UI Press | Edited by Newell G. Bringhurst and Darron T. Smith

Black and Mormon

Taking stock of Mormon progress on the developing role of blacks

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.

"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

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.

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