On March 25, 2015, By Common Consent put up a guest blog post that I wrote titled “Did Joseph Smith, Jr. Ordain Elijah Abel to the Priesthood?” The first line of that post simply stated, “The short answer is no, I do not believe that he did.” I went on to lay out my reasons for arriving at that conclusion. You can read them here.
At that time I wondered if we would ever know who ordained Able an elder in the Melchizedek priesthood. For all the searching, historians had come up empty handed on that question. It would take the discovery of some previously unknown source in some yet untapped archive to reveal new information. Or perhaps there was still an unprocessed collection somewhere that held such clues. More than likely, I thought, it was just a detail lost to history.
The unprocessed Joseph F. Smith papers recently yielded the answer to the frequently asked question. A new two-page, handwritten note offers evidence of who ordained Able to the priesthood, the exact date of that ordination, as well as a variety of other tantalizing details. It is, in fact, a rush of new information about Able, his ancestry, a bit about his wife, Mary Ann, and mostly about his ritual relationship to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is such a wonderful microburst of details that it might just cause an historian’s heart to race. It certainly did mine.
Adding to the excitement is the fact that Joseph F. Smith recorded the new document himself. Although the document is not dated, the nature of the information it contains strongly indicates that it was produced when Smith interviewed Able in 1879 at the request of John Taylor. Able had asked to receive his endowment and to be sealed to his wife that year, and Taylor opened an investigation in order to determine how to proceed. Smith, then an apostle, interviewed Able and reported back to Taylor that “the Prophet Joseph told him [Able] he was entitled to the priesthood.” Smith also refuted some of the claims made by Zebedee Coltrin about who performed Able’s washing and anointing ritual in the Kirtland Temple. It is not difficult to imagine Smith returning to report his findings to Taylor with this new-found document in hand.
It was found in the Joseph F. Smith papers and has been verified to have been written by Smith. Accordingly, Able’s biography was recently updated at the Joseph Smith Papers and a link to a digital image of the document posted there. I have subsequently updated Elijah Able’s metadata and biographical information at Century of Black Mormons here.
Okay, enough torture. So, who ordained Elijah Able an elder?
It was a man by the name of Ambrose Palmer, on 25 January 1836, an earlier date than previously surmised. Palmer is described in the Joseph Smith papers biographies as a “farmer, tavern keeper, surveyor, glass worker, manufacturer, [and] justice of the peace.” He was born in Winchester Connecticut, 15 September 1784, but had moved to Trumbull County, Ohio by 1807. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 and a Mason. In 1818 voters in Norton, Medina County, Ohio elected him Justice of the Peace. He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1833 in New Portage, Ohio, where he became presiding Elder by 1834. It was likely in that capacity that he ordained Able an Elder in January 1836. Palmer moved to Missouri by September of that year and died at Far West, likely in 1838.
What else does the new document reveal?
Here is my typescript [with sparse commentary] so you can read it for yourself:
Elijah Able
grand father. Joseph Abel was an Englishman and a member of the English House of Commons. His father’s name was Andrew Able. his grand mother was a half white—his mother Delilah Williams was of Scotch descent and died when Elijah was 8 days ^years^ old. [This is the most reliable information to date about Able’s ancestry and I’m sure it will keep researches busy for the foreseeable future tracking down its clues].
Joined the church in Sep. 1832 in Cincinnati [the exact location of his baptism was previously unclear]—was ordained an Elder by Ambrose Palmer—a high Priest [Joseph Smith Papers do not list Palmer as a High Priest] Jan. 25. 1836 [Hooray! An exact date for his ordination!] and Liscenced by Joseph the Prophet in Kirtland Mar. 31 1836 [this is a ministerial certificate signed by Joseph Smith and found here. Some historians previously suggested it was an ordination certificate, something this new document clarifies it was not].
Recieved [sic] his washings & anointings in the Kirtland Temple, also in 1836 under the hands of Judge Beaman & Ruben P. Hadlock. Was ordained a Seventy by Z. Coltrin 1836.
Rec^d^ a Liscence from Jos. Young & A. P. Rockwood in 1841 in Nauvoo. [Young and Rockwood were presidents of the Seventy and relicensed Able as a Seventy in 1841].
His wife was also an Octoroon. Joseph said he was entitled to the Priesthood and all the blessings. He recieved a patriarchal blessing under the hands of Father Joseph Smith and blessed as his own son &c. [The minutes of Taylor’s investigation, as kept by L. John Nuttall, include Able’s patriarchal blessing in its entirety].
There it is. That is it. A surge of new details about the most well documented black priesthood holder in 19th century Latter-day Saint history.
But why is it important? Does the fact that we now know who ordained Elijah Able to the priesthood, and that it was not Joseph Smith, in any way diminish the fact that Able WAS ordained to the priesthood? Not in the least. It strengthens it in my estimation. It offers additional evidence of the universal nature of the early gospel message, so much so that presiding Elders such as Ambrose Palmer, fifty-five miles away from the central hierarchy at Kirtland, did not discriminate in distributing priesthood power. Moreover, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Joseph Smith, Sr., did not discriminate either in certifying and licensing, and officially sanctioning that priesthood power through their signatures and blessings and personal communications. People at the center and on the periphery of the Latter-day Saint movement did not erect racial barriers to membership, priesthood ordination, or temple rituals, a fact captured in this new document in the hand writing of Joseph F. Smith.
It matters, too, because it demonstrates in more concrete terms that Joseph F. Smith was just as much responsible for the solidification of the priesthood and temple restriction as Brigham Young was responsible for beginning it. The restrictions emerged from a variety of events that played out over time in response to varying circumstances and changing contexts, not as a result of an unknown command from God in a single unrecorded pronouncement. We see that process play out in the remembering and forgetting of Joseph F. Smith himself.
As I document in Religion of a Different Color we can see Joseph F. Smith’s memory change over time:
- In 1879 he defended Able’s priesthood as valid.
- In 1895 he reminded LDS leaders that Able was ordained to the priesthood “at Kirtland under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”
- In 1904 he called Able’s ordination a mistake that “was never corrected.”
- In 1908, he claimed that Able’s priesthood “ordination was declared null and void by the Prophet [Joseph Smith] himself.”
This new document is clear refutation of Joseph F. Smith’s 1908 statement that Joseph Smith declared Elijah Able’s priesthood “null and void.” And that clear refutation is in Joseph F. Smith’s own handwriting.
NOTICE (30 January 2019): I’d like to leave this thread open to relevant comments by those who discover it late. I will close the thread, however, if there are any more attempts to redefine Elijah Able’s blackness into some form that allows commenters to cover their racism through twisted appeals to misunderstood scripture. I’m trying to weed those comments out as soon as they are posted, and I’m growing weary of them. — AEP
This is remarkable on every level. Thank you for sharing!
Great work!
Really exciting — so much valuable information here. And I agree with your interpretive framework as well, especially this:
“It offers additional evidence of the universal nature of the early gospel message, so much so that presiding Elders such as Ambrose Palmer, fifty-five miles away from the central hierarchy at Kirtland, did not discriminate in distributing priesthood power. Moreover, Joseph Smith, Jr., and Joseph Smith, Sr., did not discriminate either in certifying and licensing, and officially sanctioning that priesthood power through their signatures and blessings and personal communications. People at the center and on the periphery of the Latter-day Saint movement did not erect racial barriers to membership, priesthood ordination, or temple rituals, a fact captured in this new document in the hand writing of Joseph F. Smith.”
Again, thank you!
Good job, Paul!
This is excellent. Thank you.
This is great stuff, Paul.
As we’ve discussed, there were no theological barriers to membership–just political ones, at least that’s how I read the infamous “To Free People of Color” post from 1833.
And the church leaders seemed ready, at times, to buck (or kick down?) even political ones, too.
This is amazing!!!
Yes, thanks for making this important information more widely known, Paul.
Thanks Paul. This is wonderful and exciting!
Wow. After 140 years, this document comes to light. I guess historians should never give up. I’m ready for a second edition of Religion of a Different Color! Also, great work by you and other contributors with Century of Black Mormons.
Thank you Paul! Love the work you are doing!
Is this the Reuben Hedlock that did the Book of Abraham facsimiles?
What an incredible find! Thank you for sharing it. I truly appreciate it when documents such as this are found and shed their light!
I’m sure somebody’s already checked, but a quick perusal of an online database of English MPs doesn’t disclose any Joseph Able/Abel in the relevant time period: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/research/members
And a the heart of a non-historian like me, too!
Thank you for all this work and thorough research. This is seismic in effect to me .
Thank you. For the history, the transcription, and the interpretation. This one goes in my permanent file.
WOW! Darius and I got a few things wrong, then, in our trilogy. This is fantastic information!
Outstanding!
A fine piece of work.
How sad the revocation of 1908!
Given the triumph of justice 70 years later, one might almost have the stuff of a stage play.
Can’t say enough good about this find, and the information that it provides. This is huge!
Excellent research! Thanks!
If you look under the 1st Ward non-Colored section of Charles Cist’s 1842 Cincinnati City Directory, you will find Elijah Abel listed, and not in the Colored section. Hence we see at that time either Elijah considered himself white, or the people of Cincinnati did.
This is wonderful, Paul.
I think he was passing as white…I am finding in my genealogy a lot of passing and hiding there black lineage to have the priesthood etc. In fact a worker at the genealogy library saw black in my ancestry said ” when people find black they don’t return to research anymore family history”. It is documented that the areas in our country (USA) are most prejudice when black history is ignored…in fact they are cesspool of hatred! We must own our mixing and embrace with and realize God’s love has and will always encompass all his/her children!
Our religions diminishing in the world is due to our own lack of understanding this which breeds equality for all! As I understand the saviors love more and more religion hasn’t kept up with that love and so we all go elsewhere.
A lot.of us mormons hid our beautiful black lineages to go on missions, be sealed, serve as mission presidents and organize the religion department at BYU ! My family seems to have deep mixing in our beginnings as pioneers! As our gang history continues to unfold with possible mixing on both side’s…we were very quiet about our history and rightly so Governor Brigham Young of utah set the state up as a Slave territory…time to hide;)
I’d like to see more discussion of this.
“The restrictions emerged from a variety of events that played out over time in response to varying circumstances and changing contexts, not as a result of an unknown command from God in a single unrecorded pronouncement.”
Shelley, if you can identify Latter-day Saints with black ancestry who were passing as white, it would be an enormous help to the Century of Black Mormons to know who those people were, to be certain they are on our research list. You can contact me at AEParshall [at] aol [dot] com and I’ll make sure it reaches Paul.
The most recent profile added to CBM — that of Nelson Holder Ritchie is just such a case, and shows the careful documentation and analysis required of that database.
Lisa, the LDS Gospel Topics essay Race and the Priesthood is the most immediately available source laying out the development of the restrictions.
Paul Reeves’ book Religion of a Different Color is the fullest, more accurate report of that development. I’ve heard Paul speak several times about the development across time — if you ever see an announcement of one of his presentations in your area, it’s very worth your time to attend — and I know he is working on other writings that reflect his ongoing research.
Wow, Paul and Ardis. Just wow. You continue to do such great work, and what a find!
Wow, Paul and Ardis. Just wow. You do such great work, and what a find!
Congratulations to Paul for this amazing, problematic addition to the story, and thanks to Ardis for hosting this discussion.
Jim Liddle mentions he cannot immediately confirm Able’s family history. Unfortunately, discovering the heritage of those of African descent is never as easy as a Google search. A few of the members of Sons & Daughters of the US Middle Passage have gained PhD-level expertise as they’ve traced their lineage back to the African war captives sold to the Jamestown settlers in 1619, but for many others, due to the lack of records, it is all they can do to trace their families back to the Civil War. Clues like the ones Able provided Smith are unlikely to be strictly documentable, but may provide vital direction to a researcher.
Second, Chris Miasnik mentions a single 1840s racial categorization as evidence that Able or his neighbors considered him white. That’s a lot of weight to give a single data point. This would be when I normally suggest Hochschild and Powell, “Racial Reorganization and the United States Census 1850–1930,” as a practical introduction to the continuing creation of race in America.
And third, what better to say in response to all of this than to quote James Goldberg’s poem, “and when that morning comes.”
Thank you for all of your comments and feedback. Sorry for my slow response. I echo what Ardis has said above. I do want to make sure that I address one issue raised in a couple of the comments: that is how Able was racially understood in the 19th century. Sometimes I see people dismissing him as a black priesthood holder with the suggestion that no one knew or understood him to be black. There is considerable evidence otherwise. I invite readers here to look at his biography posted at CenturyofBlackMormons which addresses this issue with evidence.
Here is the relevant paragraph from that bio: “LDS leaders were fully cognizant of Able’s racial status and still counted him among the priesthood brethren of the church. He is consistently listed in U.S. Census records as either quadroon or mulatto, an indication that he likely had a lighter completion than some African-Americans, but that nonetheless he was legally black according to prevalent racial standards in operation in the United States. More crucially, LDS leaders recognized and understood him to be “colored” and a faithful priesthood holder. This fact was in clear evidence during a Cincinnati LDS branch conference in 1843, when Able resided in that city. After Able spoke at the branch conference, visiting Apostle, Elder John E. Page, commented that “he respects a coloured Bro, as such, but wisdom forbids that we should introduce [him] before the public.” Elder Orson Pratt “sustained” Page’s stance. Able responded that “he had no disposition to force himself upon an equality with white people.” At the conclusion of the conference Able was “advised to visit the coloured population” in his preaching efforts. Clearly LDS leaders understood him to be black and recognized his status as a priesthood holder, even as they recommended he concentrate his missionary efforts among black people.”
There is a hyperlink in the bio to the minutes of the Cincinnati branch conference which have been digitized and are publicly available at the Church History Library’s web page.
Thanks for the additional information and context, Paul. It’s very important and helpful.
I need to make a point of clarification. I did not personally find this new document. The Joseph Smith Papers team recently—and with no fanfare—updated the bio of Elijah Able at the Joseph Smith papers site. The update included these new words: “Ordained an elder by Ambrose Palmer, 25 Jan. 1836.” Intrigued, I looked at the footnote which contained a link to a digital scan of the new document. There it was, publicly available for the world to see. The JSP team sometimes does this from what I can gather—make electronic updates to their sources and say nothing about them, even when they are a big deal, like this new source seems to be. The footnote that the JSP team created reads “Joseph F. Smith, Notes on Elijah Able, undated [likely ca. 1879], CHL.” I learned that the Joseph Smith Papers team verified it was Joseph F. Smith’s handwriting and had concluded that it likely originated in 1879, as seems obvious when one is aware of the records of the Taylor investigation that year into Able’s priesthood. I also noticed that the LDS Church History Department had updated its bio of Able on its Saints history topics site. I followed their lead and updated the bio of Able at Century of Black Mormons. Ardis then agreed to host a blog post about the new document here at Keepapitchinin. I do not deserve credit for finding it. The Joseph Smith Papers and Church History Department really are doing what they can to make sources available, sometimes surprisingly so, such as when something like this shows up unannounced.
This sounds as though it’s similar to way word broke about the Church’s Gospel Topics essays several years ago. Peggy Fletcher Stack told me that she’d set up her newsfeed (I think that’s right) to automatically alert her to any new postings on the Church’s site featuring words like “history,” “plural marriage,” etc., and that’s how she found out about the essays.
Gary, it’s been long enough now that I hope I won’t ruffle too many CHL feathers by stating this publicly: I was working short-term on a project at CHL when the first Gospel Topics essays were posted. I knew they were going live about two hours before they did so, and asked if I could post a short announcement here on Keepa. You would have thought I’d proposed throwing a kegger in the temple: No way, no how, never, on pain of who knows what, could I say anything publicly about those essays. They were certain the essays would “fly under the radar” (the exact term they used), and I could not, repeat not, say anything.
It was 20 minutes after the first essays went live when I saw the first discussion on Facebook.
Is there anything you can add as to Joseph F. Smith’s motive or intent? Are we fairly certain he “forgot” or is there a possibility for a conscious change? We know he was less than forthright with regard to post-manifesto polygamy, in addition to other topics, in his testimony before Congress. Thanks.
ChrisClarke, the historical documents do not offer evidence of intent. Just matter of fact statements which are data points for change over time. For those scholars who do memory studies the four data points I shared are what they might expect.
I develop the context for the change over time in more depth in Religion of a Different Color. Between his 1895 statement and his 1908 statement think about these events: The Supreme Court has declared separate but equal the law of the land in 1896. States move toward “one drop” laws in order to determine a person’s legal racial status. In 1904 JFS testifies in the Reed Smoot hearings in the Senate. Some of the political cartoons published in the wake of his testimony suggest that Mormons continue to facilitate race mixing and thereby darken the white race, making it unfit for democracy. In 1908 Jane Manning James dies and JFS speaks at her funeral. The two black agitators, James and Able, are now dead. JFS can start to shape a white future for the church and erase from collective memory the black LDS pioneers who complicate the new story. That same year he and the Liahona announce a new mission policy, NOT to actively seek black converts. If black people apply for baptism, that is fine, but missionaries should no longer actively seek them out. I see it as a part of Mormonism’s passage to whiteness.
My research (and that of Connell O’Donovan) has shown me that all of those who were ordained to the priesthood in the early days of the church and were considered “black” were actually only partially so. (The only one that I could not verify being of mixed race was “Black Pete” from Kirtland)There are interesting implications that this generates. This new document doesn’t surprise me at all.
Great job, Paul. I’m happy you shared this!
What an incredibly important find and clarification.
Awesome! Thanks much for sharing, Paul!
Thanks, Paul and Ardis!
Hi. My name is Delila Perkins. I am the 5th great granddaughter of Elijah Able. Honestly I am speechless upon hearing all this information. I need to take time to pray, and process it all.
But in the meantime the one thing I can tell you is Thank You! My heart is so full of gratitude to all the people who continue to bring these facts to light. I am the by product-if you will-of a family that tried to hide their ancestry. Not gonna lie-some of the old timers in the family are not happy I set out to prove that this particular Elijah Able is in fact our ancestor.
Each thing you post just gives me hope that I can continue to know this man better.
Again thank you.
Precious information and good analysis. Thanks so much for this!
Like Shelly, I have found that I am a descendant of a long line of ancestors passing as white in the LDS community since the late 1800’s. One of my ancestors had Church blessings withheld for being of African descent and as a result everyone in the family learned their lesson to not acknowledge their ancestry.
I found this information out a few years ago while doing genealogy. Confirmed west African descent with DNA testing as well.
My mother is ‘octaroon’ and would have never been sealed to my father by a member of the 12 if her ancestry had been known. My father would have never considered dating her if he had known, given the consequences.
For myself, I would have not been ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood (which was before 1978) if my ancestry had been known.
I’m still trying to process this information, which makes me both angry and sad.
Thanks, Paul, for summarizing this crucial new information and thanks, Ardis, for providing a place where it won’t “fly under the radar.” I appreciate all the things both of you do to illuminate our fascinating history.
Thanks, Paul, for highlighting the document and for your comments. Another step forward.
I’m curious about the fact that he had received his washing and anointing but not this endowment. Were there different perceived eligibility between the two ordinances at the time? Would he also have received a temple garment?
Jake, the ordinances as you know them were a development of the Nauvoo era. The earlier rituals of the Kirtland Temple were preliminary and quite different from later ordinances, even when they shared some features (including what they were called). The blessings given to Elijah Able in Kirtland were the same as those given to others there; had he not been distant from Nauvoo when ordinances were given there, there is nothing to suggest that Elijah’s blessings would have differed from anyone else’s or that he wouldn’t have received the full ordinance.
I certainly cannot answer for Paul, but that idea does not account for the development of racial theory in America and Mormonism; this attributes to the 1840s ideas from later decades.
I have removed a comment that was posted here over the past several hours (and to which Amy has replied; sorry, Amy, that your comment won’t make a lot of sense now with its context removed). When I approved that comment held in the moderation queue, somehow only the top was visible; I did not see the bottom paragraph until a few moments ago.
There exist various obscure threads of thought among small groups of Church members that promote substandard theories of race. One of them is based upon the thoroughly discredited idea that Elijah Able was so fair-skinned that Joseph Smith did not realize he was black; another truly bizarre claim is that God really did discriminate between black and white, and that Elijah’s eligibility for the priesthood depended on which side of his family was black and which white. There are other theories, just as wrong, just as bogus, just as calculated to promote division and inequality.
I do not intend to host such theories, and will not entertain any further comments along those lines. I apologize to everyone for having allowed that comment to appear in this thread. It never should have been permitted.
I’m absolutely confused by Grindael’s comment:
“My research (and that of Connell O’Donovan) has shown me that all of those who were ordained to the priesthood in the early days of the church and were considered “black” were actually only partially so. ”
What does this comment even imply? There were very few ‘purely’ African slaves due to intermixing (mostly due to involuntary actions upon them by slave owners). Not sure anyone back in the day didn’t consider them to be black (ask Connell for the census records for these folks, which he has).
Are you insinuating what Ardis implied above, that Elijah wasn’t really black? Therefore the priesthood ban didn’t apply to him?
Pretty sure Connell O’Donovan wouldn’t sign up to this line of reasoning. And neither do I.
jb
Yes, jb, that is about half of what he is implying. These views are being prevented in a sneaking, underhanded way, not being stated bluntly but with a wink to those in the know. I should know to read comments fare more carefully on posts like this one, because the implications slipped past me. I’ll be more careful, and thank you for pointing this out.
There seems to be a growing campaign by some who desire to cover their racism with an appeal to scripture — actually a misunderstanding of scripture. Through convoluted logic, they have arrived at a theory that Elijah Able (and perhaps other black men) were allowed to hold the priesthood because their “black blood” came through their mothers and therefore didn’t count; they were entitled to the priesthood because their fathers were white. This allows them to excuse Joseph Smith for ordaining Elijah Able, while preserving their belief that other black men should be barred from the priesthood.
This is nonsense, of course. It is a misunderstanding of “patriarchal priesthood” and “right of the priesthood.” It adopts the slaveholders’ code that a person’s slave/free status was determined by his mother’s status (a reversal of earlier British law that allowed enslavers to enslave their own children, the issue of their rape of slave women). It’s a farcical application of the Book of Abraham — notice, for instance, that they don’t inquire into a white man’s priesthood eligibility through an unbroken male ancestral line to the patriarchs.
(You may know all that and more, jb, I just thought this was a convenient place to dump it for others.)
I read in John L. Lund’s book “The Church and the Negro” (1967, p. 76) that, “History records an incident of Elijah Abel, a Negro, being given the Priesthood. It should be understood however, that when the Church leaders became aware that this man had Negro blood, his Priesthood was suspended until that time when it will be proper in the eyes of the Lord for him to exercise this right.”
Lund goes on to say, “That Elijah Abel was a good man is not in question. The fact that he held the Priesthood is also a matter of record. But, as mentioned, the record needs to be clarified in a very major point. Once it was discovered that Elijah Abel was of Negroid ancestry, he was dropped from his Priesthood Quorum (1879)
The only reference he cites is: “Records in Church Historian’s Office.
Is there any validity to this?
No. Absolutely no validity whatsoever. This is the claim referred to in the fourth bullet point of the post, regarding JFS’s “evolving memory.” That suggestion is refuted by this document, as if refutation were even necessary, given the vague claim of unspecified” records that have never been produced.
Be careful of believing or repeating anything from “The Church and the Negro.” That book may accidentally contain some accurate punctuation and might spell a few words correctly here and there, but beyond that it contains little to no truth.
John L. Lund’s “The Church and the Negro” is not offered for sale on his own website drlund.com or at Deseret Book. Perhaps he agrees that it is at least outdated. Amazon lists the publisher as John Lewis Lund. Amazon also lists a 1975 republication. Dr. Lund (BYU Doctor of Education, 1972) reports on his website bio having “taught as adjunct faculty at major universities throughout Washington, Idaho, California and Utah.” He does not mention having retired from CES after 36 years service as reported on one of the websites promoting his tours. He seems more recently (2012)to have claimed “expertise in author identification” and to have confirmed that Joseph Smith was the author of 1842 Times and Seasons articles placing Book of Mormon lands in Guatemala. He has led multiple tours to Guatemala. See a review here: http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2016/04/fun-with-dr-john-l-lund.html I have not read in his books for decades, but do not remember, nor can I find, any reason to take him seriously.
Thanks, Ardis, for an evaluation from a historian I have reason to trust.
Thanks to both of you for your comments, opinions and insights. I have been doing a lot of reading/research on this topic, and am fascinated with the information and misinformation that exists. It makes my head spin at times! How does one get it “right” when new information is often showing up….
You won’t go wrong by leaning heavily on Paul Reeve’s 2015 Religion of a Different Color for up-to-date research on Mormonism and race, by exploring the growing database at Century of Black Mormons for cutting-edge research on individual black members and their experiences (including Elijah Able), and other recent publications by Russell Stevenson, Newell Bringhurst, and others. Avoid the pre-1978 stuff, unless you’re only looking for a marker of how far research has come.
Yes, Vicki, we are familiar with those statements and more, and I don’t feel it necessary to repeat them here yet again. Good luck with your continued research. And I repeat: The very best source for you to turn to is Paul Reeve’s Religion of a Different Color. It covers so much more ground than the usual priesthood issues.
Please note, too, that “Negro” has not been the preferred term for many, many years. Please use “African American,” or “black/Black” if the context is broader than the United States.
Interesting. I had noticed that Joseph F. Smith’s comments towards Elijah Abel changed over the years. I don’t know why.
I do know that the heading for Official Declaration 2 was revised about 10 years ago, including “During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few black male members of the Church were ordained to the priesthood. Early in its history, Church leaders stopped conferring the priesthood on black males of African descent. Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.”
Yet, a number of members do not know about the Black Priesthood Ordinations in the early Church.
Mike H. quotes the new heading to Official Declaration 2 from the 2013 edition of the scriptures. The last sentence in the quote was generally true in 2013, but is not anymore.
Anyone who’s been attentive to scholarship on race in the Church over the past decade will have witnessed amazing, even miraculous developments. Primary among them has been the work of LaJean Purcell Carruth and Paul Reeve. (Also many others, but I won’t start naming names, because I’d leave people out.)
LaJean has told the story of how she came to learn Pitman shorthand, an archaic form of shorthand used to transcribe Brigham Young’s sermons. (Ensign, Lost Sermons.) In 2013, she transcribed the sermon Brigham Young gave to the territorial legislature on February 5, 1852. Thanks to this transcription, we can now point to a specific date for the beginning of the temple and priesthood restriction. The practice continued and developed further, even after people forgot that the practice began in the contentious decade prior to the Civil War with a rationale that had come from Southern efforts to use the Bible to justify hereditary race-based enslavement.
Last year on another blog, J. Stapley discussed the idea that “Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.”
“No known records exist”: The fallacy of racial restriction origins
He followed it up with a second discussion.
Defending the Temple and Priesthood Restriction as God’s Will
During the discussions, Ardis explained a lot of things to people in the comments. Other commenters include Armand Mauss, LaJean Purcell Carruth, and as I look back over the discussions, I note that I had a lot to say during the first discussion about the connection to slavery.
As Amy T says, there’s a lot out there on this topic. But “anyone who’s been attentive to scholarship on race in the Church over the past decade” catches a relatively small number in its net, i’m afraid.
And that’s not a slam on church members and those interested in the church, by the way—it’s just that there are a lot of things that compete for one’s attention. And really, i’d suggest that many people don’t even realize there’s a gap in their knowledge to be filled.
A tardy reader here. So glad to discover this post! Thanks to Paul Reeve for writing it; to Ardis for hosting it and moderating the comments; and to everyone who has contributed in the comments section. Wonderful stuff.
(And double thanks for leaving the post open for comments, Ardis.)
Ardis, if this thread is still open, I wonder whether you could pass on a question to Paul. The thought occurred to me that there might be a “quest for whiteness” motivation to Joseph F. Smith’s final ruling on race. The church was trying to live down the foreign practice of polygamy, and it wasn’t going great (witness his testimony before Congress). Might he have concluded that the Church just didn’t have the bandwidth to deal publicly with BOTH polygamy and race, and so he made the hard decision to cut the race issue loose (as it was simply not possible to avoid the polygamy issue). Just curious what your thoughts might be about such a scenario.
Hi Kevin, I wish we could get inside Joseph F. Smith’s head to know what was taking place outside of the stark meeting minutes to which scholars have access. But I think you are reading the evidence very much the way I look at it. Joseph F. Smith’s false memory in 1908 is a culminating act in claiming collective whiteness for Latter-day Saints. But I’d suggest that it’s not necessarily a trade off between race and polygamy but in fact a combining of the two issues into one. In abandoning polygamy he is also claiming whiteness. In fact, the real culmination of the move toward whiteness is the abandonment of polygamy (that is what I attempt to convey in the Oriental, White, and Mormon chapter in RofaDC). Polygamy was defined as non-white, even by the Supreme Court, so abandoning polygamy is a significant move toward whiteness and then as you note, when JFS suggests the racial restrictions were in place from the beginning he is suggesting that priesthood and temples were always white. At the same 1908 meeting he instructs mission presidents to stop actively seeking Black converts. No wonder we become known as a white church. We made active decisions to do so. So, yes, I think you are on the same wavelength in the way I see it playing out.
Thanks for the lucid summary, Paul. Needless to say I agree with your perspective.