Black and Mormon / Edition 1

by Newell G. Bringhurst, Darron T. Smith

Overview

The year 2003 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the lifting of the ban excluding black members from the priesthood of the Mormon church. The articles collected in Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith's Black and Mormon look at the mechanisms used to keep blacks from full participation, the motives behind the ban, and the kind of changes that have—and have not—taken place within the church since the revelation responsible for its end. 
 
This challenging collection is required reading for anyone concerned with the history of racism, discrimination, and the Latter-day Saints. 
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252073564
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	12/13/2005
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Newell G. Bringhurst teaches history and political science at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California. He is the author of Brigham Young and the Expanding American Frontier and other books. Darron T. Smith is an African American convert to the LDS church. He is the author of What Matters Most: A Story of Human Struggle and Potential and is currently a lecturer at Utah Valley State College.
 

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	1
1	The "Missouri Thesis" Revisited: Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People	13
2	The Traditions of Their Fathers: Myth versus Reality in LDS Scriptural Writings	34
3	Two Perspectives: The Religious Hopes of "Worthy" African American Latter-day Saints before the 1978 Revelation	50
4	Spanning the Priesthood Revelation (1978): Two Multigenerational Case Studies	60
5	Casting Off the "Curse of Cain": The Extent and Limits of Progress since 1978	82
6	African American Latter-day Saints: A Sociological Perspective	116
7	"How Do Things Look on the Ground?" The LDS African American Community in Atlanta, Georgia	132
8	Unpacking Whiteness in Zion: Some Personal Reflections and General Observations	148
	Contributors	167
	Index	169

Editorial Reviews

"One of the most far-reaching studies of black Mormons to date."—Publishers Weekly

"Bringhurst and Smith have edited an outstanding series of essays on the problems of racism among the Mormons and the exclusion of African American men from the priesthood of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."—Choice

"Black and Mormon eloquently demonstrates how external social events influenced the Church's policy of denying blacks the priesthood for more than a century."—BYU Studies

From the Publisher