Green Flake, the slave of James Madison Flake, a convert to the LDS Church, is baptized at the age of 15. Green remains a slave but is a faithful member of the church throughout his life. Samuel Chambers, a 13-year-old, is baptized in secret because he is a slave. Walker Lewis, a black man in Lowell, Mass., is ordained an to the office of an Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Walker Lewis, a black man, is ordained to the office of Elder.

1846
William McCary, a black man, is ordained to the office of Elder.

1847
Elijah Abel arrives in Utah. A carpenter by trade, he works on building the Salt Lake Temple. He and his wife Mary Ann manage the Farnham Hotel. Mary Ann Abel was Negro according to the 1850 Hamilton County, Ohio, census and the 1860 Utah census.

1851
Elijah Abel arrives in Utah, where he works on building the Salt Lake Temple. He and his wife Mary Ann manage the Farnham Hotel. The couple asks to be “sealed” in marriage in the temple, which Brigham Young refuses. Abel had already been through the Kirtland Temple for washings and anointings and he was already baptized for the dead in Nauvoo.

1853
Elijah asked to receive his endowment and was denied by Brigham Young.

1854
Brigham Young frees Green Flake.

1858
All black Melanesians (Fijians) are given the priesthood (blacks in the Philippines even earlier)

1860
Utah Census lists 59 blacks, 29 of them are listed as slaves.

1883
Elijah Able is still on Church records as a Seventy.

1884
Elijah Able in his 70s is sent on yet another mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He returns home early from his mission and dies in early December of 1884.

1900
Elijah Abel’s son, Enoch Abel, is ordained an elder.

1902
Jane Manning James, a faithful black Mormon since the days of Joseph Smith Jr., is given a special temple sealing as a “servant” to Joseph Smith Jr. She continues to pursue her endowment.

1934
Elijah Abel’s grandson is ordained a priest; a year later, he advances to elder.

1949
First Presidency statement on blacks and priesthood states the ban “is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the church from the days of its organization.”

1962
A missionary tract, the Joseph Smith Story, found its way into the hands of a black religious leader in Ghana, Dr. A.F. Mensah. He converts several others, sets up a church congregation and corresponds with the Church missionary department.

1964
After reading the Book of Mormon, J.W.B. Johnson forms the first “Latter-day Saint” congregations in Ghana, Africa.

1969
Fourteen University of Wyoming football players wanted to wear armbands for their games with Brigham Young University as a protest against the ban on blacks. Other athletes also protested.

1970
LDS President David O. McKay tells the Salt Lake Tribune that “There is no doctrine in this church and there never was a doctrine in this church to the effect that the Negroes are under any kind of a divine curse.”

1971

Genesis Group, a support group for black Mormons, is organized in Salt Lake City under the direction of then LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith with apostles Gordon B. Hinckley (pictured, with Genesis co-founder Darius Gray), Thomas S. Monson and Boyd K. Packer as advisers.

1978 June 8th
President Spencer W. Kimball announces a divine revelation opening the priesthood to all worthy males regardless of race or lineage. is announced. The events leading up to it and the revelation itself are judged to be a true miracle.

Now the time before the ban lets look at what life has been like after the ban was lifted.

1978
LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, who wrote in Mormon Doctrine that blacks would never get the priesthood, states that “we should forget everything that has been said in the past on this topic.”

1990
Helvecio Martins set apart as first black General Authority as a member of the Quorum of the Seventy — the first black Seventy since Elijah Abel.

2002
Robert Foster elected BYU student body president.

2006
LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley condemns racism during the all-male priesthood session of the church’s Annual General Conference.

Where were you when you heard the Priesthood Ban was lifted.

I don’t know where I was on June 8th 1978 when the ban was lifted. But I can tell you where I was June 8th 2008. I was in Elders Quorum reading Official Declaration—2 to the Elders of Israel.

Jamie Trwth
Latte Day Saints

Jessica Ravitz: As an attorney who was born in Pleasant Grove who has done a lot of inter-faith work, and who practiced law in our Nations Capital, I wonder what your reaction is to this?

I was interested by this question and wanted to know what group wanted to display their list of beliefs (since the name of the Church wasn’t made available at the conference). I wanted to know if it was a group that opposed the church’s teaching. I was interested in the question up until the point where he answered the question. As he answered the question I was shocked by what I was hearing. I asked myself . . . Did he just say what I thought he said? I picked up my remote and backed it up a bit. I was correct in what I heard. The newly appointed Elders response was:

Elder Christofferson: . . . . I don’t know the specifics of the case you’re mentioning. Obviously. And the Supreme Court hasn’t seen fit to ask my opinion as yet. But in general principles my experience is . . . that there is generally . . . room for a great deal of diversity and variety in our societies in our cultures to coexist. And I leave the matters of establishment of religion and freedom of religion in the hands of the Supreme Court. . . .

The Government of The United States of America was established because the we were trying to not become a Government who establishes it own religion. The First Amendment of our United States Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What I thought Elder Christofferson was going to say kinda goes like this:

. . . I will leave the matters of establishment of religion to the specific religions in this country and I hope the Supreme Court will treat all religions, not just our own, on a level playing field and that way freedom of religion, which is protected to under the law, will be upheld by the laws of this country. .

The U.S. Government was set up so the Government wouldn’t meddle in Church matters. Now either I have a warped understanding of the laws of our country and the First Amendment, or Elder Christofferson misspoke on this subject. I have looked around on the news sites and I might have missed anyone else reporting on this one. I even looked on The Salt Lake Tribune’s news site and the story that Jessica wrote were of the questions other reporters asked.

Did anyone else catch this. Read below for the entire interview. Follow this link (Press Conference Audio) for the audio portion of Jessica’s question and Elder Christofferson answer.

Jessica Ravitz: Hi Elder Christofferson my name is Jessica Ravitz I’m with the Salt Lake Tribune. And what you just said is a perfect segway into what I wanted to ask you. Um. Elder Wirthlin spoke this morning about having compassion for those who are different. And just this week the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from pleasant grove. The place were you grew up . . .or were born. . . .

Elder Christofferson: (Jokingly) Don’t blame it on me.

Jessica Ravitz: Which would like to ban a small religious group here in Salt Lake (one that is obviously very different than your own) um from displaying a monument in a public park that would list their principles and be featured next to a monument listing the 10 commandments, that is already standing there. So as an attorney who was born in pleasant grove who has done a lot of inter-faith work, and who practiced law in our nations capital, I wonder what your reaction is to this? To this whole idea of religious displays in public space.

Elder Christofferson: I really set myself up didn’t I? (Laughter) I don’t know the specifics of the case you’re mentioning, obviously and the Supreme Court hasn’t seen fit to ask my opinion as yet. But in general principles my experience is that there is generally room for a great deal of diversity and variety in our societies in our cultures to coexist. And I leave the matters of establishment of religion and freedom of religion in the hands of the Supreme Court and I am happy to say that I used to be a lawyer and am not. But I agree with Elder Wirthlin and with the Brethren of the 12 and the first presidency generally. And it really is our desire to be good neighbors and to be seen as good neighbors and to be helpful and to allow others to do the same.

Jamie Trwth

She is Hindu.

She wears the clothes of her religion.

I’ve learned something about Hinduism.

I remember a girl I had a crush on whose birthday was soon. I offered her a gift. She said she couldn’t accept it because she was Jehovah’s Witness. I added that to my memory:

Jehovah’s Witness’ do not celebrate Birthdays.

It is against the Jehovah’s Witness teachings.

I’ve learned something about Jehovah’s Witnesses.

A boy in my class and told us about Hanukkah and how for eight nights they celebrated. Memories added.

Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas.

Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah.

I’ve learned something about Judaism.

I was taking yoga classes here in town. The teacher was a Sikh. She explained the reason why she wore a turban was because she was a Sikh.

My Yoga teacher is a Sikh.

Sikhs wear turbans.

I’ve learned something about Sikhism.

I had been baptized LDS Mormon for almost a year. I had my ears pierced for over 20 years. One day the Elders quorum President came to me and said:

As you are progressing toward becoming and Elder in our church you should take out your earrings. None of the other Elders or High Priests have their ears pierced. I don’t think you will have a problem with that because I see, you wear the White Shirt.

And then he quoted President Hinckley on women being restricted in their ear jewelry. Did he just assume I would follow leaders’ instructions because I wear The White Shirt? After 11 years of missionary discussions and about a year into the church I realized:

Mormon men dress in White Shirts.

It is a part of their Religion.

I am now a Mormon Man.

I’ve learned something about Mormonism.

The first Priesthood session I went to I was the only one in the seats of the Church who had on jeans, casual shirt, and sandals. When I was a member of other churches the functions that were outside of the traditional Sunday service was casual dress. How could this slip my field of radar? I missed this one what else am I missing. One thought went through my head . . . .

“I wonder what I’ll need to change next . . . . my skin color?”

And then I found out that yes that is next. There are hopes that one day the Lamanite people would have the curse of dark skin lifted from them and they would become lighter and lighter and lighter.

And it all started with a the comment about my White Shirt. I guarantee you that if I converted to Sikhism I would have been given the Turban talk a lot sooner than a year after my conversion.

So. I pose a question to all the lifelong Mormon members out there. What else is there to conform to? I don’t want to be taken by surprise any more than I have to be. I ask of the web community to mount up and put the issues on the table for all the converts out there like myself.

Jamie Trwth

When I saw the trailer for this movie one giant big ‘THING’ came to my mind . . . . Human Kind didn’t live in the time of the woolly mammoth! Or did we? I started to question myself, my religion, Christianity, Judaism, Creationism, etc. I started to believe that there was in fact a human evolutionary process our ancestors went through. Maybe Charles Darwin was correct in his findings at Galapagos. Maybe Sasquatch is our missing link.

This movie seemed really intriguing to me. I really want to go see this movie even though it might make much of what I thought to be true now untrue. The movie has danger, high adventure, ancient civilizations, there is a hint of love in the story line, and it has prehistoric creatures as well as humans roaming the earth together.

The special effects make it seem more real than the real thing, if that’s even possible. But is it the real thing. Should we as Mormons watch such a mixture of real and false worlds? Should we boycott this movie on the sole premise that under the belief that the Church holds the earth is just over 6,000 years old. But that would make a 6,000 year gap between this movie and what we are to believe as Mormons.

I am in conflict with myself. As a technical person I want to know how the movie was made. And being left handed (in my right mind) I want to know the creative process the movie makes went through to accomplish such a dramatic film. What am I to do? Honestly! On the one hand my religion tells me one thing and on the other hand society is telling me another. I can’t just explain it away be saying it’s a rated ‘R’ movie and I shouldn’t watch such movies. But isn’t PG-13 and that excuse won’t stick.

My inquisitive nature guided me check the movie times for 10,000 B.C. as well as ticket costs for an entire family of 5. I was surprised to see ticket prices have gone up since the last time I had viewed a theatrical motion picture. The cost came out to about $49.50. This was before the ticket surcharge for ordering online and before the refreshments. Even if we did the high school trick and snuck in $1.00 Rasinettes from Walmart we couldn’t sneak in sodas or popcorn.

I have seen good hype for movies that turned out to be bad. So maybe we should just skip this one and stick to movies we won’t have financial, religious and cultural remorse for watching. So tonight I am going to walk down to my mail box & gently place the prepaid envelopes into the the post and mail them to “Nearest Netflix Shipping Facility”. If the movies we get in the mail are offensive to us all we have to do is mail them back and we’ll get the next ones in as little as one business day. I hope to see 10,000 B.C. coming to the SiFi network or Netflix in the coming year. This way if I don’t agree with the content I can just yell at the TV and not face being banned from our local Century 16 MegaPlex.

Jamie Trwth

In the middle of the letter, which I was trying to keep to one page, I put my hands down from my computer and thought to myself . . . .

It’s almost as if we need to have the missionaries come out and teach them the lessons.

How could anyone make an informed decision without all the facts at hand. I tried to give them the facts as best as I knew them. I explained that the children couldn’t be sealed to any other living parent. I tried to explain that it had no effect on the current custody situation. I tried to explain everything that I was taught about the temple that would fit into an 8 x 11 sheet of paper (allowing for the obligatory white spaces of course).

But I wasn’t taught much about the temple. What happens in the temple stays in the temple. Right? When I would ask questions I would get ‘You’ll have to experience it yourself.’ Or ‘We don’t talk about those things outside the temple. So I was the one to tell my ex wife and my wife’s daughters father about their children’s eternal progression. Yes. Me? A 1 year within the church.

When I got a call back from my ex-wife all she was concerned with was . . . . . Polygamy. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to take a couple of wives to the temple with me. Maybe she felt it would be hard to explain to her side of the family about her son’s father and his new sister wives. I viewed her concerns and assured her that that wasn’t going to happen. I was relieved that everything went smoothly. My wife’s daughter’s bio-dad gave his consent. My ex gave her consent. Everyone had their taste of Mormonism and was OK with their portion. But I didn’t realized how much of a Jagged Little Pill Mormonism was until I went out with the missionaries.

I was called on one night to go out to teach a lesson to a man with the missionaries. It was a Thursday (Don’t ask me to remember how I remember that detail because I just forgot). When the missionaries and I got to the door I understood why I was asked to attend this teaching. The gentleman was about the same age as I. He had pictures of his children on his fireplace mantel. They looked similar to mine. Actually he looked similar to me. We both come from African descent and we both have mixed race children. When the missionaries talked of subjects that where near to me I put in my two cents as best as I could. But when they asked me to tell this man about my Temple experience (this was months after our Temple trip) I think I told him too much. I felt he wouldn’t know what I was talking about until he knew a couple of things about Mormonism 102, Temple 101, Priesthood 102, and even a little Mormonism 202. I realized the information was too much for him to take. Not all I was saying stuck with him, I could tell by the glaze in his eyes. I realized there is a lot to take in with regards to Mormonism. Even one of the Oldest of our wards High Priests has no idea about it all. So how can we expect to have this man take it all in just over a couple of months. The meeting before last was about 3 or 4 months ago. We visited him just last week and Mormonism is still too much of a Jagged Little Pill for him to take. Maybe it will never be for him. So we must accept that contrary to LDS belief Mormonism isn’t for everyone.

I know one of the missions of LDS Missionaries is to teach people what they ‘should’ know so that they can be held accountable for their own salvation. But what they don’t tell people is that the Second President of the Church, Brigham Young, took about two years to accept Mormonism. Seems it was a Jagged Little Pill for him to take also. Heck it took the missionaries coming over for 11 years for me to become a member. And still there are jagged edges on the pill I take everyday. The Jagged Little Pill I Like to Call Mormonism.

Jamie Trwth

I have wondered if it was purely me being a chuckle head but as I look to my left my wife is laughing also. I know they all these people have a sense of humor. . . . or do I.

There was the time when our last Missionary was being sent out. He stood up in front of the congregation and thanked everyone who he had to pay to attend church that Sunday before he left one his mission. I laughed. But did anyone else. I also went up to him later and demanded the money he agreed to pay me for attending. He just told me to get in line with the others.

There was also the time when I was asked at the last minuet to give the lesson on chastity last year out of the life of Spencer W. Kimball. The other teachers didn’t want to give the lesson so it was up to me. I prepared for the lesson and stood up infront of the entire Elders Quorum and stated:

This talk I am about to give is about the The Law of Chastity. I am throughly convinced the reason I was selected to give this talks is . . . I would be to one leased likely to see blush.

I got a lot of sound from the audience but not much laughter. But since I was asked back as a Perma-Teacher in the Elders Quorum I guess some of the people in our ward has a since of humor.

Growing up as an African American I have faced discrimination, and prejudice but nothing that hampered me from accomplishing the things I have done and wanted to do. I could not imagine the travesties these and others went through to just to live and breath and just be who God made them.

Fast forward 50 or so years after The Little Rock Nine and discrimination is still disallowing children into schools. No. It’s not about the color of skin this time. It’s about the Flavor of Religion. Namely Mormonism.

Just yesterday my wife and her sister went to an alternative school fair. We are looking into getting our son into another school that would broaden his academic horizons. My sister-in-law asked on of the persons manning the table for a local Christian school:

Is being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a problem.

The lady at the table stated:

We highly recommend not even putting in an application to our school.

My sister-in-law said thank you and went on her way.

This is discrimination like I’ve never seen before. I’ve had police officers tell me to spread eagle, like I’ve done it a million times before, when actually it was my first time. Needless to say the officer had to instruct me in the art of Spreading Eagle. I have been pulled over just because of the color of my skin (the last time I was pulled over I was rideing a bicycle). I’ve had parents not want me to date their Caucasian daughters but this action takes the cake. My LDS son whom I baptized and confirmed cannot attend some schools in the area because he is a member.

That wasn’t the only school that discriminates against Mormons here in Anchorage. In Elders Quorum an instructor stated that he was told not to submit an application to a Christian school because of his religious affiliation. I just think of what President Henckley said one General Conference:

I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ, How can any man holding the Melchizedek Priesthood arrogantly assume that he is eligible for the priesthood whereas another who lives a righteous life but whose skin is of a different color, is ineligible?

If we broaden this statement to includes all followers of Christ and substitute the word race for religion and skin color to sect, I would come to the conclusion that of:

How can anyone call themselves Christians who practice such religious bigotry and hatred.

The answer is simple and plain . . . They Cannot. Not legitimately. My sister-in-law practiced Christ like virtues by turning the other cheek and walking away. I ask of you who was Christ like in this situation?