Interracial marriage and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
[5][6][7] Past teachings of church leaders on race and interracial marriage have stemmed from racist beliefs of the time and have seen criticism and controversy.
[11][12] Past church leaders' views on interracial marriages were reflected by previous laws in Utah, where its members held a notable amount of political influence.
In 1852, the Act in Relation to Service which allowed the enslavement of Black people in Utah Territory was passed, and it also banned sexual intercourse between a White person and "any of the African race.
"[13]: 110 [14] That same day the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners (which allowed White Utah residents to enslave Native Americans) also passed, though it did not contain any discussion on Native-White marriage or sex.
[13]: 112 In 1939, the two-thirds-Mormon majority[16] Utah State Legislature expanded the law to prohibit a White person from marrying a "Mongolian, a member of the malay race or a mulatto, quadroon, or octoroon.
[47][48] In 1843 church founder Joseph Smith wrote, "Had I [anything] to do with the Negro I would confine them by strict [l]aw to their own species," in reference to interracial marriage.
[49][51] A year later as mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, he held a trial and fined two Black men the modern equivalent of thousands of dollars for trying to marry White women.
[50][52] A decade earlier hundreds of non-Mormon citizens of Jackson County, Missouri accused the LDS community of inviting Black people to live among them, thus, creating the risk of interracial marriage.
[55]: Dec 1897 [56][57] Three years later Cannon also stated that Smith had taught Taylor that any male child born with any Black heritage from one or more parents could not receive the priesthood as he was "tainted with Negro blood.
[23]: 148 Abel's petitions for temple ordinances were also denied by Smith's next successors Brigham Young and John Taylor because of his Black ancestor.
[67]: 98 [68]: 227–228 McCary stated he had Native American heritage in order to marry Stanton and avoid the greater stigma that the few Black people in Nauvoo faced.
[67]: 107–108, 113 The most common interpretation of the events around McCary and his excommunication is that they contributed to or precipitated the subsequent ban of Black members from temple ordinances and priesthood authority.
"[68]: 228 In 1866, Thomas Coleman, a Black member of the LDS Church, was murdered in Salt Lake City after it was discovered he was courting a White woman.
[71]: 37 [8]: 78 [55]: Aug 1895 Cannon recorded in his journal having stated in 1881 that when it came to the important question of interracial marriage, Mormons believed against "intermarriage with inferior races, particularly the negro.
[71]: 203 [8]: 78 That same year a Black man John Wesley Harmon Jr. and his wife Lilian Blanche Clark, a daughter of a Nanticoke chief, joined an LDS congregation in Delaware.
[72]: 418 As church president Joseph F. Smith declared in 1907 that anyone with "negro blood" to any "remote a degree" was "deprived of the rights of the priesthood because of the decree of the Almighty.
"[72]: 420 John Wesley Harmon was told in a 1911 letter from the First Presidency Smith that his appeal for ordination to the priesthood was denied citing the "curse of Ham".
[75]: 377 Clawson later lamented in a meeting that the man's white father of "pure parentage" had brought a curse upon his posterity by marrying a woman with a Black grandparent.
[15]: 69 [78] First Presidency member J. Reuben Clark told top leaders of the church's Young Women in 1946 that, "It is sought today in certain quarters to break down all race prejudice, and at the end of the road ... is intermarriage.
[79] Three years later as senior vice-president of the church-owned Hotel Utah which then banned Black people, Clark stated that the hotel's ban was in place to prevent interracial socializing that could hurt church leaders' efforts "to preserve the purity of the race that is entitled to hold the priesthood" and that the church taught White members to avoid social interaction with Black people.
... [T]rying to break down social barriers between the Whites and the Blacks is [a move] that should not be encouraged because inevitably it means the mixing of the races if carried to its logical conclusion.
Over twenty years later Petersen denied knowing if the copies of his speech being passed around were authentic or not, apparently out of embarrassment for his previous statements.
[40]: 68–69, 173 [84] In 1958, church apostle Bruce R. McConkie published Mormon Doctrine, in which he stated that "the whole negro race have been cursed with a Black skin, the mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.
[85] The apostle Delbert L. Stapley stated in a 1964 letter to George W. Romney that Black people should not be entitled to "inter-marriage privileges with the Whites.
[88]: 207 By 1965 administrators were sending a rejection letter to Black applicants which cited BYU's discouragement of interracial courtship and marriage as the motive behind the decision.
"[4]: 5 In 2003, author Jon Krakauer stated in his book Under the Banner of Heaven that "official LDS policy has continued to strongly admonish White saints not to marry blacks".
In addition, having served as a Church leader for almost 30 years, I can also certify that I have never received official verbal instructions condemning marriages between Black and White members.
[5] The manual had used a 1976 quote from past church president Kimball which read, "We recommend that people marry those who are of the same racial background generally".
