I remember when the church announced that blacks could have the priesthood and the change was implemented because of the mixed races in Brazil. I recently watched a 4 part series called "Black in Latin America" by Henry Louis Gates Jr (Finding Your Roots) and learned that slavery was widespread in Mexico and Peru. In fact more slaves were imported to those countries than the U.S. Almost all of Mexicans and Peruvians have at least some African ancestors.

I mistakenly assumed that darker skinned people from these countries had more indigenous blood in them but it turns out that it is due to the legacy of slavery.

A lot of missionaries went to those countries and baptized a lot of people. Does anyone know if men were generally denied the priesthood there? If they were given it then obviously "the spirit of discernment" was clearly not working to identify the mark of Cain.

I’m not sure if the policy was the same for the priesthood, but when it came to the temple, the rule was “not one drop of negro blood.”

The church had no clue about ancestry. Brazil was seen as an exception, as too were Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean. But for most of the Americas, Mormons assumed that the native peoples were either pure descendants of the Middle Easterners or admixtures of such with Caucasians due to colonialism.

The whole scheme is nonsensical. In the first instance, there were tons of African slaves introduced into South and Central America, and without modern genetics there was no way to check ancestry. Given a few centuries, the African genetic contribution would have spread far and wide. Second, there was lots of ethnic mixing in southern Europe and parts of Africa going back long before the Roman Empire united sub-Saharan and Mediterranean peoples with Middle Easterners and Europeans. So many, if not most, of the converts in Spain, Italy, Greece, etc., also had some African blood.

Third, the laws of mathematics indicate that the introduction of a particular set of DNA into Europe 2,000 years ago would have spread internationally quite quickly, meaning that a very high percentage of people who in 1820 appeared white European had black ancestors as well. So many of those British, French, German, Dutch, and other central and northern Europeans also had "a drop" or more African blood. I have no doubt that a very high proportion of prophets and apostles were descendants of "the curse," if may use such an evil term sarcastically.

Most fundamentally, though, all humans have African blood. Without exception, the homonid species developed in Africa, and subsequent mutations that produced lighter skin colors and other supposedly non-African traits represented minuscule changes in African genomes. Every single human alive today is a mutated form of the original Africans.

There is no human on earth who is not cursed under the Cain doctrine.

(anono this week)

My Mexican friends have told me that when the mormons first came (right after WW2) all they asked is if they had any black ancestors. And since Mexico is a very racist country with the Spaniard descendants who pride themselves and being whiter, the answer would invariably be no. Mexicans also were never much into keeping track of genealogy or having legal marriages. Most of the country has been illegitimate which creates generational poverty for most people.

They actually burned many of the records in the early 1900s so the mixed race people couldn't have a case to expect an inheritance from their Spaniard ancestors. To keep the money in certain families.

So unless a person looked black they were considered Mexican and would be baptized. Interestingly the Mormons weren't the most racist of protestant churches. I've heard tales from my friends that the seventh-day-Adventists were even worse. They refused to let in anyone with brown skin into their boy scout troops. And actually turned them away (1960s).

Don't be silly. Spaniards are a pure white race. There were
never any Africans in Spain. Never, ever! We can Moor our ship
of faith securely in the harbor of whiteness and delightsomeness.

In a more serious tone, I recall realizing that my southern-
Italian ancestry meant that SOMEWHERE without question was a
black African. The Roman empire occupied much of northern
Africa and there was a lot of travel back and forth by people
across the Mediterranean. Given that going back 2000 years
means millions of ancestors, then some of them absolutely HAD
to be black African.

I was about 16 at the time I realized this. It was in the '60s
when the "negro ban" was in full swing. I recall asking my TBM
dad if one drop disqualified. He said yes. I pressed the
question, "just one drop of negro blood?" He told me I was
being silly. But I wasn't, because I knew that I had that "one
drop."

This is a topic on which I can speak with first hand experience. I was a missionary in central and northern Brazil in the late 1960s.

When I was growing up, there was a Puerto Rican convert in my branch who certainly looked like he had some African ancestry, but he got a patriarchal blessing that said he was of some tribe or other, and that was good enough for the locals and the MP. He was given the priesthood, as was his son.

The Mormon Church started in the southern "tail" of Brazil, which was populated primarily by Europeans. I believe it started in the 1930s, maybe the 1920s. The farther north you go in the country, the more African ancestry you find. São Paulo had a fair number of caucasians, and quite a few asian immigrants, primarily Japanese and Korean. Rio de Janeiro had just barely enough "white" residents to support missionaries, and the state of Salvador da Bahia, which had been the center of the slave trade, and the original capital of Brazil, was very predominantly mixed or pure African ancestry. There were no LDS missionaries there when I was there, and I doubt there were any until 1978 when the priesthood policy changed.

There were missionaries in NE Brazil. It was heavily mixed race as well, but not quite as much as Bahia.

Here's what was unique about being a missionary in Brazil, pre-1978.

1) We had seven lessons rather than the standard six most of the rest of the missions used. There was a special lesson on African lineage and the priesthood ban. New members were going to find out sooner or later, almost certainly sooner, so it had to be broached right from the get-go.

2) Back then we still primarily baptized full families. When we met a potential investigator family, we did a visual inspection for black ancestry, and if possible (and it was often possible) we'd chat the family up and ask them about their family history, and ask if they had any family photo albums. We'd look at pictures of however far back they had, or until we found a negroid ancestor. Yes, we were brazen enough to feign interest in their family to see family photos (to be honest, the stories often were interesting)

If we discovered a "priesthood problem", we would give them our card and invite them to church, and not give them the discussions unless they really insisted. Usually, that'd be the end of it. They wouldn't show up at church

3) Sometimes a family with African ancestry could not be discouraged from joining. In that case, it was required that they be interviewed by the mission president, to make darn sure they understood how their ancestry would affect their membership. This could take anywhere from one to three months to arrange. The northeast of Brazil was over a thousand miles from the mission home, so the MP was only there for quarterly conferences. Or maybe it was semi-annual. I no longer remember. I think it was hoped that the delay would itself give them time to change their minds and back out.

4) So, some people with African ancestry joined. They couldn't hold the priesthood. In a few cases, the father could but sons could not, because the African ancestry was through the mother. I never saw that personally, and it sounds like it would be enormously awkward.

5) What about people who join, get ordained, start doing their genealogy, and discover African ancestry? This was not uncommon. They were not unordained. They were simply asked to not "exercise" their priesthood. They were given callings in ward or stake MIA or SS, where priesthood was not required (but a penis was required). Some very faithful and devoted members were in that situation.

6) Patriarchal blessings in Brazil did not trump family photos or ancestry records. If you discovered you had African ancestry, it did not matter if you had a PB or what it said. Reality trumped the PB. Put another way, Mormon racism was stronger than Mormon "patriarchs are inspired" mythology.

7) I had very recently left LDS Inc in the mid 1970s when the first Brazilian temple was announced. My very first thought was the brown stuff was going to hit the fan now. Either the priesthood ban had to change, or this would rip the church to shreds in Brazil. If the leadership had to start saying OK, you, you and you can go to the temple and be sealed, and you and you can't because of that photo of your grandmother, things would not go well.

Now Brazil has surpassed Mexico as the country with the second highest number of Mormons after the US. The priesthood policy change was championed by James E Faust, who was in the FP, and also was the GA in charge of missions in South America. The policy change was announced after construction was nearly complete, and 2 months (iirc) before they started training temple workers for the São Paulo Temple. IMHO, there were plenty of pressures on the LDS Church to change the policy, but the Brazil temple was the 800 pound gorilla. That gave them a hard deadline, and very unpleasant results if they didn't change.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2019 02:53AM by Brother Of Jerry.

Very interesting.

Two particular notes. First, the notion of going through people's photos to identify African blood is chilling. Such cruelty. I'm sorry you had to go through that.

Second, your discussion of the temple implies to the ever-politically-cynical moi a possible ulterior motive. We know that McKay and others wanted to lift the ban as early as the middle or late 1960s but were prevented by a couple or three holdouts; Lee and Peterson are names that often arise in this context.

We also know that when the 1978 vote was taken, Peterson and someone else were out of the country and hence unable to exercise their vetoes. That was clearly a political gambit to enable the revocation of the ban. I find myself wondering, however, if some of the "liberals" in the Q15 had pushed the temple in order to force the sort of denouement you describe. Because what you say sounds like the creation of a hard deadline before which the ban had practically to be lifted.

Build the temple to force a vote and get the reactionaries out of the country. Political hardball.

I'm basically an introvert, so asking people for their photo albums was something I hated doing. My companion usually (always?) took the lead on that, no doubt because I was obviously uncomfortable. It actually got me in a minor amount of trouble with the higher-ups.

As for the Brazil temple being a political ploy to force the issue, I think that could well be the case. It would have been a "playing the long game" strategy, since the temple announcement preceded the actual policy change by several years.

Faust, being in charge of South America, would have had significant influence in getting a temple announced for Brazil, and he was a principal supporter of the priesthood ban change. So, was that his goal from the beginning? I doubt we will ever definitively know, but it clearly possible, and I think likely. I'd bet the farm that having Mark Peterson out of the country when the decision was voted on was a deliberate act and political hardball.

As a side note, I think RFMers, and the LDS membership, underestimate how long the Q15 long game can be. Hinkley was often asked after the change about the black priesthood ban, and he always said "we don't do that anymore" and changed the subject, when there was an obvious "theological" explanation. I think the recent essay disavowing that theology had been on Hinkley's wish list for decades. The Q15 were just waiting for the right time to spring it. Blaming God for the racist attitude was simply not a viable long term option.

I also think the dumping of the name "Mormon" is part of what may well be a two-generation-long long game, to back away from the BoM as a literal account of real people. The Q15 have to realize that scientists refute the BoM story eight ways from Sunday, and they will have to bite the bullet on that book some day.

ETA: I loved Brazil. The language is beautiful, and I was there during the height of the Bossa Nova movement. My biggest regret is that I went along with enforcing the priesthood ban, and never really spoke up against it. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2019 01:41PM by Brother Of Jerry.

It's pretty well established that the fight over the priesthood ban lasted over a decade; I think that fact appears in the biography of McKay, among other sources. You are clearly right that Q15 battles stretch over years and even decades, which makes sense given the length of apostles' tenures. One can imagine how long and heated the debates over polygamy must have been.

I'll have to mull over your idea about the name "Mormon." It seemed to me the pet project of a newly empowered person hoping to make his mark. But whether that is right doesn't vitiate your broader point about the longer-term effort to relegate the BoM to the dustbin of Mormonism, which is a compelling observation.

Your comments about Brazil resonate: not because I served there but because while I hated my mission, I loved the country and the people. In that limited sense, the mission experience changed my life. That's one of the paradoxes of Mormonism: sending people to other countries to teach that those countries are inferior even though the experience usually proves the opposite.

was the Sao Paulo temple, which was dedicated in....drum roll....

....October 1978

Kimball's "revelation" about God changing his mind about the priesthood ban was announced in .... drum roll....

.....June 1978.

Just in time to prevent the fecal fan fiasco (that you alluded to) from becoming a reality.

I also recall hearing at the time that many of the top church leaders in Brazil (i.e. the backbone of the whole local operation) were likely to fall afoul of the priesthood/temple ban at some point if it were to continue to be strictly applied, which inevitably would have turned the Church in Brazil into the "embarrassment of the month club" for the foreseeable future.

The timing makes the practical calculations behind the "revelation" painfully obvious.

Both the Adam=God doctrine and the Seed of Cain nonsense apparently were Brigham Young's proud contributions to Mormondumb. It took no time at all for his successors to trashcan his Adam=God doctrine. But for some reason they were happy to stick with his "Seed of Cain" fartrine (fart + doctrine = fartrine) for a century.

I can't imagine how anti-climactic and disappointing it must have been for some when they actually went to the temple after Kimball's "revelation" and found out that it's nothing but just a bunch of embarrassingly stupid costumes and handshakes. Probably one of the biggest "WTF!! What the entire F'n F!!!????" moments in human history.

Exactly. I believe they started training temple workers in August. I was in SLC when the change was announced, and a spontaneous impromptu parade broke out on State Street in downtown SLC, cars cruising the street, flashing their lights and honking horns. For a lot of Boomer Mormons, the policy had been a major embarrassment, and the sense of relief and jubilation, for at least some Mormons, was palpable. I can only imagine the amount of jubilation and tears among Brazilian Mormons at the news. They knew that the bullet that had just been dodged had been headed straight for them.

OTOH, some of my relatives are from the Bible Belt, and their level of TBMness is 11. I saw two of them flipping through scripture, and wondering How Could This Possibly Happen? It was the one and only time in my life I heard them openly question anything from LDS Ic.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2019 01:52PM by Brother Of Jerry.