Yesterday, someone (he is known, but will not be named here), a man evidently without a conscience, spoofed the LDS Newsroom site, posting an apparent apology from the First Presidency on behalf of the entire Church for wrongs committed or condoned by the Church toward those of African descent, including and especially members of the Church who should have received the same ministering support and welcome as any of God’s children. That it did not in fact come from the First Presidency seems evident on second reading – there are errors in what should be the capitalization and punctuation, as well as terminology that would not be used by the First Presidency in a formal document – but on first glance, the “apology” came so close to what many members, black and white, dreamed of reading that the false document immediately went viral. It seemed possible, after all; it came while Church leaders were meeting in the Church Administration Building with leaders of the NAACP, and a statement of some kind was expected anyway.

Almost as quickly, those scrutinizing the webpage noticed a damning hyphen in the URL (“mormon-newsroom” instead of the authentic “mormonnewsroom”), researched the history of the deceptive URL and determined that it absolutely did not originate with the Church. Then, shortly, the real announcement, a statement issued by the First Presidency and calling for “greater civility, racial and ethnic harmony and mutual respect,” appeared on the real website.

But it was too late. The damage had been done. Hearts that had soared at the thought that their wrongs had actually been felt and that the Church was bringing every tool it had to extinguish lingering racism, including the ongoing teaching of false doctrine, including the lie that blacks were ever cursed in any way, came crashing back to earth. It was not true. The real statement, true though it may be, seemed tepid in contrast, a statement that could hardly be identified as addressing ongoing racism toward black Mormons had it not been issued in the context of a meeting with NAACP leadership.

The viciousness of the hoax itself should be obvious on its face. I cannot hear any defense of the hoaxer, that perhaps he thought he was doing something helpful or good. Neither can he hide behind a claim of satire. The attention to detail in the spoofed webpage, down to embedded links to Church pages that actually took visitors to the correct pages, the forgery of the First Presidency’s signatures on his lying document, was deceitful, with the wilful intent to mislead.

I won’t presume to speak for the feelings of black members who suffered and will continue to suffer from this man’s actions. For that, I refer you to Zandra Vranes, one of the Sistas in Zion. Her Facebook Live video is visible to the public, and available here. It’s long, almost 90 minutes, but it’s well worth listening to.

The false statement went viral while I was offline. I did not become aware of it until it had already been debunked. I don’t know whether I would have fallen for the hoax or not – I’d of course like to think that I was so clever that I would have spotted the clues to its falsehood immediately, but so many good and brilliant people were taken in that it hardly seems likely that I could have escaped.

The reason why I was offline is ironic. That reason is the real purpose for this post.

I was at the Church History Library working on a contribution to the Century of Black Mormons database. (Incidentally, the Black, White and Mormon II conference, scheduled for June 29-30 at the Salt Lake City Library, at which Paul Reeve will publicly release the database, has just launched its website. Check it out. Plan to come.)

This database has taken hold of me like few historical projects ever have. I have often said that while I’m working to get to know someone from the past, I learn to care about them just as much as I do my own direct ancestors. This is more than that. I have also frequently had unseen help, the only explanation I have for some of my experiences being that someone knows he or she has gotten my attention, and will not let me go until I’ve done what they need me to do. This is more even than that.

It isn’t easy to identify a black Mormon from decades past. In one case where I had reason to suspect a family of black Latter-day Saints lived in a certain place, I was cross-referencing names found in branch records against the nearest United States census. One baby boy recorded as having received a blessing in the branch appeared on the census the following year categorized as mulatto. Was this my family? I searched the membership record thoroughly for the parents named in that record of blessing, but they weren’t there. Perhaps the family was not LDS – missionaries often blessed the babies of non-members when requested.

I found the family listed in an Ancestry tree, with no mention of Mormonism and no particular mention of race beyond that column on the census. I made note of the names of extended family, and noticed that the baby and his parents had lived in another state after the blessing. So I turned to branch records for that new place, hoping against hope that when they moved, the new branch made a record of their membership. (This cannot be taken for granted in the early 20th century, when membership records were sometimes made only when there was need to record an ordinance like a baptism or ordination). But there in that new place, I did find membership records for “my” baby and his parents and siblings … and his grandmother, a resident of that new place. Had I found the family’s memberships in the first place I looked, I probably would not have thought to look in this new place, and I would have missed the record of the grandmother’s membership.

A few days later, while reading the Liahona for the early 20th century, for a project entirely unrelated to the Century of Black Mormons, by total coincidence I ran across the brief published testimony of the grandmother. Had I seen that page a week earlier, the woman’s name would have meant nothing to me and I would have missed that gem.

A couple of weeks ago, I was again searching membership records, this time for the couple featured in Keepa’s current “Lester and Bernice” series — I needed to verify that they were in fact Mormons. While I was scrolling through records for Illinois, looking for Lester and Bernice, there, in a place it had no business being because my family never lived in Illinois, was the membership record of that family. There is no logical reason for me to have searched for them in Illinois, but they evidently wanted me to find them anyway.

Last week, while working on still another entirely unrelated project, I began to transcribe a letter written by a missionary who, coincidentally I thought, had served in the same area as my family, a few years before that baby blessing. As I typed, my eyes filled with tears. The letter contained an account of the family’s conversion and baptism, in beautiful detail – they sang “O, My Father” at the water’s edge, and some 300 spectators looked on. There is no mention of the family’s race in that letter. Had I read it before coming to know this family, I would not have known I was reading about the baptism of a black family.

This family won’t leave me. Every few days they manage to get my attention again and drop something new in my lap that I can hardly take credit for finding through my own skills. I know now, for instance, that they have living LDS descendants, and that the family’s descendants – Mormon, Baptist, and Methodist – meet every year for a family reunion, to which I have been invited.

Do you understand why this project has taken such a tight hold of my heart?

I am glad that I was working on this project at the very time the ugliness of that forged letter was flaming through cyberspace. I am desperate to do something to bridge the contentious divides that fracture the world, and the United States, and even the Church. There isn’t much I can do. I have the community at Keepa, and I am so grateful for all of you – but there seems to be nothing I can do to influence the world beyond.

But the Century of Black Mormons project? This has the potential to reach vastly more people than Keepa does. Scholars are going to be able to study race in the Church in new ways, because they will have new lives, new data, new numbers to consider. Perhaps some black members will feel drawn to new pioneers in the same way they respond to Jane Manning James and Elijah Abel. Perhaps some white members will adjust their understanding of who are and have been Mormons, learning about people they never knew had responded with faith and courage to embrace the gospel under what were often unfavorable circumstances caused by racial animus, just as political and economic and religious animus made joining the Church difficult for anyone in the beginning.

I worry sometimes whether the database will be accepted by all those I hope will respond. Many will feel, more or less rightly, that these stories should be told by black members. I hope they will tell them. I hope black Mormons will take over these stories and reinterpret them according to experiences and viewpoints that I am utterly unqualified to attempt.

But I’m doing what I’m doing because I can do it, even when there is so much I cannot do to rid the world of racism. I am good at this kind of research, with or without help from beyond the veil (I’m admittedly better with it). I can identify black members from the past, I can find their records, I can lightly interpret those records to give the beginnings of a biography, and to help database users get a sense of the living person behind what are often sketchy documents. Then those who want to go farther, those who have the insight I lack, can use their time and efforts in telling an expanded story. I hope my contributions to this database will be accepted as a service, not in any way as trying to control the story.

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While the liar was breaking hearts yesterday, this is what I was doing: I identified Julia Miller Lamb, born in 1828, as a black woman who joined the Church in North Carolina in 1898. Her record, shown here in part (it extends across two pages and wouldn’t be legible as a blog illustration) doesn’t tell us much about Julia as a person, but it’s a start. Turning to the United States census, though, where I find her despite variations of her indexed name in 1870, 1880, and 1900, I learn that she was married – had been married for 60 years, since 1840! – and I learn the names of her husband and several of her children. I learn that she had borne 14 children, only 6 of whom were still living in 1900. I learn that she was the only member of the Church in her family. I don’t know whether she was free or enslaved before the Civil War; I don’t have any idea how, whether free or enslaved, a black couple on the coast of North Carolina managed to stay together for so many years. I don’t know, yet, when she died, or how her family felt about the Church, or whether she was able to stay active, whatever that meant in that time and place.

But I know Julia Miller Lamb lived. I know she was a black woman. I know she responded to the gospel and had faith to be baptized. I think I know that her husband, Harry, did not oppose her Church membership. I know that Elders Caldwell and Williams did not think Julia was unworthy of membership in the Church. By entering her data and whatever documents I can find about her into the Century of Black Mormons database, I can honor her faith and remember that she lived, and perhaps make it easier for someone else to pick up where I leave off and tell her story more fully than I can.

I am sorry for the grief caused by yesterday’s troublemaker – may he never be heard from again. I am sorry that the false doctrine of the “curse of Cain” ever tainted the Church, and I am sorry that still, in 2018, there are Church members who wrongly believe and teach that a “curse” was lifted in 1978 but that before then it was a real thing. I am sorry that I don’t know what else I can do to help.

But this is what I can do, and I am glad I was at work doing this very thing yesterday morning, when hearts were being broken.

Please be careful what you write here in response.