Mormon Heretic

Since today is MLK day, I thought it might be nice to talk about the first Black Mormon leader.  In his book on The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations, Mark Staker spends a surprising amount of time discussing the first Black Mormon Convert–a former slave known as Black Pete, and notes that he was an early leader in Kirtland.

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I’ve really enjoyed reading Newell Bringhurst’s book Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism.  The epilogue has some really interesting events in the 1960s and 1970s.  There were some people inside the church that were more confrontational in their approach to the priesthood ban.  Bringhurst notes on page 185,

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In a previous post, I documented Early Black Mormons, and gave a brief history of some of them.  William McCary is a little-known black Mormon from the early days of the church.  He was ordained an Elder by Apostle Orson Hyde in October 1846 and was known as the “black prophet.”  McCary claimed to be part-Indian, though historian Connel O’ Donovan said in my previous post that Read more…

Armand Mauss is an LDS sociologist from Washington State University.  He wrote a chapter in the book Black and Mormon, where he discusses race relations within the church.  He has both positive and negative things to say about race relations.  I’ll start with the positive.  Mauss notes that the LDS church has been involved in the national celebration of Black History month each February.  He notes several meetings in conjunction with Black History Month held in LDS churches in Salt Lake City, Oakland, Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington, DC (to name a few.)  Prominent LDS speakers such as apostle Dallin Oaks and Yoshihiko Kikuchi (First Quorum of Seventy) have spoken at these events.

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Alma Allred wrote a chapter in the book titled Black and Mormon.  On page 37, he states:

I don’t believe that LDS scripture allows for a restriction against blacks’ holding the priesthood.  Nor do I think that LDS theology can reasonably maintain that today’s blacks are descendants of Cain or that ancient intermarriage with Canaanites perpetuated any racial curse.  Too many scriptures collide with those ideas for them to be valid.

I found this perspective intriguing and  had to learn more. Read more…

The Priesthood ban for black members of the church is a pet topic of mine.  I have previously discussed Early Black Mormons who held the priesthood, as well as a long 10,000 word article discussing events leading to the ban.  Newell Bringhurst and Darron Smith have put together a list of 9 essays highlighting different studies about black members of the church in their book titled Black and Mormon.  Besides Bringhurst and Smith, contributors include Alma Allred, Ronald Coleman, Darius Gray, Jessie Embry, Armaund Mauss, Cardell Jacobsen, and Ken Driggs.  Racial issues in the church have long held my interest, and I thought it might be nice to discuss the book over a few posts.

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I just finished reading a book by Marcus Martins called Setting the Record Straight: Blacks and the Priesthood.  It was an interesting perspective.  Marcus is the son of Helvicio Martins, the first black general authority that I blogged about previously.  ”Setting the record straight” is a bit of an exaggeration.  Marcus does a good job of showing forgiveness, and he tries to address some of the common folklore.  He approaches the subject from a spiritual perspective more than a historical one.  So, if you’re looking for history, you’re going to be a bit disappointed.  But there were a few things I found interesting.

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I attended Sunstone back in August.  Bridget Jack Jeffries (who runs a blog called Clobberblog), gave a fascinating presentation on female priesthood holders in the ancient Christian church.  Bridget is a “never Mormon” that attended BYU, graduating in 2005.  She “seduced” (her words, not mine) and married a BYU priesthood holder while there, and she is currently studying the History of Christianity in America at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago.  She has done some fascinating research on women and the priesthood in early Christianity that I wanted to share.

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Mark L Grover gave a fascinating biography on Helvecio Martins, the first black general authority in the LDS church in the latest issue of the Journal of Mormon History (Summer 2010.) Elder Martins was ordained to the Second Quorum of Seventy in 1990 under President Ezra Taft Benson. In 1995 he was released, and he passed away in 2005

Martins joined the LDS church in 1972 with his wife Ruda and son Marcus. Grover describes in detail race relations in Brazil. From page 36, Read more…

I wanted to get this post up sooner, but I’ve been really busy correcting final exams.  I really enjoyed the last day of Sunstone, since I was able to attend all day, rather than a session here or there.  Don Bradley gave a presentation titled “Dating Fanny Alger”, a bit of a play on words.  I remember he gave a funny line to the effect of “By all accounts, she was hot!”  Anyway, Bradley tried to pin down when the “affair” happened.  Apparently, Emma discovered Joseph and Fanny late at night in the barn.  According to Bradley, Alger appeared pregnant.  Emma threw a fit, and threw Alger out of the house.  (Apparently Alger had been working as a sort of nanny.)

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I have some good news, and some bad news.  First the good news–I got a new job!  Now the bad news–my new job will interfere with my frequent blogging, so there will definitely be a decrease in activity.

My book club has been reading a book called Establishing Zion by Eugene Campbell.  I couldn’t find it in the library, but Signature Books has posted the entire book online and you can read it right here!   Briefly, Campbell is a former history professor from BYU.  I learned tons from it, though I did find the first 5 chapters a little slow.  However, chapters 6-7 were very interesting, and I want to talk about them.

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With little fanfare over the weekend, President Uchdorf announced the call of only the second black general authority, Joseph Sitate of Nairobi, Kenya.  He was called to the First Quorum of 70, as well as Yoon Hwan Choi of Seoul, Korea.

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I recently purchased Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons. It is an outstanding documentary produced by Margaret Young, BYU faculty member, and Darius Gray, one of the original members of The Genesis Group. Under President Joseph Fielding Smith, this group was supervised in 1971 by junior apostles Gordon B Hinckley, Thomas S Monson, and Boyd K Packer to try to fellowship black LDS church members.

Since I had already seen the movie at the LDS Film Festival, I was really looking forward to the special features on the DVD, and I was not disappointed. Connell O’Donovan, an independent genealogist and Mormon Historian outlines 7 early black church members who held the priesthood prior to 1847–one of them was even a Branch President! I’d like to give a brief outline of some of these early black Mormon pioneers.

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