Black people and temple and priesthood policies in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Top church leaders (called general authorities) used LDS scriptures to justify their explanations, including the Book of Moses (7:8), which teaches that the descendants of Canaan had 'a blackness come upon them' and Pharaoh could not have the priesthood because of his lineage (Abraham 1:27).

[3] Under the racial restrictions that lasted from the presidency of Brigham Young until 1978, people with any Black African ancestry could not hold the priesthood in the LDS Church and could not participate in most temple ordinances, including the endowment and celestial marriage.

[6]: 2, 8 Between 1852 and 1978, most Black people were not permitted to participate in ordinances performed in the LDS Church temples, such as the endowment, celestial marriages, and family sealings.

Despite this, Joseph Fielding Smith clarified in 1958 "...if a Negro is baptized and remains true and loyal, he will enter the celestial kingdom... but we cannot promise him that he will receive the priesthood".

[11] Brigham Young taught, "When the ordinances are carried out in the temples that will be erected, [children] will be sealed to their [parents], and those who have slept, clear up to Father Adam.

In other cases, members with Black ancestry received patriarchal blessings giving lineage through one of the tribes of Israel, which allowed priesthood ordination.

[36] While serving in the First Council of the Seventy, Bruce R. McConkie wrote in his 1966 edition of Mormon Doctrine that those who were sent to Earth through the lineage of Cain were those who had been less valiant in the premortal life.

[6]: 58 [60] In 1978, when the church ended the ban on the priesthood, Bruce R. McConkie taught that the seed of Ham, Canaan, Egyptus and Pharaoh were no longer under the ancient curse.

[62]: 93 Another reason for racial restriction advanced by church leadership was called "Mormon karma" by historian Colin Kidd, and refers to the idea that skin color is perceived as evidence of righteousness (or lack thereof) in the premortal existence.

[63]: 236–237  Bushman has also noted Smith's long-time teachings that in a premortal war in heaven, Black people were considered to have been those spirits who did not fight as valiantly against Satan and who, as a result, received a lesser earthly stature, with such restrictions as being disqualified from holding the priesthood.

McConkie said that curse had been lifted and the previous statements made by himself and other church leaders on the subject were to be forgotten and that the focus of the gospel should be on current revelations.

"[38] Young added that after death once all other children of God had received the priesthood that the curse of Cain would be lifted and Black people would "have [all] the privilege and more" that was enjoyed by other members of the church.

"[89] Mormon apologetics author and lecturer John Lewis Lund wrote in 1967, "Brigham Young revealed that the negro will not receive the priesthood until a great while after the second advent of Jesus Christ, whose coming will usher in a millennium of peace.

Some scholars have suggested that the actions of William McCary, a half-Black man who called himself a prophet and the successor to Joseph Smith, led to Young's decision to ban Black men from receiving the priesthood.

[6]: 2  Between 1844 and 1977, most Black people were not permitted to participate in ordinances performed in the LDS Church temples, such as the endowment ritual, celestial marriages, and family sealings.

[76] During the time Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement (1830–1844), was the leader, there were no official racial policies established in the Church of Christ.

[6]: 94 Some researchers have suggested that the actions of Joseph T. Ball and William McCary led to Young's decision to adopt the priesthood ban in the LDS Church.

[7] After his excommunication, McCary began attracting Latter Day Saint followers and instituted plural marriage among his group, and he had himself sealed to several white wives.

Researchers have stated that his marriages to his white wives most likely had some influence on Young's decision to institute the priesthood and temple bans on Black people.

[36]: 70 [108] On May 31, 1879 a meeting was held at the residence of Provo mayor Abraham O. Smoot to discuss the conflicting versions of Joseph Smith's views on Black men and the priesthood, in response to Elijah Abel's petition to be sealed to his recently deceased wife.

According to Nuttall, who detailed the meeting in his journal, Coltrin and Smoot made statements about all they could recollect Joseph Smith having ever said about Black men and the priesthood.

Some scholars of Mormon history describe the recollected statements given at the Smoot home in 1879 as "apocryphal",[f] or, collectively, as "an artifact [...] recorded forty-five years after the fact.

"[112] In 1949, the First Presidency under the direction of George Albert Smith made a declaration which included the statement that the priesthood restriction was divinely commanded and not a matter of church policy.

This struggle was felt both to Black worshipers, who sometimes found themselves segregated and ostracized, and white members who were embarrassed by the exclusionary practices and who occasionally apostatized over the issue.

[120] 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.

For instance, three members, John Fitzgerald, Douglas A. Wallace, and Byron Marchant, were all excommunicated by the LDS Church in the 1970s for publicly criticizing these teachings (in the years 1973, 1976, and 1977 respectively).

[6]: 107–108 [127] He had also received previous media attention from a 1974 lawsuit that changed the church's policy banning even non-Mormon Black Boy Scouts from acting as patrol leaders.

[129] Additionally, Prominent LDS politician Stewart Udall (then acting as the United States Secretary of the Interior) wrote a strongly worded public letter in 1967 criticizing church racial restrictions.

[133][6]: 102 On June 8, 1978, the First Presidency released to the press an official declaration, now a part of Doctrine and Covenants, which contained the following statement: He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the church may receive the Holy Priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that follows there from, including the blessings of the temple.

The message was that the time had now come to offer the fullness of the everlasting gospel, including celestial marriage, and the priesthood, and the blessings of the temple, to all men, without reference to race or color, solely on the basis of personal worthiness.