Mormon Faith reveals Black members were priests in its early days, but still offer no apology for its racist actions

Mormon Faith reveals Black members were priests in its early days, but still offer no apology for its racist actions

By Dr. Darron Smith

      June 2013 will mark the 35th anniversary that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints lifted its infamous ban on people of African ancestry, which denied them full participation in church affairs and priesthood responsibilities. Since the church’s inception as an organized religion in 1830, over seven generations of mostly white Latter-Day Saints have been taught some version of negative white racial frames about Black people as spiritually unworthy and destined to be in bondage to white folk until God sees fit to remove an alleged “curse” of Blackness upon them.

     A similar version of this belief existed in the Old World. After making its way across the Atlantic Ocean, the folklore circulated throughout European-colonial America and was passed down into contemporary white mainstream Christianity up until the late seventies. Just as the United States considered Black Africans as 3/5 of a human being and treated them as such, Mormon’s saw Black skin as an irreducible sign of God’s disfavor and, thus, banned them from full participation. Insular writings by church authorities lambasted the Black experience, blaming Black suffering on divine forces rather than white supremacist tendencies (that are irrefutable given the time).