My Life as a Mormon #6 (My Thoughts on Racial Discrimination)
Posted 09-19-2018 at 10:51 AM by Katzpur
My thoughts on racial discrimination within the Church: I grew up during the '50s and '60s. I was always told that the "Negro" could not hold the priesthood. I can't recall for sure whether I was ever explicitly told why this was the case, but I knew that it was what it was. I accepted it. Living in Salt Lake City during those years, I really didn't have any association at all with Black people. Grandma Hepworth had taught me to "be nice to the little Coloreds" (who lived across the street from her house), but I really didn't have much of an opportunity to be either nice to them or mean to them. Nelson Styles was probably the first Black person I ever really got to know. He was the ice cream chef at Hotel Utah, and I doubt the man had an enemy in the world. When Matt and I invited him to our wedding reception, though, we felt that we were doing something a little bit edgy. Nic Nichol's mother, Jackie, proved us right. She wouldn't even shake his hand when introduced.
I can remember being in Seminary and wondering at God's reasoning for imposing the priesthood ban on Black men. I knew they were said to be the descendants of Cain, and that supposedly the restriction applied to all men of that lineage. I could definitely understand why God would have punished Cain for his act of murder, but I couldn't see why He would also punish Cain's descendants. I'd learned years earlier that we, as Mormons, believe that "men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression." So if God didn't hold Adam's posterity responsible for what he did, why would he hold Cain's posterity responsible for what he did? It didn't make any sense to me at all. Since I wasn't being taught any truly offensive or outlandish explanations (such as that Black people were sub-human or the offspring of Satan), I never bothered to ask the question of my Seminary teachers. Unfortunately, I never brought it up to Papa, either. I wish I had.
The Civil Rights Movement was big in the 1960s, but it really didn't affect me at all. I was not among those being discriminated against, and I didn't even really know anyone personally who was. I had led a pretty sheltered life, and was embarrassingly ignorant concerning most of the social issues of the day. Had the whole issue of Blacks not being able to hold the priesthood continued to this day, I suspect I'd have been every bit as much a civil rights advocate as I am an LGBT rights advocate today.
In June, 1978, I was working at Evans Advertising. One morning shortly before noon, a rumor began to spread like wildfire through the office: The LDS Church leadership had just made an announcement that from that time forward, Black men could hold the priesthood. When I first heard it, I thought it was some kind of joke. There had been absolutely no hint that such a policy change might be coming. I didn't believe the first person who told me, but within a matter of just a few minutes, the entire office (consisting primarily of Mormons -- the exact opposite of the situation at Gillham), was abuzz with the news. It wasn't hard to confirm that what we were hearing was more than just a rumor. People who had private offices turned their radios on, and it was all over the news. It had really happened! Immediately, questions arose. Would a 50-year-old Black man have to become a deacon, and work his way up to a teacher and a priest before being made an elder? Everybody had an answer, even though none of them had probably ever even given the question any thought at all until that moment. I didn't like a lot of the know-it-all attitudes, and I wasn't in the mood to sit around and hash it over with anyone.
It was close to the time when I usually took my lunch, so I decided to leave early. I went alone, as usual. As I walked from Social Hall Avenue across State Street, I suddenly became aware that I was grinning from ear to ear. The instant this happened, I became very self-conscious. Nobody walks around with a smile like that on his face. I tried to stop, but it was difficult. I was unbelievably happy! People must be noticing me, I thought, feeling very, very conspicuous. Did I really stick out like a sore thumb? I glanced around to see if anyone was looking at me. No one appeared to be, which was a relief. Immediately, though, I realized that I wasn't the only one smiling. Everywhere I looked, people were smiling, and obviously very, very happy.
The memory of that day has stayed with me forever, and even though I still didn't know any Black members of the Church (there really weren't many at that time, but there were a few), I felt their joy, and for once, I was really proud of my Church's actions.
Nothing about the announcement changed anything for me personally, but at least I now knew that, officially at least, racism within the Church was finally in the past. Of course, I realized that many of the older members of the Church were still having problems accepting the change. They'd spent their entire lives feeling that, for whatever reason, God had chosen to withhold the priesthood from people of African descent. Why would He suddenly change His mind? It was probably not until about 25 years later that I came to realize for the first time that God never had "changed His mind." Instead, men had finally decided to acknowledge His will. Back in the 1990s, I became quite interested in LDS apologetics. I began to regularly attend the FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) Conference every summer. It was in 2005 that I heard both Marvin Perkins and Darius Gray speak at the Conference. Both of their talks were mind-blowing! Darius Gray, prefacing his remarks with the statement that President Hinckley had personally given him permission to teach what he was about to say, declared that "The priesthood restriction was not imposed by God but was allowed by Him." Marvin Perkins' presented scripture upon scripture as evidence that the ban was not in any way scriptural, as well as pointing out a number of very racist statements that had been made by various leaders of the Church, including latter-day prophets starting with Brigham Young and ending with Harold B. Lee. (The most shocking of these was this quote from Harold B. Lee's daughter: "My daddy said that as long as he's alive, they'll never have the priesthood." His prediction turned out to be accurate.)
I should point out that neither of these men spoke with any animosity towards the Church's leadership. They were simply stating the facts as they understood them. This was, after all, an apologetics conference. We who were in attendance were there because we wanted to know how to defend the teachings and history of our Church. But in order to be able to effectively do so, we needed to know the truth. And so, for the first time in my life, at the age of 56, I came to the sad realization that the Brethren really can make mistakes. They can be as influenced by their cultures and environments as anyone else, and despite their callings, the influences they are subjected to can result in prejudices every bit as strong and irrational as the prejudices of anyone else. They can also implement policies that, in effect, deny certain groups of people in the Church from receiving the blessings that are rightfully theirs. It was only when I stopped to consider the timing of the lifting of the ban that I started to actually consider the possibility that maybe Harold B. Lee's statement (as paraphrased by his daughter) could very well have explained why the ban was not lifted earlier. If all of the Brethren would have had to be in agreement with respect to a policy change, then the reversal of the policy was very unlikely to have taken place anytime between 1941, when President Lee was ordained an Apostle until after his death in 1973.
Now I don't think for one minute that men's decisions would have taken precedence over God's will in the long run. If, for example, a Black LDS couple had been denied a temple wedding back in 1930, and had not lived long enough to see the policy changed in 1978, I believe that they will be married for all eternity as certainly as will any White LDS couple whose marriage was sealed; I believe this will be the case regardless of whether someone does their temple work for them or not, provided they would have chosen to be sealed had it been permitted. The unfortunate thing about their situation is that, even though what was wrong will eventually be made right, they would have lived a life worthy of blessings they never got to enjoy during mortality. To me, this is absolutely tragic! Until I heard Marvin Perkins and Darius Gray speak that year at the FAIR Conference, I had a very difficult time trying to explain to people who were genuinely interested in getting to the truth of the matter, why God would have done what He supposedly did. After that Conference, everything changed. I have outspokenly repeated Darius Gray's statement on numerous occasions, shocking, offending and disappointing many of my fellow Latter-day Saints in the process, but feeling confident that I was speaking the truth and saying something that needed to be said. I try not to condemn the Church's past leaders for their statements and decisions, but I won't excuse them either.
I can remember being in Seminary and wondering at God's reasoning for imposing the priesthood ban on Black men. I knew they were said to be the descendants of Cain, and that supposedly the restriction applied to all men of that lineage. I could definitely understand why God would have punished Cain for his act of murder, but I couldn't see why He would also punish Cain's descendants. I'd learned years earlier that we, as Mormons, believe that "men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression." So if God didn't hold Adam's posterity responsible for what he did, why would he hold Cain's posterity responsible for what he did? It didn't make any sense to me at all. Since I wasn't being taught any truly offensive or outlandish explanations (such as that Black people were sub-human or the offspring of Satan), I never bothered to ask the question of my Seminary teachers. Unfortunately, I never brought it up to Papa, either. I wish I had.
The Civil Rights Movement was big in the 1960s, but it really didn't affect me at all. I was not among those being discriminated against, and I didn't even really know anyone personally who was. I had led a pretty sheltered life, and was embarrassingly ignorant concerning most of the social issues of the day. Had the whole issue of Blacks not being able to hold the priesthood continued to this day, I suspect I'd have been every bit as much a civil rights advocate as I am an LGBT rights advocate today.
In June, 1978, I was working at Evans Advertising. One morning shortly before noon, a rumor began to spread like wildfire through the office: The LDS Church leadership had just made an announcement that from that time forward, Black men could hold the priesthood. When I first heard it, I thought it was some kind of joke. There had been absolutely no hint that such a policy change might be coming. I didn't believe the first person who told me, but within a matter of just a few minutes, the entire office (consisting primarily of Mormons -- the exact opposite of the situation at Gillham), was abuzz with the news. It wasn't hard to confirm that what we were hearing was more than just a rumor. People who had private offices turned their radios on, and it was all over the news. It had really happened! Immediately, questions arose. Would a 50-year-old Black man have to become a deacon, and work his way up to a teacher and a priest before being made an elder? Everybody had an answer, even though none of them had probably ever even given the question any thought at all until that moment. I didn't like a lot of the know-it-all attitudes, and I wasn't in the mood to sit around and hash it over with anyone.
It was close to the time when I usually took my lunch, so I decided to leave early. I went alone, as usual. As I walked from Social Hall Avenue across State Street, I suddenly became aware that I was grinning from ear to ear. The instant this happened, I became very self-conscious. Nobody walks around with a smile like that on his face. I tried to stop, but it was difficult. I was unbelievably happy! People must be noticing me, I thought, feeling very, very conspicuous. Did I really stick out like a sore thumb? I glanced around to see if anyone was looking at me. No one appeared to be, which was a relief. Immediately, though, I realized that I wasn't the only one smiling. Everywhere I looked, people were smiling, and obviously very, very happy.
The memory of that day has stayed with me forever, and even though I still didn't know any Black members of the Church (there really weren't many at that time, but there were a few), I felt their joy, and for once, I was really proud of my Church's actions.
Nothing about the announcement changed anything for me personally, but at least I now knew that, officially at least, racism within the Church was finally in the past. Of course, I realized that many of the older members of the Church were still having problems accepting the change. They'd spent their entire lives feeling that, for whatever reason, God had chosen to withhold the priesthood from people of African descent. Why would He suddenly change His mind? It was probably not until about 25 years later that I came to realize for the first time that God never had "changed His mind." Instead, men had finally decided to acknowledge His will. Back in the 1990s, I became quite interested in LDS apologetics. I began to regularly attend the FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research) Conference every summer. It was in 2005 that I heard both Marvin Perkins and Darius Gray speak at the Conference. Both of their talks were mind-blowing! Darius Gray, prefacing his remarks with the statement that President Hinckley had personally given him permission to teach what he was about to say, declared that "The priesthood restriction was not imposed by God but was allowed by Him." Marvin Perkins' presented scripture upon scripture as evidence that the ban was not in any way scriptural, as well as pointing out a number of very racist statements that had been made by various leaders of the Church, including latter-day prophets starting with Brigham Young and ending with Harold B. Lee. (The most shocking of these was this quote from Harold B. Lee's daughter: "My daddy said that as long as he's alive, they'll never have the priesthood." His prediction turned out to be accurate.)
I should point out that neither of these men spoke with any animosity towards the Church's leadership. They were simply stating the facts as they understood them. This was, after all, an apologetics conference. We who were in attendance were there because we wanted to know how to defend the teachings and history of our Church. But in order to be able to effectively do so, we needed to know the truth. And so, for the first time in my life, at the age of 56, I came to the sad realization that the Brethren really can make mistakes. They can be as influenced by their cultures and environments as anyone else, and despite their callings, the influences they are subjected to can result in prejudices every bit as strong and irrational as the prejudices of anyone else. They can also implement policies that, in effect, deny certain groups of people in the Church from receiving the blessings that are rightfully theirs. It was only when I stopped to consider the timing of the lifting of the ban that I started to actually consider the possibility that maybe Harold B. Lee's statement (as paraphrased by his daughter) could very well have explained why the ban was not lifted earlier. If all of the Brethren would have had to be in agreement with respect to a policy change, then the reversal of the policy was very unlikely to have taken place anytime between 1941, when President Lee was ordained an Apostle until after his death in 1973.
Now I don't think for one minute that men's decisions would have taken precedence over God's will in the long run. If, for example, a Black LDS couple had been denied a temple wedding back in 1930, and had not lived long enough to see the policy changed in 1978, I believe that they will be married for all eternity as certainly as will any White LDS couple whose marriage was sealed; I believe this will be the case regardless of whether someone does their temple work for them or not, provided they would have chosen to be sealed had it been permitted. The unfortunate thing about their situation is that, even though what was wrong will eventually be made right, they would have lived a life worthy of blessings they never got to enjoy during mortality. To me, this is absolutely tragic! Until I heard Marvin Perkins and Darius Gray speak that year at the FAIR Conference, I had a very difficult time trying to explain to people who were genuinely interested in getting to the truth of the matter, why God would have done what He supposedly did. After that Conference, everything changed. I have outspokenly repeated Darius Gray's statement on numerous occasions, shocking, offending and disappointing many of my fellow Latter-day Saints in the process, but feeling confident that I was speaking the truth and saying something that needed to be said. I try not to condemn the Church's past leaders for their statements and decisions, but I won't excuse them either.
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