New Book on Ending Priesthood Ban (by Matthew Harris)

[smac97]

From the Trib: Jana Riess: The private LDS Church battles to lift the Black priesthood/temple ban

Quote

I don’t typically get emotional when reading history books, but I did with Matthew L. Harris’ groundbreaking “Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality.” It’s a gripping, and often heartbreaking, read.

The book carefully details the church’s ban on ordaining Black men to the priesthood and prohibiting Black men and women from temple ordinances, including interracial marriages. The ban, not rescinded until 1978, defined much of the 20th-century history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because Harris had access to letters, diaries and meeting minutes from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles — some of which he was the first historian to see — many stories in the book have never been told before.

I think I'm going to buy this book.

Quote

One of the main themes of the book was that the Brethren disagreed quite sharply on the priesthood/temple ban and what to do about it. 

We knew this already, but the book apparently includes previously undisclosed details.

Quote

Harris spoke to me about how most Latter-day Saint leaders wanted to preserve the ban while others fought to lift it — even at great personal cost. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The beginnings of desegregation in the U.S. in the 1950s catalyzed a kind of counterreaction in the church, like with apostle Mark E. Petersen’s response to Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Walk us through that story.

The Brown case was announced in June of 1954. The winds had been blowing toward racial equality for a long time, and the Brethren were worried about how it would affect the church’s properties that were segregated and various establishments in Salt Lake City. The Hotel Utah was segregated, for example. In Utah, it was de facto, rather than de jure, segregation, but it was segregation all the same.

Most particularly, they were worried that the movement toward racial equality would compromise the church’s teachings on interracial marriage.

Hmm.  1954 was the same year Greg Prince points to as the beginning of Pres. McKay's evaluation of this issue (see, e.g., here).

Quote

It comes up again and again in the book that interracial marriage was a huge fear of theirs.

Exactly. They feared Black sexuality, much as the Protestant South did. So when the Brown case came out, you see different responses from the leaders. [Church] President David O. McKay supported the Brown decision but told his colleagues: “Let’s not talk about this publicly. And any of our politicians in Washington, D.C. — including Arthur Watkins [a Utah senator] — let’s instruct them not to be on any committees that deal with race.” They didn’t want attention called to the church’s race doctrine, so they tried to avoid the spotlight. McKay’s response was to just remain silent.

J. Reuben Clark, his counselor, said: “Let’s talk about it openly and acknowledge it. It’s OK that we can embrace racial equality a little bit.” But he didn’t state what that meant. Did that mean interracial marriage? No. Did that mean striking down discrimination laws in housing and in employment? No. Did it mean ending segregation in Salt Lake? He was not specific. But he said we should just tell people we’re OK with racial equality as a general concept.

I will be curious to see his documentation about this "fear" of "Black sexuality."

Also, I find it interesting that the Church's hands-off approach to Latter-day Saint politicians was not always in place.

Also, I am curious about his assessment of J. Reuben Clark.

Quote

The third response was from Mark E. Petersen, and it was very aggressive. In August of 1954, during a series of workshops from the general authorities at Brigham Young University, Petersen decided that he would address the race issue. CES [Church Educational System] teachers came from around the country to attend these seminars. Hugh Nibley was there, Sidney Sperry and Paul Dunn, the future general authority, along with George Boyd, Spencer Kimball’s brother-in-law and Lowell Bennion from the [church’s] University of Utah Institute.

Petersen gave an aggressive address and the main theme was interracial marriage. He told the teachers that he favored segregation, appealing to the Bible to justify it. He quoted Joseph Fielding Smith as well, who was the church’s doctrinal authority and was also at the workshops with Petersen. When Petersen finished speaking, the educators had questions, all off the record. Nothing was supposed to be published, not even the transcript. Petersen told them that whatever you ask here today will remain between us. So they asked him every question that they would probably never ask in a public setting, such as: Is it true that a Black person’s skin will turn white when they embrace the gospel? And Joseph Fielding Smith told them, “We have actual examples where this has happened.”

Yeesh. 

I wonder what these "actual examples" were, and whether they were folklore more than anything else.

Quote

Lowell Bennion, who was a liberal in the Church Educational System, asked Elder Petersen if he felt good about teaching that the ban was the result of choices Black people had made in the preexistence. How is that good theology? Aren’t we supposed to be punished for our own transgressions and not for those of our ancestors? If Black people did something wrong in the premortal life, can they repent? Because what you’re saying is they can’t repent. Bennion was really striking at the heart of this theology and pointing out the contradictions that the Brethren, frankly, had never really grappled with.

Apparently so.

Quote

When I saw this transcript that was supposed to remain private, it really opened up a story about what these guys were thinking and what they could say in private. William Berrett, Ernest Wilkinson’s vice president, was at the meeting and took notes, and I found the transcript in his papers at BYU. The educators were getting unvarnished answers from these two apostles who were, frankly, the two biggest hard-liners in the post-World War II era.

I am glad the Brethren have improved in terms of differentiating doctrine from opinion, from policy, etc.

Quote

The story also shows something we see throughout history: There’s a “minority report.” There always seems to be at least one person, whether it’s Lowell Bennion or apostle Hugh B. Brown of the First Presidency, who is trying very hard to steer things in a more just direction. And then that person keeps getting squashed.

Yes. The Brethren were not always on the same page. They had different views, thoughts and life experiences. And one thing that’s really shocking for some Latter-day Saints to hear is the extent to which some of the leaders would break ranks and make their views known.

Hugh B. Brown is a great example. He certainly made his views known in private about the need to lift the ban. He said it was incompatible with Scripture; that there was nothing in church records that tied the ban to the founding prophet, Joseph Smith; that it was a policy, not a doctrine. And if it was a policy, that meant it could be lifted at the president’s discretion.

But when Brown couldn’t convince his fellow Brethren of his views, he did something that’s wholly unimaginable by the standards of either then or today: He spoke to the press. On at least three different occasions, he revealed sensitive discussions to the press, trying to put pressure on the church to lift the ban and to support civil rights.

His colleagues rebuked him each time he did this. That tells you how strongly he felt — that he was willing to risk so much to speak out. It wasn’t surprising that in January of 1970, when President McKay died and they reformed the First Presidency, Hugh Brown was dropped.

So Hugh B. Brown pays a serious price. There’s a powerful moment in the book when you talk about how he’s essentially strong-armed into signing a document that he doesn’t want to sign, to demonstrate the united front that the Brethren want to show.

Harold B. Lee called Brown in, and he said: “You’ve been talking to the press and saying that we’re going to lift the ban. We’re not going to lift the ban. In fact, you’re creating confusion among people, particularly our own people. So we need to produce a statement and you’re going to sign it.”

I just want that to sink in for a moment. This is a senior apostle telling a member of the First Presidency that he’s going to sign a statement that is contrary to his wishes. Brown refused to sign it until they added a statement indicating that the church supported civil rights.

But even that concession didn’t make him happy. So Brown gave another interview a couple of weeks after the statement was drafted and told a journalist that church leaders were going to lift the ban. He had nothing to base this on because his colleagues didn’t support it, or at least most of them didn’t. Spencer Kimball did, but the majority didn’t because they feared Harold Lee, who was the most influential apostle in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Brown did everything he could to apply pressure to lift the ban, but some of the senior apostles interpreted Scripture in a rigid way that wasn’t compatible with racial inclusion. Brown thought that the ban was just a policy and could be lifted at the president’s discretion, whereas the hard-liners, as I call them in the book, argued that it required a revelation. The Doctrine and Covenants talks about the process to produce an institutional revelation. There has to be a consensus among the top 15 leaders — the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve.

Wow.  This diminishes my assessment of Elder Brown.  I can't help but contrast his approach with this one:

Quote

You write in the book that such a consensus doesn’t happen until after Brown’s death, when Spencer W. Kimball decided it should — and that Kimball had to convince the other Brethren before he announced the revelation in 1978.

When Spencer Kimball was praying in the temple in 1977 and 1978, he wasn’t asking God, “Do I need to lift the ban?” Rather, he asked, “God, help me get my colleagues to see the wisdom in this.” That’s a fundamental difference the church has not told very well. The story has been told in the most simplistic way — that the prophet showed up in the temple on June 1, nobody saw it coming, and God told him to lift the ban. But in the book, I go into detail about how Kimball went to great lengths to convince the apostles that lifting the ban was in the best interests of the church, especially as leaders tried to spread the gospel globally.

In the end, it was persuasion and prayer and revelation, not activism and coercion, that affected change in the Church.

I even wonder if Elder Brown's coercive efforts created resistance to his position.  "A man convinced against his will..." and all that.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

Quote

because they feared Harold Lee, who was the most influential apostle in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Feared or respected him?  Why would they fear him?

[Calm]

30 minutes ago, smac97 said:

This diminishes my assessment of Elder Brown.

Not mine. He was apparently being told to lie, saying there was a consensus when there wasn’t if this portrayal of Harold B Lee is accurate. I think Elder Lee broke ranks first and it is understandable that Elder Brown responded as he did, especially if it had been revealed to him the Ban would be lifted. 

I see Elder Lee’s coercive efforts as creating the backlash you wonder about happening with Elder Brown.

Edited August 13, 2024 by Calm

[smac97]

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

This diminishes my assessment of Elder Brown.

Not mine. He was apparently being told to lie, saying there was a consensus when there wasn’t if this portrayal of Harold B Lee is accurate.

I agree.  That's not the component of the story I found troubling.

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think Elder Lee broke ranks first and it is understandable that Elder Brown responded as he did, especially if it had been revealed to him the Ban would be lifted. 

I see Elder Lee’s coercive efforts as creating the backlash you wonder about happening with Elder Brown.

Yes, the errors were there as well.

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Not mine. He was apparently being told to lie, saying there was a consensus when there wasn’t if this portrayal of Harold B Lee is accurate. I think Elder Lee broke ranks first and it is understandable that Elder Brown responded as he did, especially if it had been revealed to him the Ban would be lifted. 

Mine either.  Bravo to Pres. Brown.  As Dumbledore says in Harry Potter, it takes a lot of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.

[Duncan]

I think this is an interesting tidbit of info involving both Pres. Nelson and Harold B. Lee

"I learned about his (President Harold B. Lee) passing while I was home playing games with the children, still full of the festive spirit remaining from Christmas the day before. The announcement came on the television that President Harold B. Lee had suddenly become stricken and had died at the LDS Hospital. Shocked and struck with grief, I had an overpowering urge to leave home and go at once to the LDS Hospital. As I rushed there to the side of President Kimball, I quietly mourned for the loss of this giant in the kingdom, my beloved and esteemed friend, President Harold B. Lee. Since the passing of President Lee, I have had two very special dreams involving him. The first was in April of 1975. The substance of that message is too sacred to mention here, but it was a very reassuring and humbling experience. The second occurred on September 16, 1978. In the dream were two vivid messages: first, that if President Lee had gone on living, a very severe affliction would have developed in his body which, if allowed to progress, would have given him great pain, suffering, and incapacity. The medical details of this were dreadful and distressing. He said his sudden death in December 1973 was brought about as an act of love and mercy, for the Lord wished to spare him and the Church the misery that otherwise would have ensued. His second message was that the revelations received and the actions subsequently taken by President Kimball were the very same as would have been received and performed by President Lee had he remained as the prophet. President Lee exclaimed that the Lord gives His will to His living prophet regardless of who he prophet is at the time, for the Lord indeed is directing His Church. These two dreams were just as real as anything can be, and I cherish the privilege of these relationships with President Lee, extending as they do beyond this mortal sphere.

"Russell M. Nelson, From Heart to Heart: An Autobiography, Quality Press, 1979, p. 159-160."

[Rain]

52 minutes ago, smac97 said:

From the Trib: Jana Riess: The private LDS Church battles to lift the Black priesthood/temple ban

I think I'm going to buy this book.

We knew this already, but the book apparently includes previously undisclosed details.

Hmm.  1954 was the same year Greg Prince points to as the beginning of Pres. McKay's evaluation of this issue (see, e.g., here).

I will be curious to see his documentation about this "fear" of "Black sexuality."

Also, I find it interesting that the Church's hands-off approach to Latter-day Saint politicians was not always in place.

Also, I am curious about his assessment of J. Reuben Clark.

Yeesh. 

I wonder what these "actual examples" were, and whether they were folklore more than anything else.

Apparently so.

I am glad the Brethren have improved in terms of differentiating doctrine from opinion, from policy, etc.

Wow.  This diminishes my assessment of Elder Brown.  I can't help but contrast his approach with this one:

In the end, it was persuasion and prayer and revelation, not activism and coercion, that affected change in the Church.

I would say from the quotes you listed, "In the end, it was persuasion, prayer, revelation AND activism that affected change in the Church. I don't think you can take the activism out of that picture. If nothing else it may be the start of prayer for some.

52 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I even wonder if Elder Brown's coercive efforts created resistance to his position.  "A man convinced against his will..." and all that.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[blackstrap]

Hugh B. Brown . Happy to have had him as a short term honorary Canuck ! 

[rpn]

17 hours ago, smac97 said:

will be curious to see his documentation about this "fear" of "Black sexuality."

I finished his book (having already read most if not all of the books on the subject) and I thought it was ponderous and redundant.  Yes, I think is a must read on the subject because it has a few points that haven't been known before (like the fight about what does it take to change a really long standing way we run the church and the attempts to claim it was more directly taught by God than it was.  And it does have details about BYU and sports that I hadn't read in such detail before).

I've have long believed that BY decided the ban was necessary after within a few months of each other he learned two things:  the first was that William McCrary, a black member in Winter Quarters set up his own church  away from the Saints and required white women to stay overnight with him to join AND HAD TAKERS.  The second was that that the son of the most prominent black member in the NE (who held the priesthood) had married a white woman within months of MA passing a law repealing the prohibition of black white marriages a couple of years earlier.   I think it entirely possible that BY didn't think the church could, 10+ years before the Civil War, survive both interracial marriage AND polygamy.  And that the only way to stop interracial marriage was the temple ban --- which was something that would cause any faithful member not to do it.    Harris thinks that was about black sexuality (which has surely been a theme over the years in black/white relationships generally and in the 1950's specifically).   But I don't see the evidence for that being the issue for BY (which doesn't mean it might not have been an issue for certain leaders in the 1950's, as silly as it seems that men would feel challenged by other men's sexuality/prowess because of their skin color).

I've said before that I am inclined to believe that the Lord might have been okay with BY's original decision.   But I think the evidence is that when the leaders were prompted in the 1880's investigation (in which zebedee coltrin who had been there when Elijah Able had been ordained denied that he had been ordained at all and Abraham Smoot who was a slave holder also with knowledge also denied Joseph Smith had decided about that ordination himself ---which is why I think his name cannot remain on the BYU building--- , and in the early 1900's when church leaders were again prompted to investigation, the Lord was no longer supportive of the ban even if He once had.   

Edited August 14, 2024 by rpn

[Dario_M]

I also wanna buy that book. 

[Calm]

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

That's not the component of the story I found troubling.

And that is rather shocking to me that you are not troubled by that, especially since you are obviously seeing persuasion, not coercion as the appropriate method of change among the brethren. Why doesn’t it trouble you that if the story is true, Elder Lee used coercion to require another to lie even though it troubles you that Elder Brown used coercion to push for what he believed in, but without requiring anyone to compromise their integrity and dignity since he was just stating what he believed would happen? (Serious question, not confrontation)

Edited August 14, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

5 hours ago, rpn said:

-which is why I think his name cannot remain on the BYU building

You have convinced me as I was iffy on it. I had been open to Coltrin and Smoot having crafted their memories to match their wishes as we sometimes do…but I didn’t convince myself that was likely.   Even if it was a false memory, that he was so inclined to subjugate his brethren, to see them as property even after being confronted around him by other beliefs…that is not a person we should be holding up as a role model, etc. even if admirable in other ways.  No one is perfect and no memorial would exist if the person had to meet all ideals, but this specific fault is  particularly inappropriate for a community of Saints. 

I am flashing back to the sister missionaries inviting us to make the effort to look on those around us as our fellow brothers and sisters, all children of God and to see that intrinsic value in them. If Brother Smoot had truly believed in that central teaching of the gospel, truly believed in the brotherhood of mankind as part of God’s family, how much less harm might there have been done to individuals and the Church itself (what a different reputation we would have now in the States at least if the 1880 investigation had recognized the ban was a policy and had lifted it then as having served its purpose, rather than 100 years later). 

Edited August 14, 2024 by Calm

[sunstoned]

I don't mean to derail, but I find this example of church leaders manipulating elected officials jarring. Pres. McKay's statement references elected officials as "our politicians" who will follow first presidency instructions to the point of which committees they sit on.  If true, this is a shining example of blatant theocracy.

Quote

They feared Black sexuality, much as the Protestant South did. So when the Brown case came out, you see different responses from the leaders. [Church] President David O. McKay supported the Brown decision but told his colleagues: “Let’s not talk about this publicly. And any of our politicians in Washington, D.C. — including Arthur Watkins [a Utah senator] — let’s instruct them not to be on any committees that deal with race.” They didn’t want attention called to the church’s race doctrine, so they tried to avoid the spotlight. McKay’s response was to just remain silent.

The bolding is mine.

Edited August 14, 2024 by sunstoned

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, Rain said:

I would say from the quotes you listed, "In the end, it was persuasion, prayer, revelation AND activism that affected change in the Church. I don't think you can take the activism out of that picture. If nothing else it may be the start of prayer for some.

Great things come out of great prayers.

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, blackstrap said:

Hugh B. Brown . Happy to have had him as a short term honorary Canuck ! 

He wasn't honorary. Although born in Utah, he became an actual citizen of Canada, and even served in the Canadian military, rising to the rank of Major. See his Wiki biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_B._Brown

[Devobah]

16 hours ago, Rain said:

I would say from the quotes you listed, "In the end, it was persuasion, prayer, revelation AND activism that affected change in the Church. I don't think you can take the activism out of that picture. If nothing else it may be the start of prayer for some.

I actually kind of agree with this, but maybe not in the way that you might think. In Acts chapter 10, two things happen. 

1: An angel appears to Cornelius and tells him that someone is coming to deliver the gospel to him

2: Peter (albeit hesitant at first) is instructed to take the gospel to the Gentiles, starting with Cornelius.

It's estimated that Acts chapter 10 happened 5-10 years after the formation of the primitive church, but it is interested to see that this important change was more three-fold than two-fold. Because there's another important thing that happens in the chapter: Peter's meeting with Cornelius and the other Gentiles where Cornelius fills Peter in on what happened with him. One could argue that this is when the revelation actually comes to Peter, because this is where we get verse 34; where Peter says that he perceives that God is no respecter of persons.

Now I realize that this might be a bit more apples to oranges, and that 5-10 years is not nearly as long as 100+, but it is something that I do find interesting when I was doing my own research on the topic.

[rpn]

4 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I don't mean to derail, but I find this example of church leaders manipulating elected officials jarring. Pres. McKay's statement references elected officials as "our politicians" who will follow first presidency instructions to the point of which committees they sit on.  If true, this is a shining example of blatant theocracy.

The bolding is mine.

We shouldn't though assume that anyone who thought they could tell member secular leaders what to do, actually believed those secular leaders would DO what they had been told.    I give a fair amount of credit to many elected officials over the years who fully consider the various positions of their constituents, but I think the evidence is that even LDS UTah elected people are not puppets of the prophet, apostles or others who may think their opinions should matter more than any other constituent.

Edited August 14, 2024 by rpn

[Calm]

5 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I don't mean to derail, but I find this example of church leaders manipulating elected officials jarring. Pres. McKay's statement references elected officials as "our politicians" who will follow first presidency instructions to the point of which committees they sit on.  If true, this is a shining example of blatant theocracy.

The bolding is mine.

I don’t find the use of “our” problematic, I use and have seen others use “our” with representatives, congressmen, etc. quite a lot. It only means we are in their area.
 

The following of instructions, if true, is problematic but also as pointed out might not be the given it is suggested it is in the book or at least in the interpretation provided. 

Edited August 14, 2024 by Calm

[bluebell]

5 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I don't mean to derail, but I find this example of church leaders manipulating elected officials jarring. Pres. McKay's statement references elected officials as "our politicians" who will follow first presidency instructions to the point of which committees they sit on.  If true, this is a shining example of blatant theocracy.

The bolding is mine.

Some of the parts that I found most interesting in the 2nd and 3rd Saints books were the parts dealing with Washington politics and church leaders.  The church really had a different outlook on politics and religion in the past.

[smac97]

18 hours ago, Rain said:

I would say from the quotes you listed, "In the end, it was persuasion, prayer, revelation AND activism that affected change in the Church. I don't think you can take the activism out of that picture. If nothing else it may be the start of prayer for some.

A fair point.  Nevertheless, activism, particularly of the publicly confrontational/coercive sort, is not a mechanism upon which Latter-day Saints ought to rely to affect change in the Church.  Generally speaking, the ends do not justify the means.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

15 hours ago, rpn said:

I finished his book (having already read most if not all of the books on the subject) and I thought it was ponderous and redundant. 

Bummer.  I had hoped for a better (more enjoyable) read.  

15 hours ago, rpn said:

I've have long believed that BY decided the ban was necessary after within a few months of each other he learned two things:  the first was that William McCrary, a black member in Winter Quarters set up his own church  away from the Saints and required white women to stay overnight with him to join AND HAD TAKERS. 

I too tend to think that William McCary's behavior, when coupled with the prevailing racialist notions of the day, may have had a catalytic effect on the formation of the priesthood ban.

More important, though, is whether the ban was revelatory.  Despite our being a record-keeping church, we apparently have no contemporaneous evidence pointing to revelatory origins.

15 hours ago, rpn said:

The second was that that the son of the most prominent black member in the NE (who held the priesthood) had married a white woman within months of MA passing a law repealing the prohibition of black white marriages a couple of years earlier.

I assume you are referring to Enoch Lovejoy Lewis?

IMO, on of the best resources for tracing the origins of the ban is from Doctrine & Covenants Central: Blacks and Priesthood/Temple Ban Timeline

An interesting excerpt:

Quote

BRIGHAM YOUNG GRAPPLES WITH INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE AND MIXED RACE CHILDREN

October. After returning to Winter Quarters, Nebraska from his first journey to the Rocky Mountains earlier that summer, Brigham Young met often in council with other Church leaders there on various subjects. William Appleby—author of the June letter (above) which questioned Walker Lewis’s ordination and his son’s interracial marriage—was present at at least one of these councils where he again brought up these issues. The minutes of this council report that Appleby said: “Wm. Smith ordained a black man [an] Elder at Lowell [Massachusets] & [his son] has married a white girl & they have a child”—Enoch Lewis and his white wife Mary Webster had had their first child together earlier that April 1847. 

According to the meeting minutes, President Young responded, “If they were far away from the Gentiles they [would] all [have] to be killed—when they mingle it is death to all.” This hyperbolic statement of Brigham Young’s reflects his deep belief that interracial marriage and bearing mixed-race children was a crime against nature and could ultimately lead to humanity’s demise.

Yet it is clear from his next words in the record that he wrestled to also fully include those in mixed-race marriages in the Church. He continued, “If a black man & a white woman come to you & demand baptism, can you deny them?” And then added, “The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated.” That is, they can be allowed into the Church but they should not have children. This was so because, he said, “Mulattoes [are] like mules, they can’t have children.” This statement reflects the widespread belief common in that day that mixed-race children were defective in some key ways.

Historian Edward Long, for example, had written that mulattoes were “of the mule-kind, and not capable of producing” (source). Prominent biologist of the day, Josiah Nott, had also declared confidently that “the mulatto [is] no more [a negro] … than a mule is a horse” (source). Nott also warned in 1843 that because of the infertility of their offspring,  intermarriage between blacks and whites would lead to the “probable extermination of the two races” (source).

Brigham’s statement above about mulattoes clearly displays how deeply he had incorporated such erroneous assumptions into his own personal beliefs. Yet, in his next statement in these meeting minutes he said of such mulatto children that “if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake they may have a place in the Temple”—showing that at this time Brigham Young’s inclinations were toward racial inclusion in the temple. 

Orson Hyde, also in this council meeting, then shared his personal belief that “if girls marry the half breeds [mulattoes] they [are] throwing themselves away & becoming as one of them.” To which Brigham concurred saying, “It is wrong for them to do so.” (Meeting Minutes of Brigham Young and others, Selected Collections, 1:18)

"Brigham Young’s inclinations were toward racial inclusion in the temple."

Huh.

15 hours ago, rpn said:

I think it entirely possible that BY didn't think the church could, 10+ years before the Civil War, survive both interracial marriage AND polygamy.  And that the only way to stop interracial marriage was the temple ban --- which was something that would cause any faithful member not to do it.    Harris thinks that was about black sexuality (which has surely been a theme over the years in black/white relationships generally and in the 1950's specifically).   But I don't see the evidence for that being the issue for BY (which doesn't mean it might not have been an issue for certain leaders in the 1950's, as silly as it seems that men would feel challenged by other men's sexuality/prowess because of their skin color).

I think the D&C Central article above does a good job of parsing, as best we can, BY's sentiments, including "how deeply he had incorporated such erroneous assumptions {about black people, including the notion that interracial offspring were sterile} into his own personal beliefs."

15 hours ago, rpn said:

I've said before that I am inclined to believe that the Lord might have been okay with BY's original decision.

"Okay" as in endorsement/ratification?  Or merely tolerance?  Either way, this remains one of the great stumblingblocks in the history of the Church.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Doctor Steuss]

Biracial kids are like mules, and can gain access to the temple only if they are castrated?

Yeesh.  Brigham Young was a real peach.

[Calm]

43 minutes ago, smac97 said:

“Brigham Young’s inclinations were toward racial inclusion in the temple."

Not exactly. That comes across as an overstatement imo since it was only under very limited circumstances, cutting themselves off from the very blessings the temple was there for in Brigham’s view based on other of his comments, the continuation of a man’s seed/posterity.   I wonder what kind of place in the temple he was envisioning.

[manol]

removed (it was a cheap shot)

Edit: apparently I got an upvote for removing it!  Thanks!!

Edited August 15, 2024 by manol

[smac97]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

“Brigham Young’s inclinations were toward racial inclusion in the temple."

Not exactly. That comes across as an overstatement imo since it was only under very limited circumstances, cutting themselves off from the very blessings the temple was there for in Brigham’s view based on other of his comments, the continuation of a man’s seed/posterity.   I wonder what kind of place in the temple he was envisioning.

One, I think, that was mired in racialist sentiments.  An incorrigible bigot would likely not have looked for ways the targets of his prejudice could "have a place in the Temple."

Brigham Young was, in the end, a complex figure.  Overwhelmingly good and decent, but he had substantial flaws and errors as well.

Thanks,

-Smac