How many black members do we have?

[CA Steve]

The hoax today has led to some interesting online reactions. One comment I have seen a few times is people lamenting the fact that our black members had their hopes raised and then dashed. (Not my words.) So my first thought was, "I don't actually know any black members. I am not saying there aren't any or even that they are rare, I just don't happen to know any. It led me to asking myself if there is any information on how many black members we actually have.

No, I do not have a handle on who would qualify and who would not, nor do I actually think the church even has that kind of information but I am curious if others might have even a guess on how many black members there are.

 

Thanks

[bluebell]

Pew Forum's poll in 2009 said that 3% of church membership was black.  That's the only info i've been able to find so far.

Edited May 17, 2018 by bluebell

[Duncan]

I baptized a lot in LA so... a lot!

[rpn]

We don't keep statistics on race or ethnicity.  On any form, much less on membership records.  It simply doesn't matter in the church scheme of things.  And we all know that DNA results may identify racial component that has never been known.   Even in the days when descendants of africans couldn't hold the priesthood, people were identified as such almost exclusively by skin color.   And there were plenty of Pacific Islanders who looked equally dark who did hold the priesthood, because they were not believed to have had african blood.

So I'm thinking that any one who names a percentage is unlikely to be basing it on facts.  Pew is likely basing it on the number of Mormons they surveyed for their studies, who also identified themselves as black (and it is a safe bet that they didn't ask if they were african heritage black or something else.

[Storm Rider]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

Pew Forum's poll in 2009 said that 3% of church membership was black.  That's the only info i've been able to find so far.

Did that poll include the saints in Africa also?

[CMZ]

Not enough.

[Calm]

21 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

Did that poll include the saints in Africa also?

Specific to the US:

Quote

Nearly nine-in-ten Mormons in the U.S. (86%) are white, compared with 71% of the general population. Just 3% of Mormons are African-American and 7% are Latino. Other predominantly white religious groups in the U.S. include Jews (95% white), members of mainline Protestant churches (91% white) and Orthodox Christians (87% white). Among Catholics, by contrast, only two-thirds are white (65%) and about one-third are Latino (29%). Jehovah’s Witnesses and especially Muslims are among the most racially diverse religious traditions in the U.S.; less than half of each tradition is white (48% and 37%, respectively).

Immigrants to the U.S. make up a significantly smaller proportion of Mormons than they do of the population overall. Only 7% of Mormons were born outside the United States, while among the general population, 12% were born outside the U.S. The Mormon community closely resembles the mainline, evangelical and historically black Protestant traditions in this regard; other religious traditions tend to have higher proportions of immigrants in their ranks.

 

[bluebell]

30 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

Did that poll include the saints in Africa also?

Looks like it’s just the US. 

[Bernard Gui]

4 hours ago, CA Steve said:

No, I do not have a handle on who would qualify and who would not, nor do I actually think the church even has that kind of information but I am curious if others might have even a guess on how many black members there are.

How do define black? Why would that even matter?  

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, CA Steve said:

One comment I have seen a few times is people lamenting the fact that our black members had their hopes raised and then dashed.

I currently have a black housemate (African born). He will not have even known what was happening in America, and when/if I tell him about it, I can with some accuracy predict that he will roll his eyes. My former black housemate (also African born), would respond similarly, I feel quite confident.

We have two other black families in our ward currently (again, African born). I know one of them very well. They have no hopes to be dashed by such nonsense. I don't know the other family that well, but if I get a chance, I can ask them.

I don't mean to downplay the lived experiences of African-American Saints, but I suspect we would do well to remember that they are a diverse group themselves, with very different experiences and 'hopes'.

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, CA Steve said:

 

Edited May 18, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, rpn said:

We don't keep statistics on race or ethnicity.  On any form, much less on membership records.  It simply doesn't matter in the church scheme of things.  And we all know that DNA results may identify racial component that has never been known.   Even in the days when descendants of africans couldn't hold the priesthood, people were identified as such almost exclusively by skin color.   And there were plenty of Pacific Islanders who looked equally dark who did hold the priesthood, because they were not believed to have had african blood.

So I'm thinking that any one who names a percentage is unlikely to be basing it on facts.  Pew is likely basing it on the number of Mormons they surveyed for their studies, who also identified themselves as black (and it is a safe bet that they didn't ask if they were african heritage black or something else.

Modern scientific sampling techniques make it possible to accurately assess the percentage of different ethnic groups in a population.  People usually self-identify in such cases.  However, outside the USA, the issue was based on an awareness of Black heritage in members in Brazil, for example, and dealing with the question of what would be required when the first temple would be built in Brazil. Too many of the members were partially of Black heritage (via historical slavery).  This was one of the issues pressing on Pres Kimball in 1978.

The number of Black members worldwide is rapidly increasing and the fastest growth in the Church is in Africa -- adult missionaries from our ward recently established a new stake in Ghana.

[Gray]

Our RS president is white, but her family has adopted a black child. I know her hopes were raised and then dashed really hard by the hoax.

[Marginal Gains]

14 hours ago, CA Steve said:

I don't actually know any black members. I am not saying there aren't any or even that they are rare, I just don't happen to know any.

Wow!

[Marginal Gains]

49 minutes ago, Gray said:

Our RS president is white, but her family has adopted a black child. I know her hopes were raised and then dashed really hard by the hoax.

I wonder if she realises her hurt is not caused by the hoax, but by the entrenched refusal of the hierarchy to apologise...

[Gray]

7 minutes ago, Marginal Gains said:

I wonder if she realises her hurt is not caused by the hoax, but by the entrenched refusal of the hierarchy to apologise...

She does. Her faith has been on really shaky ground for a while now, mostly due to concern for raising her daughter in the church.

[phaedrus ut]

With growth slowing in North America, Asia, & Europe the strong growth of the church in Africa should keep increasing.  I had black LDS friends who were adopted when I was growing up and I have LDS friends that have also adopted black children.  We did have one black LDS family move into our Utah ward in the early 1980's. Unfortunately they kept getting hate mail and moved away.  

I posted a suggestion on Wednesday 

Quote

On 5/16/2018 at 2:35 PM, phaedrus ut said:

The First Presidency should issue a pronouncement, Proclamation of the Family style, signed by the First Presidency that explicitly says the ban was wrong from the beginning, the justifications for the ban were wrong and harmful, racist passages exist in the scriptures but those are wrong, and apologize and ask for forgiveness

IMO the fake apology worked because there are many in the church, black and white, that understand it's needed and overdue.  I saw many LDS friends celebrate saying "i can't believe this day has finally come" or that they "always knew it would happen".  On twitter I saw black LDS members talking about their tears of joy.  Highlighting that after 40 years this still hasn't happened has essentially publicly shamed the church.  They still have a PR window between now that the Be One events to take care of this. 

Phaedrus

 

[CV75]

15 hours ago, CA Steve said:

The hoax today has led to some interesting online reactions. One comment I have seen a few times is people lamenting the fact that our black members had their hopes raised and then dashed. (Not my words.) So my first thought was, "I don't actually know any black members. I am not saying there aren't any or even that they are rare, I just don't happen to know any. It led me to asking myself if there is any information on how many black members we actually have.

No, I do not have a handle on who would qualify and who would not, nor do I actually think the church even has that kind of information but I am curious if others might have even a guess on how many black members there are.

 

Thanks

Over 15 million, according to the way I qualify "black."

[pogi]

53 minutes ago, Gray said:

She does. Her faith has been on really shaky ground for a while now, mostly due to concern for raising her daughter in the church.

I would encourage her to visit the Genesis branch and get input about their experiences in the church as black members.  She needs to get feedback from actual black members to see how they justify their membership considering church history.  She needs to find out if  she has anything to be concerned about from people who have been there and done that.  

[JAHS]

According to the church website there are at least a half million in Africa alone. My guess would be somewhere around 700,000 all together in the world.

[CA Steve]

Thanks for all the responses.

Yes I realize there is a problem with defining who is and isn't black, a problem that led to the 1978 announcement in my opinion.

No I don't have a better answer for who qualifies and who does not, nor was my question intended to debate or even raise that issue.

When I said I don't know any, I meant personally, obviously I know of some members locally who may consider themselves black, I just don't know them and therefore have no way to ask one how they felt about the hoax.

And finally if we have 3% in the US as the PEW poll indicates that is many more than I would have expected. 

 

 

[Marginal Gains]

1 minute ago, CA Steve said:

Thanks for all the responses.

Yes I realize there is a problem with defining who is and isn't black, a problem that led to the 1978 announcement in my opinion.

No I don't have a better answer for who qualifies and who does not, nor was my question intended to debate or even raise that issue.

When I said I don't know any, I meant personally, obviously I know of some members locally who may consider themselves black, I just don't know them and therefore have no way to ask one how they felt about the hoax.

And finally if we have 3% in the US as the PEW poll indicates that is many more than I would have expected. 

 

 

May consider themselves black? I suspect they may consider themselves American and human.

[Gray]

42 minutes ago, pogi said:

I would encourage her to visit the Genesis branch and get input about their experiences in the church as black members.  She needs to get feedback from actual black members to see how they justify their membership considering church history.  She needs to find out if  she has anything to be concerned about from people who have been there and done that.   

She's very actively doing things like that. Thanks!

[CA Steve]

54 minutes ago, pogi said:

I would encourage her to visit the Genesis branch and get input about their experiences in the church as black members.  She needs to get feedback from actual black members to see how they justify their membership considering church history.  She needs to find out if  she has anything to be concerned about from people who have been there and done that.  

Shouldn't she she also get feedback from black people who are not members, who are familiar with Mormons?  I suspect she might find their point of view very interesting also.

[Gray]

21 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Shouldn't she she also get feedback from black people who are not members, who are familiar with Mormons?  I suspect she might find their point of view very interesting also.

I know she and her husband have become very much engaged in issues of race since they adopted their little girl. They're very active in some kind of support group to help adoptive parents navigate issues of race, but I don't know all the details. It's tough because we had an official policy for 100 years that treated black people as second class. On the other hand, there are a ton of other churches who may not have had an official policy like that but were just as racist. It's a tough issue to navigate. The issue become more personal when it involves someone you love, just as people tend to become more active in fund-raising to help cure a disease when a loved one is diagnosed with it.