Slavery and Racism

ME: Keeping with this discussion of tolerance and compassion, I want to talk now about a controversial subject – that of racial attitudes and beliefs, especially those regarding people of African descent. There has been a long history of racism in the United States, but one would not expect the restored church, filled with the spirit and power of God, to follow suit. Still, I have read many disturbing things concerning our past attitudes and policies, and I wanted to give some of the earlier brethren a chance to clarify their views on the subjects of slavery and the denial of priesthood to men of African lineage… An article in an early Mormon publication, the Juvenile Instructor, described the Black race as...

“…the lowest in intelligence and the most barbarous of all the children of men. The race whose intellect is the least developed, whose advancement has been the slowest, who appear to be the least capable of improvement of all people…” 

It went on to say that “the hand of the Lord appears to be heavy upon them, dwarfing them by the side of their fellow men in every thing good…”  It even stooped so low as to say the Black man “looks as though he had been put in an oven and burnt to a cinder before he was properly finished making.”^[107] 

President Young, I’ll start with you. Is this in harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Are Blacks truly inferior and destined to be enslaved? 

BY: …(they) were naturally designed for that purpose, and (their) capacities are more befitting that, than any other station in society. Thus… servitude may and should exist, and that too upon those who are naturally designed to occupy the position of ‘servant of servants’…  

ME: The idea that Blacks are inferior is one thing, but does that justify the gross mistreatment of Blacks that we have seen?  

BY:  …we should not fall into the other extreme, and make them as beasts of the field, regarding not the humanity which attaches to the colored race; nor yet elevate them, as some seem disposed, to an equality with those whom Nature and Nature's God has indicated to be their masters, their superiors...” ^[108]  

ME: I see… so they are to be respected as humans but not regarded as equal to Whites. Still, does that necessarily justify slavery? I’m assuming by what you’ve said that you support slavery. Is that right? 

BY: I am as much opposed to the principle of slavery as any man in the present acceptation or usage of the term, it is abused.  I am opposed to abusing that which God has decreed, to take a blessing, and make a curse of it.  It is a great blessing to the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants...^[109] 

ME: So Black slavery, in general, is justified in the eyes of God, but you are personally opposed to the present state of slavery. Is that what you’re saying? 

BY: You must not think, from what I say, that I am opposed to slavery.  No!  The negro is damned, and is to serve his master till God chooses to remove the curse of Ham.^[110] 

ME: What do you mean by “servant of servants?” 

BY: The seed of Ham, which is the seed of Cain descending through Ham, will, according to the curse put upon him, serve his brethren, and be a 'servant of servants' to his fellow creatures, until God removes the curse; and no power can hinder it.^[111] 

ME: So the plight of the Black man is due to a curse from God? 

BY: The Lord put a mark upon (Cain), which is the flat nose and the black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race-that they should be the 'servant of servants'; and they will, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree.^[112] 

ME: When you say “abolitionists,” I assume you are alluding to the Civil War period. Are you suggesting that the war can do nothing toward ending slavery in the United States? 

BY: Will the present struggle free the slave? No; but they are now wasting away the black race by thousands...Can you destroy the decrees of the Almighty? You cannot. Yet our Christian brethren think they are going to overthrow the sentence of the Almighty upon the seed of Ham. They cannot do that, though they may kill them by thousands and tens of thousands.^[113] 

ME: President Taylor, will the Blacks always be cursed with the mark of Cain? 

JT: …the descendants of Cain cannot cast off their skin of blackness… Cain and his posterity must wear the mark which God put upon them; and his white friends may wash the race of Cain with fuller’s soap every day, they cannot wash away God’s mark.^[114]  

ME: But why a continuing curse? Why would the Lord keep sending souls through this cursed lineage? 

JT: …because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God…^[115] 

ME: Really?!! I’m not sure how to respond to that. President Young, this Godly curse not only pertains to slavery, but apparently also to the denial of priesthood blessings. Would you explain this to us? 

BY: Any man having one drop of the seed of (Cain)... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it.^[116] 

ME: Will this priesthood curse ever be lifted, and if so, when will it happen? 

BY: When all the other children of Adam have the privilege of receiving the Priesthood, and of coming into the kingdom of God, and of being redeemed from the four quarters of the earth, and have received their resurrection from the dead, then it will be time enough to remove the curse from Cain and his posterity.^[117] 

ME: Elder McConkie, from your 20^th Century vantage point, do you concur with President Young’s assertion? 

BRM: Negroes in this life are denied the priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty.  The gospel message of salvation is not carried affirmatively to them.... Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned…^[118] 

ME: Given the priesthood ban, it would follow, then, that interracial marriage with Blacks would be discouraged. Is that the policy of the church, President Young? 

BY: Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race?  If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot.  This will always be so.^[119] 

ME: So it’s more than discouraged, I take it. Elder McConkie, surely you don’t advocate “blood atonement” style judgment. Still, I imagine you are against Black and White interracial marriage. Your thoughts? 

BRM: …in a broad general sense, caste systems have their root and origin in the gospel itself, and when they operate according to the divine decree, the resultant restrictions and segregation are right and proper and have the approval of the Lord…Cain, Ham, and 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.^[120]  

ME: Well, I have the advantage of living in the 21^st Century and I know that the priesthood ban was lifted in 1978 by President Spencer W. Kimball. So what you have said, President Young and Elder McConkie, is just dead wrong. In the first place, President Young, the slaves were freed, and in the second place, Blacks are now fully integrated into the church and possess the same authority as anyone else. President Hinckley, I imagine it must be somewhat embarrassing listening to your predecessors’ comments on this subject. In 1978, at which time you were in the Council of the Twelve, the First Presidency of the church made the following statement: 

“Our message … is one of special love and concern for the eternal welfare of all men and women, regardless of religious belief, race, or nationality, knowing that we are truly brothers and sisters because we are sons and daughters of the same Eternal Father.”^[121] 

If this is really the position of the church, and the church is led by Christ, himself, how do you explain all the inflammatory, racially-charged rhetoric of the past? Was the church actually wrong about the Black Race, and if so, what should the church do about it now?  

GBH: I don’t see anything further that we need to do. I don’t hear any complaint from our black brethren and sisters. I hear only appreciation and gratitude wherever I go.^[122]  

ME: At the risk of sounding rude… that may be the reality now, but generations and generations of Blacks have been excluded from the fullness of the gospel and just as many members of the church have grown up believing that Blacks were inferior and would never have the Priesthood. With all due respect, is this not an insult to our Black brothers and sisters? 

GBH: It's behind us. Look, that's behind us. Don't worry about those little flicks of history.^[123] 

ME: Flick? I’m not sure I would describe a span of 130 years as a little flick. But that’s a debate for another time. I do understand how difficult the question is. It seems none of us in the modern church like talking about this.

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