Black people and Mormonism

Before 1847

The Book of Mormon describes a series of conflicts between the light-skinned Nephites and the dark-skinned Lamanites. In The Book of Mormon, God inflicts a "curse" of dark skin on the Lamanites when they disobey him and become "white and delightsome" when they obey him.(2 Nephi 5:20-25; 2 Nephi 30:5-6) The Book of Mormon also preaches that Christ's atonement was for everyone, including women, slaves, and Blacks, and that the gospel should be preached to all.(2 Nephi 26:32-33)

During the early years of the Latter Day Saint movement, black people were admitted to the church, and there was no record of any racial policies on denying priesthood privileges to worthy Latter Day Saint men. This is especially evident because at least two black men became priests: Elijah Abel and Walker Lewis. When the Latter Day Saints migrated to Missouri, they encountered the pro-slavery sentiments of their neighbors. Joseph Smith upheld the laws regarding slaves and slaveholders, but remained abolitionist in his actions and doctrines.

Belief that black people were neutral or "less valiant" in pre-existence

One of the justifications that some Latter-day Saints used for the discriminatory policy was that black individual's pre-existence spirits were not as virtuous as white pre-existence spirits. For example, Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: "According to the doctrine of the church, the negro because of some condition of unfaithfulness in the spirit — or pre-existence, was not valiant and hence was not denied the mortal probation, but was denied the blessing of the priesthood."

Smith also reasoned that during the war in Heaven, some spirits would logically have been less valiant in following the Savior than others, therefore the priesthood was restricted from the least valiant. However, Smith made clear that the book was his own personal opinion. Of the doctrine of the church, Smith said "The Mormon Church does not believe, nor does it teach, that the Negro is an inferior being. Mentally, and physically, the Negro is capable of great achievement, as great and in some cases greater than the potentiality of the white race. He can become a lawyer, a doctor, a scientist, and he can achieve great heights."

Racial discrimination policy under Brigham Young

After Smith's death in 1844, Brigham Young became president of the main body of the church and led the Mormon pioneers to what would become the Utah Territory. Like many Americans at the time, Young (who was also the territorial governor) promoted discriminatory views about black people. On January 16, 1852, Young made a pronouncement to the Utah Territorial Legislature, stating that "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him [could not] hold the priesthood."

While Brigham Young opposed slavery, he was willing to tolerate it temporarily. Young subscribed to what was a common American view at the time: that black people were naturally inferior. Young attributed this to a divine curse placed on the lineage of Cain, and interpreted it to mean that Africans and their descendants could not be ordained to the priesthood. However, he rejected the teachings of contemporary Mormons including Orson Pratt, that Africans were cursed because they had been less valiant in a premortal life. Young also stated that the curse would one day be lifted and that black people would be able to receive the priesthood post-mortally. As recorded in the Journal of Discourses, Young taught that blacks were to be "servants of servants" because of the curse placed on their forefathers. He also stated that it was a law under heaven and it was not the church's place to change God's law.

Slavery

The first known slaves to enter the Utah Territory came west with the congregations of Mississippi. One of the first three slaves was Green Flake who was considered to be property of the church. More slaves arrived as property of members in later companies. By 1850, 100 blacks had arrived, the majority of whom were slaves. There are several stories recounting the escape of slaves during the trek west. Some escaped during the night in large groups, while others escaped with the help of the Underground Railroad.

After the pioneers arrived in Utah, they continued to buy and sell slaves as property. Many prominent members of the church were slave owners, including William H. Hooper, Abraham O. Smoot, and Charles C. Rich. Church members would use their slaves as tithing, both lending out their slaves to work for the church as well as giving their slaves to the church. Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball used the slave labor that had been donated as tithing and then eventually granted their freedom. The church opposed slaves who wanted to escape their masters.

Statements from church leaders

Beginning in 1842, after he had moved to free-state Illinois, Joseph Smith made known his increasingly strong anti-slavery position, which was also incorporated into his political platform when he ran for president.

Because of slave owners who were converting to the church in Missouri, there was much confusion regarding the church's position on slavery. These same feelings arose during the migration to Utah. In 1851, apostle Orson Hyde made a statement that helped to clear up any confusion. He went on to say that there was no law in Utah prohibiting or authorizing slavery and that the decisions on the topic were to remain between slaves and their masters. He also clarified that individuals' choices on the matter were not in any way a reflection of the church as a whole or its doctrine.

Brigham Young believed that slavery was "of Divine institution, and not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham shall have been removed from his descendants." Like many Christians of the day, he believed in the Curse of Cain and Curse of Ham and taught that God had decreed that blacks should remain servants of servants and that they were incapable of rising above the position of a servant. It was therefore up to slave owner to treat them kindly.

In Utah Territory

After the Compromise of 1850 allowed California into the Union as a free state while permitting Utah and New Mexico territories the option of deciding the issue by popular sovereignty, the Utah Territorial Legislature took up the issue of legalizing slavery. At that time, Brigham Young was governor, and the Utah Territorial Legislature was dominated by church leaders. In 1852, Brigham Young addressed the joint session of the legislature advocating slavery. He made the matter religious by declaring that if members of the church believe in the Bible and the priesthood then they should also believe in slavery. Following the speech, the Utah Legislature passed an Act in Relation to Service, which officially sanctioned slavery in Utah Territory. The Utah slavery law stipulated that slaves would be freed if their masters had sexual relations with them; attempted to take them from the territory against their will; or neglected to feed, clothe, or provide shelter to them. In addition, the law stipulated that slaves must receive schooling.

Utah was the only western state or territory that had slaves in 1850, but slavery was never important economically in Utah, and there were fewer than 100 slaves in the territory. In 1860, the census showed that 29 of the 59 black people in Utah Territory were slaves. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Utah sided with the Union, and slavery ended in 1862 when the United States Congress abolished slavery in the Utah Territory.

In San Bernardino

In 1851, a company of 437 Mormons under direction of Elders Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles settled at what is now San Bernardino. This first company took 26 slaves, and more slaves were brought over as San Bernardino continued to grow. Since California was a free state, the slaves should have been freed when they entered. However, slavery was openly tolerated in San Bernardino. Many wanted to be free, but were still under the control of their masters and ignorant of the laws and their rights. Judge Benjamin Hayes freed 14 slaves who had belonged to Robert Smith. Other slaves were freed by their masters.

Interracial marriages and interracial sexual relations

One of the first times that anti-miscegenation feelings were mentioned by church leaders, occurred on February 6, 1835. An assistant president of the church, W. W. Phelps, wrote a letter theorizing that Ham's wife was a descendant of Cain and that Ham himself was cursed for "marrying a black wife".

Joseph Smith opposed interracial marriages. He once indicated that he felt that black peoples should be "confined by strict law to their own species," which some have said directly opposes Smith's advocacy for all other civil rights. In Nauvoo, it was against the law for black men to marry whites, and Joseph Smith fined two black men for violating his probation of intermarriage between blacks and whites.

During a sermon criticizing the federal government, church president Brigham Young said, "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."

During the 19th century the Utah legislature passed Act in Relation to Service which carried penalties for whites who had sexual relations with blacks. The day after it passed, Young explained that that if someone mixes their seed with the seed of Cain, that both they and their children will have the Curse of Cain. He then prophesied that if the Church were to ever say that it was okay to intermarry with blacks, that the Church would go on to destruction and the priesthood would be taken away. The seed of Cain generally referred to those with dark skin who were of African descent.

Church apostle Mark E. Petersen, who was often said to have an extreme position with regards to the priesthood ban, said in 1954: "I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar... it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage. That is his objective and we must face it."

In 1958, church apostle Bruce 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." The quote remained through all editions until the church's Deseret Book ceased printing the book in 2010.

Utah's anti-miscegenation law was repealed in 1963 by the Utah state legislature. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruling on the case of Loving v. Virginia determined that any prohibition of interracial marriages in the United States was unconstitutional.

In a 1965 address to BYU students, apostle Spencer W. Kimball told BYU students: "Now, the brethren feel that it is not the wisest thing to cross racial lines in dating and marrying. There is no condemnation. We have had some of our fine young people who have crossed the lines. We hope they will be very happy, but experience of the brethren through a hundred years has proved to us that marriage is a very difficult thing under any circumstances and the difficulty increases in interrace marriages." A church lesson manual for boys 12-13 (Aaronic Priesthood Manual 3), published in 1995, contains a 1976 quote from Spencer W. Kimball that recommended the practice of marrying others of similar racial, economic, social, educational, and religious backgrounds. In 2003, the church published the Eternal Marriage Student Manual, which uses the same quote.

The official newspaper of the LDS Church, the Church News, printed an article entitled "Interracial marriage discouraged". This article was printed on June 17, 1978, in the same issue that announced the policy reversal for blacks and the priesthood.

There was no written church policy on interracial marriages, which had been permitted since before the 1978 Revelation on the Priesthood. In 1978, church spokesman Don LeFevre said, "So there is no ban on interracial marriage. If a black partner contemplating marriage is worthy of going to the Temple, nobody's going to stop him .... if he's ready to go to the Temple, obviously he may go with the blessings of the church."

Speaking on behalf of the church, Robert Millet wrote in 2003: "[T]he Church Handbook of Instructions ... is the guide for all Church leaders on doctrine and practice. There is, in fact, no mention whatsoever in this handbook concerning interracial marriages. 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."

Black suffrage

As in other places in Illinois, only free white males could vote in Nauvoo.

When Utah territory was created, suffrage was only granted to free white males. At that time, only a few states had allowed black suffrage. Brigham Young explained that this was connected to the priesthood ban. He argued that "If Africans cannot bear rule in the Church of God, what business have they to bear rule in the State and government affairs of this Territory or any other?" He said they had no right and he would not consent that the "children of Cain" rule over him. He argued that the attempt to grant black suffrage was part of a larger attempt to make black equal to whites, which would bring a curse.

On January 10, 1867, Congress passed the Territorial Suffrage Act, which prohibited denying suffrage based on race or previous condition of servitude, which nullified Utah's ban on black suffrage.

Other racial discrimination

Like most Americans between the 19th and mid-20th centuries, some Mormons held racist views, and exclusion from priesthood was not the only discrimination practiced toward black people. With Joseph Smith as the mayor of Nauvoo, blacks were prohibited from holding office or joining the Nauvoo Legion. Brigham Young taught that equality efforts were misguided, claiming that those who fought for equality among blacks were trying to elevate them "to an equality with those whom Nature and Nature's God has indicated to be their masters, their superiors", but that instead they should "observe the law of natural affection for our kind." In the late 1800s, blacks living in Cache Valley were forcibly relocated to Ogden and Salt Lake City.

The First Presidency under Heber J. Grant sent a letter to then Stake President Ezra Benson in Washington D.C. advising that if two black Mormon women were "discreetly approached" they would be happy sit in the back or side so as not to upset some white women who had complained about sitting near them in relief society. In the 1950s, the San Francisco mission office took legal action to prevent black families from moving into the church neighborhood. In 1965, a black man living in Salt Lake City, Daily Oliver, described how—as a boy—he was excluded from an LDS-led boy scout troop because they did not want blacks in their building. LDS Church apostle Mark E. Petersen describes a black family that tried to join the LDS Church: "[some white church members] went to the Branch President, and said that either the [black] family must leave, or they would all leave. The Branch President ruled that [the black family] could not come to church meetings."

Until the 1970s, hospitals with connections to the LDS Church, including LDS Hospital, Primary Children's and Cottonwood Hospitals in Salt Lake City, McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, and Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, kept separate the blood donated by blacks and whites, and even after the church's volte face in 1978 patients who expressed concern about receiving blood from black donors were given reassurance from hospital authorities that this would not happen.

Civil rights movement

In 1958, apostle Joseph Fielding Smith published Answers to Gospel Questions, which stated that "no church or other organization is more insistent than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that the negroes should receive all the rights and privileges that can possibly be given to any other in the true sense of equality as declared in the Declaration of Independence." He went on to say that negroes should not be barred from any type of employment or education, and should be free "to make their lives as happy as it is possible without interference from white men, labor unions, or from any other source." In the 1963 church General Conference, apostle Hugh B. Brown stated: "It is a moral evil for any person or group of persons to deny any human being the rights to gainful employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of citizenship". He continued: "We call upon all men everywhere, both within and outside the church, to commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of God's children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the brotherhood of man."

In the 1960s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to convince LDS Church leaders to support civil rights legislation and to reverse its practices in relation to African American priesthood holding and temple attendance during the Civil Rights era. In early 1963, NAACP leadership attempted to arrange meetings with church leadership, but were rebuffed in their efforts. Later, before the October 1963 General Conference, N. Eldon Tanner and Hugh B. Brown, the two counselors to David O. McKay in the First Presidency, met with the head of the Utah NAACP. During the ensuing General Conference, Brown issued a statement in support of civil rights legislation and made it sound as if it reflected the views of the entire First Presidency, but it was not technically an "official pronouncement of the First Presidency."

In 1965, the church leadership met with the NAACP, and agreed to publish an editorial in church-owned newspaper the Deseret News, which would support civil rights legislation pending in the Utah legislature. The church failed to follow-through on the commitment, and Tanner explained, "We have decided to remain silent".

In March 1965, the NAACP led an anti-discrimination march in Salt Lake City, protesting church policies. In 1966, the NAACP issued a statement criticizing the church, saying the church "[had] maintained a rigid and continuous segregation stand" and that the church had made "no effort to counteract the widespread discriminatory practices in education, in housing, in employment, and other areas of life." However, in a study covering 1972 to 1996, church membership has been shown to have lower rates of approval of segregation than the national norm, as well as a faster decline in approval over the periods covered, both with statistical significance.

In the October 1967 General Conference Apostle Ezra Benson declared "There is no doubt that the so-called civil rights movement as it exists today is used as a Communist program for revolution in America" and that it was led by mostly white male Communists who want to "destroy America by spilling Negro blood". He also stated that accusing law enforcement of "police brutality" against black people should be recognized as attempts to discredit and discourage law enforcement. His talk was re-published the next year by the church's Deseret Book as a pamphlet titled "Civil Rights: Tool of Communist Deception".

During the 1960s and 1970s, Mormons in the West were close to the national averages in racial attitudes. In 1966, Armand Mauss surveyed Mormons on racial attitudes and discriminatory practices. He found that "Mormons resembled the rather 'moderate' denominations (such as Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopalian), rather than the 'fundamentalists' or the sects." Negative racial attitudes within Mormonism varied inversely with education, occupation, community size of origin, and youth, reflecting the national trend. Urban Mormons with a more orthodox view of Mormonism tended to be more tolerant.

African-American athletes protested against LDS Church policies by boycotting several sporting events with Brigham Young University. In 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, black members of the UTEP track team approached their coach and expressed their desire not to compete against BYU in an upcoming meet. When the coach disregarded the athletes' complaint, the athletes boycotted the meet. In 1969, 14 members of the University of Wyoming football team were removed from the team for planning to protest the policies of the LDS church. In November 1969, Stanford University President Kenneth Pitzer suspended athletic relations with BYU.

Since the early part of the 20th century, each ward of the LDS Church in the United States has organized its own Boy Scouting troop. Some LDS Church-sponsored troops permitted black youth to join, but a church policy required that the troop leader to be the deacons quorum president, which had the result of excluding black children from that role. The NAACP filed a federal lawsuit in 1974 challenging this practice, and soon thereafter the LDS Church reversed its policy.

There were some LDS Church members who protested against the church's discriminatory practices. Three members, John Fitzgerald, Douglas A. Wallace, and Byron Marchant, were excommunicated by the LDS Church in 1973, 1976, and 1977 respectively, after criticizing the church's practices. Church member Grant Syphers objected to the church's racial policies and, as a consequence, his stake president refused to give Syphers a temple recommend. The president said, "Anyone who could not accept the Church's stand on Negroes ... could not go to the temple".

In the early 1970s, apostle Spencer W. Kimball began preaching against racism. In 1972, he said: "Intolerance by church members is despicable. A special problem exists with respect to black people because they may not now receive the priesthood. Some members of the Church would justify their own un-Christian discrimination against black people because of that rule with respect to the priesthood, but while this restriction has been imposed by the Lord, it is not for us to add burdens upon the shoulders of our black brethren. They who have received Christ in faith through authoritative baptism are heirs to the celestial kingdom along with men of all other races. And those who remain faithful to the end may expect that God may finally grant them all blessings they have merited through their righteousness. Such matters are in the Lord's hands. It is for us to extend our love to all."

Racial restriction policy

Under the racial restrictions that lasted from the presidency of Brigham Young until 1978, persons with any black African ancestry could not hold the priesthood in the LDS Church and could not participate in most temple ordinances, including the endowment and celestial marriage. Black people were permitted to be members of the church, and to participate in some temple ordinances, such as baptism for the dead.

Priesthood

The priesthood restriction was particularly limiting, because the LDS Church has a lay priesthood and all worthy male members may receive the priesthood if they choose to do so. Holders of the priesthood officiate at church meetings, perform blessings of healing, and manage church affairs. Excluding black people from the priesthood meant that they could not hold significant church leadership roles or participate in certain spiritual events such as blessing the sick or giving other blessings reserved for priesthood holders.

Temple ordinances

Between 1844 and 1977, most black people were not permitted to participate in ordinances performed in the LDS Church temples, such as the endowment ritual, celestial marriages, and family sealings. These ordinances are considered essential to enter the highest degree of heaven, so this meant that they could not enjoy the full privileges enjoyed by other Latter-day Saints during the restriction.

Celestial marriage and exaltation

A celestial marriage is considered unnecessary to gain access into the celestial kingdom, but it is required to obtain a fullness of glory or exaltation within the celestial kingdom.

Mormon scripture teaches that the righteous who do not have a celestial marriage would still make it into heaven, and live eternally with God, but they would be "appointed angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants."(D&C 132:16) Some interpreted this to mean black people would be treated as unmarried whites, being confined to only ever live in God's presence as a ministering servant. In 1954, apostle Mark E. Petersen told Brigham Young University students that faithful black church members would enter the celestial kingdom and receive a celestial resurrection, but would be a servant.

Several leaders, including Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, George Albert Smith, David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Harold B. Lee taught that black people would eventually be able to receive a fullness of glory in the celestial kingdom.

When the priesthood ban was discussed in 1978, apostle Bruce R. McConkie argued for its change using Mormon scriptures and the Articles of Faith. The Third Article states that "all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel" (Articles of Faith 1:3). According to McConkie's son Joseph Fielding McConkie, the highlighting of certain scriptures played a role in changing the policy.(Abraham 2:11)(3 Nephi 26:4-5)

Instances of discrimination after 1978 revelation

LDS historian Wayne J. Embry interviewed several black LDS Church members in 1987 and reported that "all of the interviewees reported incidents of aloofness on the part of white members, a reluctance or a refusal to shake hands with them or sit by them, and racist comments made to them." Embry further reported that one black church member "was amazingly persistent in attending Mormon services for three years when, by her report, no one would speak to her." Embry reports that "she [the same black church member] had to write directly to the president of the LDS Church to find out how to be baptized" because none of her fellow church members would tell her.

Black LDS Church member Darron Smith wrote in 2003: "Even though the priesthood ban was repealed in 1978, the discourse that constructs what blackness means is still very much intact today. Under the direction of President Spencer W. Kimball, the First Presidency and the Twelve removed the policy that denied black people the priesthood but did very little to disrupt the multiple discourses that had fostered the policy in the first place. Hence there are Church members today who continue to summon and teach at every level of Church education the racial discourse that black people are descendants of Cain, that they merited lesser earthly privilege because they were "fence-sitters" in the War in Heaven, and that, science and climatic factors aside, there is a link between skin color and righteousness".

In 2007, journalist and church member, Peggy Fletcher Stack, wrote, "Today, many black Mormons report subtle differences in the way they are treated, as if they are not full members but a separate group. A few even have been called 'the n-word' at church and in the hallowed halls of the temple. They look in vain at photos of Mormon general authorities, hoping to see their own faces reflected there.

White church member Eugene England, a professor at Brigham Young University, wrote in 1998:

This is a good time to remind ourselves that most Mormons are still in denial about the ban, unwilling to talk in Church settings about it, and that some Mormons still believe that Blacks were cursed by descent from Cain through Ham. Even more believe that Blacks, as well as other non-white people, come color-coded into the world, their lineage and even their class a direct indication of failures in a previous life.... I check occasionally in classes at BYU and find that still, twenty years after the revelation, a majority of bright, well-educated Mormon students say they believe that Blacks are descendants of Cain and Ham and thereby cursed and that skin color is an indication of righteousness in the premortal life. They tell me these ideas came from their parents or Seminary and Sunday School teachers, and they have never questioned them. They seem largely untroubled by the implicit contradiction to basic gospel teachings.

In an interview for the PBS documentary The Mormons, Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, specifically denounced the perpetuation of folklore suggesting that race was in any way an indication of how faithful a person had been in the premortal existence.

Church asked to repudiate past declarations

In 1995, black church member A. David Jackson asked church leaders to issue a declaration repudiating past doctrines that denied various privileges to black people. In particular, Jackson asked the church to disavow the 1949 "Negro Question" declaration from the church Presidency which stated that "the attitude of the church with reference to negroes ... is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord ... to the effect that negroes ... are not entitled to the priesthood."

The church leadership did not issue a repudiation, and so in 1997 Jackson, aided by other church members including Armand Mauss, sent a second request to church leaders, which stated that white Mormons felt that the 1978 revelation resolved everything, but that black Mormons react differently when they learn the details. He said that many black Mormons become discouraged and leave the church or become inactive. "When they find out about this, they exit... You end up with the passive African Americans in the church."

Other black church members think giving an apology would be a "detriment" to church work and a catalyst to further racial misunderstanding. African-American church member Bryan E. Powell says, "There is no pleasure in old news, and this news is old." Gladys Newkirk agrees, stating, "I've never experienced any problems in this church. I don't need an apology. . . . We're the result of an apology." The large majority of black Mormons say they are willing to look beyond the previous teachings and remain with the church in part because of its powerful, detailed teachings on life after death.

Church president Hinckley told the Los Angeles Times: "The 1978 declaration speaks for itself ... I don't see anything further that we need to do." Apostle Dallin H. Oaks said: "It's not the pattern of the Lord to give reasons. We can put reasons to commandments. When we do we're on our own. Some people put reasons to [the ban] and they turned out to be spectacularly wrong. There is a lesson in that .... The lesson I've drawn from that, I decided a long time ago that I had faith in the command and I had no faith in the reasons that had been suggested for it .... I'm referring to reasons given by general authorities and reasons elaborated upon [those reasons] by others. The whole set of reasons seemed to me to be unnecessary risk taking .... Let's [not] make the mistake that's been made in the past, here and in other areas, trying to put reasons to revelation. The reasons turn out to be man-made to a great extent. The revelations are what we sustain as the will of the Lord and that's where safety lies."

Humanitarian aid in Africa

The church has been involved in several humanitarian aid projects in Africa. On January 27, 1985, members across the world joined together in a fast for "the victims of famine and other causes resulting in hunger and privation among people of Africa." They also donated the money that would have been used for food during the fast to help those victims, regardless of church membership. Together with other organizations such as UNICEF and the American Red Cross, the church is working towards eradicating measles. Since 1999, there has been a 60 percent drop in deaths from measles in Africa. Due to the church's efforts, the American Red Cross gave the First Presidency the organization's highest financial support honor, the American Red Cross Circle of Humanitarians award. The church has also been involved in humanitarian aid in Africa by sending food boxes, digging wells to provide clean water, distributing wheelchairs, providing Neonatal Resuscitation Training, and setting up employment resources service centers.

Black membership

The church has never kept official records on the race of its membership, so exact numbers are unknown. Black people have been members of Mormon congregations since its foundation, but in 1964 its black membership was small, with about 300 to 400 black members worldwide. In 1997, there were approximately 500,000 black members of the church (about 5% of the total membership), mostly in Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean. Since then, black membership has grown, especially in West Africa, where two temples have been built, doubling to about 1 million black members worldwide by 2008.

After 1978 LDS Church growth in Brazil was "especially strong" among Afro-Brazilians, especially in cities such as Fortaleza and Recife along the northeast coast of the country.

Regarding the LDS Church in Africa, professor Philip Jenkins noted in 2009 that LDS growth has been slower than that of other churches. He cited a variety of factors, including the fact that some European churches benefited from a long-standing colonial presence in Africa; the hesitance of the LDS church to expand missionary efforts into black Africa during the priesthood ban, resulting in "missions with white faces"; the observation that the other churches largely made their original converts from native non-Christian populations, whereas Mormons often draw their converts from existing Christian communities. The church also has had special difficulties accommodating African cultural practices and worship styles, particularly polygamy, which has been renounced categorically by the LDS Church, but is still widely practiced in Africa. Commenting that other denominations have largely abandoned trying to regulate the conduct of worship services in black African churches, Jenkins wrote that the LDS Church "is one of the very last churches of Western origin that still enforces Euro-American norms so strictly and that refuses to make any accommodation to local customs."

By the 2010s, LDS Church growth was over 10% annually in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and some other countries in Africa. This was accompanied by some of the highest retention rates of converts anywhere in the church. At the same time, from 2009 to 2014, half of LDS converts in Europe were immigrants from Africa.

In the United States, researchers Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith, in their 2004 book Black and Mormon, wrote that since the 1980s "the number of African American Latter-day Saints does not appear to have grown significantly. Worse still, among those blacks who have joined, the average attrition rate appears to be extremely high." They cite a survey showing that the attrition rate among African American Mormons in two towns is estimated to be between 60 and 90 percent.

According to the 2007 Pew Religion and Public Life survey, a survey that only studied adults, there are about 180,000 self-identified black members in the U.S., or 3% of the overall U.S. membership, Also according to this 2007 survey 9% of LDS converts in the US were of black origin or descent, while almost no lifelong Mormons were black.

Mormon fundamentalism

Some Mormon fundamentalist sects that split from the LDS Church in the early 1900s continue to teach that the priesthood should be withheld from black people because of their cursed state, and that the LDS Church's reversal is a sign of its apostasy. In the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church), the largest of the fundamentalist Mormon denominations, church president Warren Jeffs, has been quoted as making the following declarations on the issue:

These and other statements have resulted in the FLDS Church being labelled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.