Because men want to change the order God has ordained does not mean that the good Lord will approve.

"Now our company employ [sic] negroes. One has been with us over 35 years. We hold these negro employees in high regard and place much confidence in them. I don't want you to think I hold anything against the negro, but I fully support the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the teachings of the Lord as given to Father Abraham. The extremeists [sic] of modern religious and social thought mentioned by you does not justify repudiating the counsels and the acts of our God. You know, as well as I do, that all men are not created equal. We learn this fact from the Book of Abraham also. It is true we may have equal rights, opportunities and privileges, but that doesn't mean that we are all equally endowed. We have leaders, we have followers and those in between. Some are rich, some are poor, some enjoy good health, some are weighted down by their physical ailments. Because the people, among whom Christ lived, did not receive him as their Lord and Redeemer, doesn't disprove his divine status. There are hundreds of millions of people who do not believe in the Christ and many who do not believe in God but that doesn't prove they both do not exist. 

"I am including a recent letter addressed to President David O. McKay written by John E. Olson, Jr., M.D., dated May 2, 1967.

"Now Stew, this letter is for your own consumption. I don't believe any one here intends to excite controversy over your article. It would only add fuel to the fire and nothing is to be gained. This outburst is unfortunate. A few other brethren have been guilty of attempting to destroy the image of the church. I am sure the work of the Lord will continue to go forward because the destiny of his latter day kingdom is clear. In spite of oppositions and road blocks, the good Lord will look after his own. I have this confidence and testimony. This letter does not require an answer. I am writing accepting full personal responsibility for it. I appreciate my friendship with you and the Udall families for whom I have great love and respect.

"Most sincerely,
Delbert L. Stapley

"P.S. Again I request that this letter, or any part of it, is not given to the press nor is the letter to be used in any way. You are a member of the church and I thought that you personally should have the information I am sending you. It is not to be shared with any one else. The present National situation will be greatly aggravated should it fall into other hands. I know I can trust you with its contents."

Reverend Kinsolving

Latter-day Saint sociologist Armand Mauss wrote, "However doubtful may be the validity of the efforts made by 'inside' critics like Udall to tie the LDS 'Negro problem' to the issue of civil racial justice, these efforts are met with great interest and satisfaction by non-Mormon critics and reformers, who are anxious to help bring Mormonism up to date in its doctrines and practices. One of these is the Reverend Lester Kinsolving, who is called an Episcopal 'worker-priest,' is religion correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, and produces a couple of religion programs for radio station KCBS in San Francisco....

"Reverend Kinsolving had made similar observations during his KCBS Sunday evening program toward the end of May 1967. This program, the first in the series, was devoted entirely to a discussion of the 'racial doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.' The usual format of the two-hour program calls for one or several guests appearing to discuss an issue for a half-hour or so, and then the Reverend and his guests entertain telephoned questions and comments from the radio audience. On this particular evening, however, the Reverend explained, he had been unable to get any Mormon representatives to appear on the program, in spite of many conscientious efforts to do so. In lieu of any guests in person, therefore, the Reverend, whose announced aim for the program is an 'unencumbered search for truth,' proceeded to 'explain' the Mormon Church’s position on Negroes by means of quotations from Mormonism and the Negro by John J. Stewart. Both in a phone call to the program and later in a letter to the Reverend, I strongly protested the use of such an unofficial source. My letter also attempted, without success, to disabuse the Reverend of his unsupported assumption that there is necessarily a tie between the Church’s Negro policy and the secular issue of civil rights. As for Mrs. Romney, my letter pointed out, her behavior in remaining a Mormon, while quitting a discriminating club, was no more inconsistent than would be, say, the behavior of an Episcopalian (or Roman Catholic or Mormon) who might protest unfair employment practices against women while still affiliating with a church which does not let women hold the priesthood."

I Too Have Been Born of Goodly Parents

On June 4, 1967, David Gillispie wrote from Ogden, Utah: "Dear Beloved, President McKay: I, too, have been born of goodly parents and have been taught to love The Lord and to live as He wants us to. I Have spent many wonderful and happy hours attending Sunday School, Primary and other church activities with my friends. There we have been taught of the love of Christ for little Children and those who love The Lord. I remember what great joy and happiness filled me when I reached my eighth year and was taken into the waters of baptism. I remember talking with some of my friends, that day, as we waited for it to happen. Some of them expressed fear at the thought of being held under the water, yet I had no such feeling because, I could remember so strongly the teachings of my mother and sister Wilson, my Primary teacher. The [sic] had taught me that Jesus loved me and I knew that if Jesus loved me there was nothing to fear in this whole, wide, wonderful world as long as I loved Him in return.

"After my baptism, I remember, I was so happy I thought I heard angels singing. Then, the even more wonderful feeling that came to me as I sat and felt Bishops [sic] Jensen’s hands on my head as he confirmed me a member of the church and promised me the gift of the Holy Ghost, if I would do what was right in the sight of God. The years that followed have been wonderful and happy ones as I have felt myself grow in the Gospel under the wise teaching of my parents and others.

"As I now look back and recall how quick the time passed and I was twelve years old, this age is a mile stone in the life of most Mormon Boys. It is an age when a whole new life begins to open up. I soon passed my twelth [sic] year of life, I saw my friends receiving the Aaronic Priesthood and become active in their Deacon’s Quorum, but for some reason I was not there with these friends with whom I had enjoyed Primary so much. They were able to learn their new duties in the Church by passing the Sacrament, the emblems of Christ’s suffering on the Cross of Crucifixion for me, yet, I couldn’t join my friends in this. They were able to bring the Fast Offerings of the faithful members to the Bishop, this I could not do. They were having quorum parties with their advisor, but I couldn’t join with them. I could still go to Sunday School and MIA where I joined the Boy Scout Troop and there had the association of my friends.

"I saw my friends advancing through the quorums of the Priesthood, learning more ways of service. Although I was in Sunday School and advancing through the ranks of scouting, I often felt left out because they had the brotherhood of the Priesthood. As I grew older I sometimes sensed a feeling of distance on the part of these, my friends, who had been so dear to me in my earlier years.

"As the years passed I found myself attending fewer Sunday Schools nad MIA meetings. Soon I was nineteen and I saw my lifelong friends being prepared to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood as well as preparing to go on missions for the Church. I sensed disappointment as I realized I could not be a missionary and carry the wonderful knowledge of Christ to others who don’t know Him as I had learned to know Him in my childhood.

"As these my friends left to serve The Lord as missionaries, I lost my last real ties with the Church and I began drifting away, I seemed to have the feeling that I had reached a spiritual ‘dead end’.

"I continued my education in college, where I made many new friends. I tried to be active in Institute even as I had been in Seminary, but it all seemed so different. I guess it was because those childhood friends were no longer with me. I found myself associating more and more with young people who did not have the same ideals as my Mormon heritage had given to me. But, at least, there was no gulf between us because I didn’t hold the priesthood, since they didn’t either. As much as I seemed to enjoy these new found friends, life with them was lacking something. It just wasn’t like it used to be when I was active in church.

"One day, quite by chance, I met Lisa, a wonderful girl and we seemed to have so much in common. As we got better acquainted we found that both of us had been taught much the same when it came to an understanding of the love of Christ and of His great sacrifice made to open the way whereby we can come back into his presence. The months passed and my heart filled with happiness and thanksgiving for having found such a wonderful girl as Lisa. We began to make plans for our marriage. But, what different plans they were. Oh, to be sure, we had Bishop Thomas perform our ceremony, but my old friends were taking their brides to the Temple, where dressed in the robes of the Holy Priesthood they were sealed for all time and eternity, by the power and authority of God. Bishop Thomas, by the power invested in him under the laws of the State of Utah married us for ‘until death do you part.’ Why the difference? I knew because I had been taught that the Temple Sealing is reserved for holders of the Melchizedek Priesthood, and that I did not have.

"As my old friends continued to return, Lisa and I renewed old friendships and soon we attended church more frequently. I saw these old friends bearing their testimonies and relating the wonderful experiences of their missions. Their personalities glowed with fine qualities of leadership and I saw them being called to positions in the ward and the stake. On the other hand my spiritual progress seemed slow. At times I seemed to be at a stand still. Lacking the priesthood made it impossible for me to be called to serve in any responsibility of leadership in the Church. Because I was an Eagle Scout I did have an assignment with the Scouts in MIA which brought me great joy.

​"The day approached when my wonderful and faithful wife, Lisa, gave birth to our first child. After the birth of our son she became very ill. The Elders were called in. They administered to her, while all I could do was stand at the foot of the bed and watch and pray. Because of our faith, the mercy of God and the power of the priesthood, of these friends, exercised in her behalf, she was healed and soon took her place in our home again. She has been the type of mother to our children as mine was to me, teaching them to pray and trust in the Lord.

"The day arrived when our first born son, David, was to receive his name and a father’s blessing. What a dark cloud seemed to hang over me as I realized I could not give him that blessing because, this too is reserved for the Priesthood holder. Our wonderful Ward Teacher, brother Drayton, carried our son to the front of the chapel. In the circle were friends holding my son, and a life long friend giving him a Father’s blessing by proxie. I was denied the privilege that some fathers have had since the dawn of creation, because I lacked the Holy Priesthood. I could sense, written upon my face, a feeling of sadness and yes, for the first time, some bitterness.

​"With the passing of time a second child, a beautiful girl, was given to us. She was a lovely child and because of her beauty and cheerful nature many were the friends who sought her companionship as she grew. Little did we realize the short life she was to share with us and others. At the age of six she was suddenly taken from us. A cold chill coursed down my spine as one day my wife said: ‘We will not be able to raise our little Jill in the hereafter, as will the Randall family who lost their daughter last year.’ They were sealed in the Temple and their children were sealed to them. Since our marrige [sic] will disolve [sic] when we die, we’ll not have need for children and our family life.

"Nearly eight years have elapsed since our son was born. He is now ready for baptism. He has been faithful in his attendance at Sunday School and Primary, and I seem [sic] in him a reflection of my own happy childhood. I contemplate and wonder about his future, will it be like mine has been? I find myself praying that he will not lack the blessings of the Priesthood as I have. Again, as it has so many times in the past, my friends will substitute for me in the baptism and confirmation of my son, again I will stand on the outside.

"Now, I feel developing within me a spirit of bitterness the likes of which I have never felt before. I find myself on my knees, again and again, asking God to free my soul of this canker. But it persists. I see others who have recently been baptized into the Church, and after a few short weeks receive the Priesthood. Now we have ‘Project Temple’ organized in our stake and I see men with whom I have worked and associated for years being given special lessons and consessions [sic]. Men who have been indifferent to the Church, men who have had their nasty little jokes about the Word of Wisdom, about Tithing and many of the things that have meant so much to me. Men who had received the Priesthood in their youth but who denied it’s [sic] power and through their own ignorance had damned themselves far more than I who had not received the priesthood. Men, who though they held the Melchizedek Priesthood had thought so little of the women they loved that they denied them the blessings of a Temple Sealing. Yes, and some who had scoffed so much at the Church that they were married by a justice of the peace. Now, I see these men suddenly so swept up in a wave of religious revival that after twelve short weeks of special lessons are to be given the Holy Melchisedek [sic] Priesthood and take their wives and children to the Temple where they will be endowed and sealed. This, in spite of my faithfulness, I am denied.

"I begin to wonder of the justice of such things and as I wonder the realization strikes me like ten thousand bolts of lightning. I see myself as a man, a child of God, one who knows of the great love and mercy of God, one who knows of the great redemptive powers of Jesus Christ, one who knows of the tremendous power embodied in the Holy Priesthood of God. Yes, one who knows that without the Holy Priesthood there can be no Church, nor can man reach perfection, eternal life and Celestial Exaltation.

​"As these truths dawn on me, even as they have many times before, I find myself shocked out of this nightmarish day dream with the realization that it is not mearly [sic] a bad dream, but it is the truth. I realize more fully than ever before that as things stand now, I cannot receive the Holy Priesthood nor can my son for we are black, and the blood of Caine [sic] courses through and contaminates our mortal bodies. One question stands foremost in my mind, is this the will of God or the will of man? Sincerely yours, David Gillispie"

On July 5, the First Presidency wrote to David Gillispie's bishop, Lyman D. Perkes, "Dear Bishop Perkes: With this letter we send you a copy of a letter addressed to President McKay, marked 'Personal', by David Gillispie, address 2325 Madison Avenue, Ogden, Utah. A copy of the acknowledgement sent to him is included with this letter. If Brother Gillispie comes to you, will you please give him such encouragement as you deem to be appropriate. A search was made in the Membership Department here for his record of membership so that the ward and the name of his bishop could be obtained. The address 2325 Madison Avenue seems to be in the Ogden 6th Ward. [redacted] We shall appreciate receiving any information or any recommendation you may have to offer."

The acknowledgment read, "Dear Brother Gillispie: I have been instructed to acknowledge your letter to President McKay dated June 4, 1967, which arrived here June 22, 1967, and to advise that you please confer with your bishop. I feel that there will be no objection if I add a personal comment. As I read your good letter to President McKay and his counselors, it brought to my mind experiences and associations with members of the Church and some others who are in your position. These friends are a great comfort and satisfaction to me. I have deep respect for their valiancy and their faith. The Lord will bless you as he blesses them for the nobility of their attitude toward the Church, the quality of their faith and devotion, and their praiseworthy example. Sincerely, A. Hamer Reiser, Assistant Secretary to the First Presidency​".

Armand Mauss continued, "Reverend Kinsolving’s reaction to my letter was to invite me to appear on his program 2 July 1967 when he would again deal with the 'racial doctrines' of the LDS Church. Also invited, to provide an 'alternative view,' was the Reverend A. Cecil Williams, minister of worship at the Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco, and a Negro. The latter’s contribution, in my opinion, was surprisingly limited and restrained, except for a very brief critical comment right at the end of the program, which time did not permit me even to try to answer. Almost all of the dialogue was between the Reverend Kinsolving and myself, with rather little time given to the few telephone calls that got through.

"I was given seven or eight minutes near the beginning of the program to read a brief prepared statement, but that was the only opportunity I had for an uninterrupted statement on any of the questions put to me. Some of the Reverend’s questions were of an ad hominem nature (attacking me for 'inconsistencies' or 'inaccuracies' which he thought had appeared in some of my earlier papers on this subject), and still other matters that he raised seemed to me to be of doubtful relevance.

"A matter of some substance which did arise and which, in fact, was recurrent throughout the program, was the controversy over what relevance the peculiar Mormon doctrine on the Negro has to the civil rights issue. The Reverend Kinsolving, and to a lesser extent the Reverend Williams, both took the position, expressed in the NAACP resolution … that one must naturally expect Mormons to translate their Church’s policy into anti-Negro secular behavior. I, of course, denied that one can reasonably make such assumptions in the absence of systematic empirical evidence, and I cited my own research (discussed herein below) as evidence contrary to their assumption. Reverend Kinsolving had read the published results of my research, and he made no attempt to impeach either my findings or my methods; he simply continued to insist (apparently ignoring my evidence) that the internal Mormon policy on Negroes was a secular civil rights issue. Aside from 'common sense,' the only evidence the reverend offered was an article by Glen W. Davidson, which appeared about two years ago in The Christian Century....

"​In his 'unencumbered search for truth,' the Reverend Kinsolving took several passages verbatim from Davidson’s article and read them over the air as 'evidence' of the kind of Mormon secular racism that derives from the 'Negro doctrine' of the Church. I was then invited to answer the charges, which I started to do point by point, although I didn’t get very far before being stopped by a series of interruptions. I tried two or three times to make the point that racism in Utah, even among Mormons, cannot be assumed to result from Mormon policies on the priesthood, any more than anti-feminism can be assumed to result from Episcopalian policies on the priesthood. For one thing, I insisted, racial attitudes in any population are shaped in large part by such secular social factors as education level and rural or urban origin, so that one cannot really know how much Utah racism is attributable to religion until rural Mormons are compared with rural others, poorly educated Mormons are compared with poorly educated others, etc. Apparently having difficulty with the subtleties of causal reasoning, the reverend then asked that if the Mormons were not responsible for Utah’s backwardness in civil rights, was I suggesting that the blame should be laid to the Protestants in Utah, or, perhaps, to the Hindus? After all, I was reminded [incorrectly], Utah was the only state in the West by 1965 without any open housing legislation. And so it went."

Ezra Taft Benson, Communism, and the Civil Rights Movement

Around July 1967 Wes Andrews and Clyde Dalton published The Black Hammer: A Study of Black Power, Red Influence and White Alternatives, purporting to explain the connection between Communism and the Civil Rights movement. It used a speech given by Ezra Taft Benson earlier in the year as its foreword, and the Acknowledgements included "Mr. and Mrs. LeMar [sic] Williams and their fine son, Roger who have helped more than they could ever know" and "the Elders of the California North Mission for their interest and prayers".

In the Preface, Wes Andrews wrote, "On June 22, 1967 - a few minutes after two o'clock in the afternoon - my colleague, Mr. Clyde Dalton, had pulled his truck to the curb on a busy street in downtown Oakland, California. He had just stepped onto the street when a flashy sports coupe pulled along side. Three Negro youths leaped out and while one of the three held Clyde's arms, the remaining two proceeded to give him a lesson in Black Power!

"During this brief but painful encounter, some 50 people - white and Negro - had gathered in the street to watch. Not one showed the slightest inclination to come to Mr. Dalton's assistance. As a Police Officer stated later: 'I don't think these people are going to wake up to what's going on in this country until people start getting killed instead of just beat up.'...

"We who live within the megalopolis of the San Francisco Bay Area and who have watched and listened as the sights and sounds of racial antagonism have increased have, to a great degree, become 'adjusted' to this sort of thing. We observed the 'civil rights' 'sit-ins', 'shop-ins', 'bank-ins', etc., of four summers ago in San Francisco. We have elbowed our way through the legions of beatniks that nightly blocked the exits from the Cow Palace during the 1964 Republican Convention....

"Our moral fibre is decaying at a rate that is both incalculable and geometric. And the most costly destruction of all is the ever more rapidly [sic] disintegration of inter-racial forebearance and understanding. The growth of open antagonism between Negroes and Caucasians in America is accelerating at a rate today that is truly frightening.

"Though there are nearly nine times as many Caucasians as there are Negroes in America, the onus of responsibility for the ever-widening chasm of misunderstanding beween these races does not repose in a 9 to 1 ratio. In reality that ratio very nearly reaches a proportion of infinity to one!

"Of the 23 million Americans who are Negro, only a very scand handfull [sic] subscribe to the degenerate theatrics of the so-called Civil Rights leadership. And even this scant handfull are not self-motivated. There has been and continues to be a great stirring in the American 'melting pot', and the Stokely Carmichaels, the James Bevels, the Dick Gregorys are but a few drops of sediment that have stuck to the spoon. The hands that hold the spoon are the real criminals in the racial sickness that is killing America! If there is a black hand among them, it isn't readily discernible....

"If the average white American is becoming more and more irritated with racial unrest - and he is - he can thank his white brethren who press for greater federal bureaucracy, who publish the unremitting stories of racial chaos, who manipulate American dollars for un-American interests, and who preach a doctrine of social unrest from the lecterns and pulpits of America's classrooms and churches!

"With a view to WHO is stirring the pot, and of the gigantic size of the spoon, the above ratio of infinity to one seems a fair estimate.

"If the great majority of Americans - black and white - still possess any vestige of visceral fortitude - guts - and we firmly believe they have - they must begin a palpable demonstration of this fact. They must very soon divest their institutions of the voracious beasts who are consuming them."

Of the Foreword, the authors noted, "On April 14, 1967, The Honorable Ezra Taft Benson delivered a major Address to the Joint Luncheon Meeting of the Rotary, Lions, and Optimists Clubs, and other groups at Yakima, Washington. The title of this address was 'Trade and Treason'.

"Mr. Benson has generously offered this address as the basis for the introductory remarks to 'The Black Hammer'.

"The following Foreword is a contextual condensation of Mr. Benson's address, and is - as you will read - a message of great portent from one of America's most venerable Patriots."

The Foreword discussed Communist threats at length but made no mention of the Civil Rights movement, and only referenced racial strife in one brief passage: "Would you have taken the Nazi threat seriously if, during World War II, they had claimed credit for starting one of the worst riots in our country's history?

"Yet a Communist took credit for the Watts riots in California in 1965, with all its destruction, pillage, and bloodshed, and boasted that his group had spent two years in Watts agitating for the uprising."

In Autumn 1967 Dialogue published a letter from Gary Lobb saying, "My studies currently in Brazil, a country where mass miscegenation among European Caucasians, Bantu and Sudanese Africans, and indigenous American Indians has been a reality now for almost three hundred years, have led me to conclude that most Brazilians who are not second or third generation descendants of German, Italian, Polish, or Japanese immigrants, are probably descendants of Negroes. This is especially true among the lower and lowei-middle classes which make up a large portion of L.D.S. Church membership in this land. Pelotas, for example, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and one of the most successful missionary cities of the Brazilian South Mission, is described by nineteenth century chroniclers (Saint-Hilaire, Dreys, and Ave-Lallemant) as being 'predominantly black' and this is in Rio Grande do Sul considered to be the 'whitest' part of Brazil. Branches of the Church have recently been established in Aracaju, Recife, Joao Pessoa, and Fortaleza in the 'very black' nordest.

"We must therefore ask, 'Just who is a Negro?' We, as a Church, have decided that the Melanesian Fiji Islanders are not while the Papuans of neighboring New Guinea are. In some of the branches of the Church which my wife and I have attended here in Brazil, there appear to be priesthood bearers who possess the essential characteristics of the Negroid races. I am reminded that someone of authority decided that these people are not."

​Elder Ezra Taft Benson had been criticized by some of his colleagues for linking the civil rights movement with Communism, so he sought permission from President McKay before broaching the subject in the October 1967 General Conference. President McKay wrote in his diary, "He briefly talked about the plight of the Negroes in the Civil Rights issue, and how the Communists are using the Negroes to further their own schemes to foment trouble in the United States. He said that he would talk on this subject from the viewpoint of bringing peace in our country instead of uprisings of the Negroes in riots, etc. I told Brother Benson that under these circumstances, he may go ahead with his subject." 

Accordingly, on September 29, Elder Benson said in conference, "In 1942 Presidents Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., and David O. McKay warned us about the increasing threat to our constitution caused by revolutionists whom the First Presidency said were 'using a technique that is as old as the human race - a fervid but false solicitude for the unfortunate over whom they thus gain mastery, and then enslave them. They suit their approaches to the particu-lar group they seek to deceive." (The Improvement Era, May 1942, p. 343.)

"That timely counsel about 'a fervid but false solicitude for the unfortunate' could have saved China and Cuba if enough people knew what the Communist masters of deceit really had in mind when they promised agrarian reform.

"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 just as agrarian reform was used by the Communists to take over China and Cuba.

"This shocking statement can be confirmed by an objective study of Communist literature and activities and by knowledgeable Negroes and others who have worked within the Communist movement.

"As far back as 1928, the Communists declared that the cultural, economic, and social differences between the races in America could be exploited by them to create the animosity, fear, and hatred between large segments of our people that would be necessary beginning ingredients for their revolution.

"​Briefly, the three broad objectives were and are as follows:

"1. Create hatred

"2. Trigger violence

"3. Overthrow established government

"First, create hatred. Use any means to agitate blacks into hating whites and whites into hating blacks. Work both sides of the split. Play up and exaggerate real grievances. If necessary, don't hesitate to manufacture false stories and rumors about injustices and brutality. Create martyrs for both sides. Play upon mass emotions until they smolder with resentment and hatred.

"Second, trigger violence. Put the emotional masses into the streets in the form of large mobs, the larger the better. It makes no difference if the mob is told to demonstrate 'peacefully' so long as it is brought into direct confrontation with the antagonist. Merely bringing the two emo- tionally charged groups together is like mixing oxygen and hydrogen. All that is needed is one tiny spark. If the spark is not forthcoming from purely spontaneous causes, create it.

"Third, overthrow established government. Once mob violence becomes widespread and commonplace, condition those who are emotionally involved to accept violence as the only way to 'settle the score' once and for all. Provide leadership and training for guerilla warfare. Institute discipline and terrorism to insure at least passive support from the larger, inactive segment of the population. Train and battle-harden leadership through sporadic riots and battles with police. Finally, at the appointed time, launch an all-out simultaneous offensive in every major city....

"If Communism comes to America, it will probably not happen quite like that. Even though this is the basic formula used in so many other countries now part of the Communist empire, there is one very important difference. In China, in Cuba, and in Algeria, the segment of the population that the Communists used as the 'battering ram' of their revolution of force and violence was the majority segment. In America, though, the Negro represents only 10 percent of the population. In any all-out race war that might be triggered, there isn't a chance in the world that Communist-led Negro guerilla units could permanently hold on to the power centers of government even if they could capture them in the first place.

​"It would be a terribly bloody affair, all Americans suffering mightily but with Negroes paying the highest toll in human life. And the Communists know this better than anyone else. They do not really expect to take America with a 'war of national liberation' (which is their term for internal conquest through force and violence) unless the aggressive revolutionary force can be broadened to include not only the minority of Negroes, but also migratory farm laborers, the poor, the unemployed, those on welfare, other minority groups, students, the so-called 'peace movements,' and anyone who can be propagandized into mob action against established government. But unless and until they can manipulate an overwhelming majority of the population into at least sympathizing with their revolutionary activities, they will use violence, anarchy, and sabotage, not as a means of seizing power, but merely as a support operation or a catalyst to an entirely different plan....
​
"The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. While it can be thwarted in a fairly short period of time merely by sufficient exposure, the evil effects of what has already been accomplished cannot be removed overnight. The animosities, the hatred, the extension of government control into our daily lives - all this will take time to repair. The already-inflicted wounds will be slow in healing. But they can be healed; that is the important point.

"1. First of all, we must not place blame on the Negroes. They are merely the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder. Not one in a thousand Americans - black or white - really understands the full implications of today's civil-rights agitation. The planning, direction, and leadership come from the Communists, and most of those are white men who fully intend to destroy America by spilling Negro blood, rather than their own.

"2. Next, we must not participate in any so-called 'blacklash' activity which might tend to further intensify inter-racial friction. Anti-Negro vigilante action, or mob action, of any kind fits perfectly into the Communist plan. This is one of the best ways to force the decent Negro into cooperating with militant Negro groups. The Communists are just as anxious to spearhead such anti-Negro actions as they are to organize demonstrations that are calculated to irritate white people. 

"3. We must insist that duly authorized legislative investigating committees launch an even more exhaustive study and expose the degree to which secret Communists have penetrated into the civil rights movement. The same needs to be done with militant anti-Negro groups. This is an effective way for the American people of both races to find out who are the false leaders among them....

"The success or failure of Americans of all races to meet this challenge may well determine the fate of our country. If we fail, we will all lose our civil rights, black man and white man together, for we will live under perfect Communist equality - the equality of slaves."

Faith, Folklore, and Civil Rights

In Winter 1967 Dialogue published a letter from William L. Knecht of Oakland, California, who wrote that "there is an aspect of the discussion of race and Church provoked by Mr. Udall's letter, that I think deserves discussion. I boil and seethe when some members of my quorum refuse to accept home teaching assignments to the homes of our colored (Negro) members of record! And when Church members translate whatever sanction a black skin imposes within the Church into their daily lives and will not (for instance) sell a home to a man because he has a dark skin ('You've got to protect the neighborhood'), I conclude that something is amiss.

"I understood President Joseph Fielding Smith to say that we - the Church - believe in full civil rights for every man. I firmly and emphatically believe that that pronouncement means not merely the minimum of rights that we can by referendum specify (or specify against); I believe it means the full complement of rights which I expect for myself, living in this land as the descendant of those who first came in 1630 and who fought in every war (including the short lived one in the Carthage jail) in which our people have been engaged.

"There is a great day coming and there is going to be some blood spilled. I don't believe that that fight will be because the Church forbids the (African) Negro the priesthood, but will be rather because this Church member and that Church member (along with a lot of his neighbors who so 'admire' the Church) so infringe and limit the inherent personal liberty and freedom belonging to another human being that revolution is inevitable.

"And in sum, if I were dark-skinned, I'd belong to the Black Muslims. After all, they teach abstinence from tobacco and liquor; these are the important things, aren't they?"

Grant Syphers Jr. wrote, "A combination of factors is currently focusing attention on the dissent within the Mormon Church regarding the Church's attitude toward Negroes. Indeed, the Mormon sociologist Armand L. Mauss has indicated that perhaps as many as onethird of the Church's members openly express doubts about the present Negro 'doctrine' {Pacific Sociological Review, Fall 1966, p. 95). Recently the bishop of the San Francisco Ward has made an interesting, and perhaps significant, ruling affecting members who express doubts.

"To indicate just what personal significance this ruling has had to me, I might first mention that I grew up having very little contact with Negroes. While the issue was never a pressing one to me, I remember being taught that the Church's stand was a practice, but certainly not a doctrine revealed by God. My parents both hoped that changes were just in the offing. Neither one viewed the acceptance of the Church's stand as necessary for full participation in Church activities. My mother told me several times, 'I hope your father and I are able to be in the temple when the first Negroes come for endowments.'

"At the time my wife and I were sealed in the Los Angeles Temple, I was also serving in the U.S. Navy. The exquisite beauty of the temple ceremony and the thoughts of my many Negro shipmates worked together in my mind to pose several questions. I wrote to Joseph Fielding Smith and later to David O. McKay in an honest attempt to understand the Church's relation to Negroes. The only reply was a very brief note from Pres. McKay's secretary stating that Negroes could not hold the priesthood.

"I continued my study of the question and, in prayer and fasting, sought the 'burning feeling.' In all humility I must say that God has not inspired me to feel good about the Church's practices regarding Negroes. In fact, I have come to feel very strongly that the practices are not right and that they are a powerful hindrance to the accepting of the gospel by the Negro people.

"As a result of my belief, when my wife and I went to San Francisco Ward's bishop to renew our temple recommends, he told us that anyone who could not accept the Church's stand on Negroes as a divine doctrine was not supporting the General Authorities and could not go to the temple. Later, in an interview with the stake president we were told the same thing: if you express doubts about the divinity of this 'doctrine' you cannot go to the temple.

"At first, my wife and I were both surprised and hurt. Since then, however - while disappointed at not being able to go to the temple - we have realized that our bishop's ruling is not yet a common one in the Church. Were a general pronouncement to this effect to be made I would worry about the fate of the Mormons who honestly feel the practice should be changed; I strongly believe that it is their dissent which will provide us with a Christian answer to the Negro Question.​"

This issue also carried one of the magazine's first civil rights articles; Armand Mauss's "Mormonism and the Negro: Faith, Folklore, and Civil Rights". Brother Mauss, while accepting the priesthood ban as the will of God and the notion that black people were of Hamitic descent, "demonstrated that three of the most widespread 'explanations' in the Church for the denial of the priesthood to Negroes are unsupported in the scriptures of the Church and should therefore be regarded as speculation, or even folklore; these are (a) the war-in-heaven theory; (b) the curse-on-Ham theory; and (c) the mark-of-Cain theory. Whatever discomfiture we Mormons may feel at the lack of explanation for the Church’s doctrine and practice relating to Negroes, we should once and for all disabuse ourselves and our Church friends of these folk tales. Not only do they lack theoretical viability, but they add an encumbrance of ridiculousness and superstition to a Church policy that is otherwise only enigmatic. Furthermore, and perhaps more seriously, these unscriptural tales may provide a pretext for those among us who are given to civil bigotry to rationalize it....

"​This tendency to assume that the internal Church policy on Negroes is somehow connected with the civil rights issue is found, unfortunately, among critics within the Church, as well as among outsiders. Stewart Udall, for example, makes this mistake in his recent letter to the editors of Dialogue, where he criticizes the Church policy explicitly in the context of a discussion of civil racial justice. To say 'we violate the rights and dignity of our Negro brothers' by withholding the priesthood from them makes no more sense than to say that we violate the rights and dignity of our women by withholding the priesthood from them. After all, one of the 'imperious truths of the contemporary world' (which truths Udall wants us to 'come to grips with') is that discrimination on the basis of sex is just as outdated as discrimination on the basis of race and is just as illegal, furthermore, in much of our recent civil rights legislation. So what? Even if Udall is right that the Church’s Negro policy has 'no real sanction in essential Mormon thought,' he has apparently forgotten that the principle of continuous revelation through the prophets is essential in Mormon thought; and when the day comes that Church policies unfashionable to the times are changed by 'we Mormons,' or that our leaders feel they must 'courageously [face] the moral judgment of the American people' for their inspired guidance, that will be the day that Mormonism will be just another dissipated denomination. That the Church must be open to change is a contention that probably no one will contest, and Mormonism is structurally and theologically better equipped for change than are most denominations, precisely because of the principle of continuous revelation. However, it is difficult to see how a committed Mormon could find any satisfaction or moral strength in watching his prophets make changes, either to satisfy Udall’s 'enlightened men everywhere,' or to avoid running 'counter to the great stream of modern religious and social thought.' Nor will the Church be strengthened to face the modern age by Udall’s cynical implication that what really brings about revelation (as in the abandonment of polygamy) is the realization by Church leaders that they are 'unable to escape history.'...

"My plea, then to the civil rights organizations and to all the critics of the Mormon Church is: get off our backs! The Mormon leadership has publicly condemned racism. There is no evidence of a carryover of the Mormon doctrine on the Negro into secular civil life; in fact, there is evidence to the contrary. No matter how much racism you think you see in Utah, you can’t be sure it has anything to do with Mormonism. It might be related to the rural and small-town environment in much of the Mountain West (as in other parts of the country), or it might be the sickness of individual Mormon bigots, who would find some other way to rationalize their racism, even if the Mormon Church were without its peculiar 'Negro doctrine.'

"Will the Mormon Church ever change its stand on the Negro? There is no reason, in either Mormon doctrine or tradition, that it could not be changed. In fact, the unique doctrine of continuous revelation makes even drastic changes less difficult than in most denominations (recall the polygamy issue). Not only is there a precedent in the Manifesto of 1890 for a change of great magnitude, but the New Testament itself gives us a perhaps more appropriate precedent in the decision to admit gentiles into full fellowship without circumcision, an innovation which, like the present 'Negro issue,' was fraught with ethnic overtones and apparently strongly resisted in high places in the primitive church for some time. (Acts 10-11). Perhaps now, as then, the chief deterrent to a divine mandate for change is not to be found in any inadequacy among Negroes, but rather in the unreadiness of the Mormon whites, with our heritage of racial folklore; it is perhaps we whites who have a long way to go before 'the Negroes will be ready' for the priesthood. One can speculate however, that if our missionary work ever gets going in black Africa (as apparently it almost did recently), it will only be a matter of time before at least Aaronic Priesthood leadership among Africans will be a necessity.

"Whenever change comes, however, it must come in the Mormon way; that is, the integrity of the principle of continuous revelation must be maintained. Without this and without the charisma of the 'prophet, seer, and revelator,' Mormonism would be without its most vital distinguishing attribute. Any perceived threat to the 'due process' implied in the doctrine of continuous revelation will be resisted not only by the Church leadership but also by the overwhelming majority of the rank and file. Consequently, agitation over the 'Negro issue' by non-Mormon groups, or even by Mormon liberals, is likely simply to increase the resistance to change. This consideration might not, in the eyes of the NAACP, provide sufficient grounds for ceasing the agitation if a question of civil rights were involved; but it is not. No one, I take it, would suggest that holding the priesthood in the Mormon Church is a right guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States. Membership in the Church is voluntary in the fullest civil sense: it is not a condition for holding a job, for owning property, for getting an education, for exercising the voting franchise, or for any other civil right. At the same time, there is nothing to restrain Mormons from engaging in civil rights campaigns and activities whenever conscience dictates, as indeed some have done. So why denounce the Mormon Church for its 'stand on civil rights'? To do so is not only inappropriate but is likely to have the opposite of the desired effect. Furthermore it is, in a sense, a form of religious persecution. Until it can be shown that the Mormon 'Negro doctrine' has behavioral consequences in the civil world, it is just as much a form of bigotry and persecution to picket the Church Office Building as it would be, say, to picket an Orthodox Jewish synagogue because of pique at the traditional doctrine that Jews are God's chosen people!"

In December 1967 Seattle Magazine carried an article called "The Swarming Mormons" with several factual inaccuracies. It touched on the priesthood ban: "The exclusion of Negroes from the priestly orders, and therefore, according to Mormon doctrine, from advancement in the afterlife, is based on a passage in The Pearl of Great Price, a sacred Mormon scripture, which states that Negroes, as sons of Ham, are 'cursed... as pertaining to the priesthood.' Most Mormons are content to let it go at that. 'The subject of the Negro,' says Dr. Arthur F. Kay, president of the Seattle Stake, 'simply never comes up.' For a growing body of dissenters, though, this doctrine has become the main symbol of the church's social backwardness - and a potential threat to the presidential hopes of George Romney.

'The crux of the matter,' writes Samuel Taylor in Dialogue, 'is not that the Negro has been denied the priesthood, but that the entire national ferment during the past decade concerning the equality of man has been ignored.'

"​Adds Dr. Sterling Stott, who is director of pupil personnel services for Seattle Public Schools and who left the Mormon Church to become a Unitarian: 'The church's leaders have simply withdrawn from the problems of contemporary society. They're fiddling while the country burns.'

"​Even such harsh criticism has done nothing to budge Mormon officials from their adamant position. 'The Church has no intention of changing its doctrine on the Negro,' N. Eldon Tanner, counselor to the First President [sic], told Seattle during his recent visit here. 'Throughout the history of the original Christian church, the Negro never held the priesthood. There's really nothing we can do to change this. It's a law of God.'

Next: The Church of Jesus Christ and Black People 1969-1970
​Main Page: Latter-day Saint Racial History