Black People and Mormonism - 1951–1977

1951–1977

In 1954, Church President David O. McKay taught: "There is not now, and there never has been a doctrine in this church that the negroes are under a divine curse. There is no doctrine in the church of any kind pertaining to the negro. We believe that we have a scriptural precedent for withholding the priesthood from the negro. It is a practice, not a doctrine, and the practice someday will be changed. And that's all there is to it.’

Mark E. Petersen addressed the issue of race and Priesthood in his address to a 1954 Convention of Teachers of Religion at the College Level at Brigham Young University. He said:

The reason that one would lose his blessings by marrying a negro is due to the restriction placed upon them. 'No person having the least particle of negro blood can hold the priesthood' (Brigham Young). It does not matter if they are one-sixth negro or one-hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is the same. If an individual who is entitled to the priesthood marries a negro, the Lord has decreed that only spirits who are not eligible for the priesthood will come to that marriage as children. To intermarry with a negro is to forfeit a 'nation of priesthood holders'....

Petersen held that male descendants of a mixed-marriage could not become a Mormon priest, even if they had a lone ancestor with African blood dating back many generations. However, he did hold out hope for African Americans, in that a black person baptized into the Mormon faith and who accepted Joseph Smith as a Prophet of God could attain the highest form of salvation known to Mormons, the Celestial Kingdom. Petersen said, "If that negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the Celestial Kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."

In 1969 church apostle Harold B. Lee blocked the LDS Church from rescinding the racial restriction policy. Church leaders voted to rescind the policy at a meeting in 1969. Lee was absent from the meeting due to travels. When Lee returned he called for a re-vote, arguing that the policy could not be changed without a revelation.

In her book, Contemporary Mormonism, Claudia Bushman has described the pain caused by the racial policy of the church, both to black worshipers, who sometimes found themselves segregated and ostracized, and to white members who were embarrassed by the exclusionary practices and who occasionally apostatized over the issue.

In 1971, three African American Mormon men petitioned then-President Joseph Fielding Smith to consider ways to keep black families involved in the church and also re-activate the descendants of black pioneers. As a result, Smith directed three apostles to meet with the men on a weekly basis until, on October 19, 1971, an organization called the Genesis Group was established as an auxiliary unit of LDS Church to meet the needs of black Mormons. The first president of the Genesis Group was Ruffin Bridgeforth, who also became the first black Latter-day Saint to be ordained a high priest after the priesthood ban was lifted later in the decade.

Harold B. Lee, president of the church, stated in 1972: "For those who don't believe in modern revelation there is no adequate explanation. Those who do understand revelation stand by and wait until the Lord speaks...It's only a matter of time before the black achieves full status in the Church. We must believe in the justice of God. The black will achieve full status, we’re just waiting for that time."