Mormon teachings on skin color have evolved throughout the history of the Latter Day Saint movement, and have been the subject of controversy and criticism. Historically, in Mormonism's largest denomination the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), leaders beginning with founder Joseph Smith taught that dark skin was a sign of a curse from God.[1] After his death in 1844 other leaders taught it was also a punishment for premortal unrighteousness. Since 2013, the church has officially disavowed these beliefs and now teaches that all people are equal in God's sight, regardless of skin color. The LDS Church since then has worked to promote racial equality and inclusion.[citation needed] Several other Mormon denominations, however continue to teach into the present day that skin color is related to curses or personal righteousness.
The LDS Church's earlier teachings and policies based on skin color were rooted in its canonized scriptures the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham. In the Book of Mormon the Nephites, a group of ancient Americans who were descended from Israelites, were "white and exceedingly fair and delightsome". The Lamanites, on the other hand, were described as having "a skin of blackness" and were said to have been cursed with this condition as a punishment for their wickedness and rebellion against God. In his revisions of the King James Bible, and production of the Book of Abraham Smith traced Black skin to the Biblical curses placed on Cain and Ham, and linked the two by positioning Ham's Canaanite cursed posterity as matrilinear descendants of the previously cursed Cain.[2] These discriminatory beliefs around skin color were reinforced by church leaders in the 19th and early 20th centuries, who taught that dark skin was a sign of inferiority and that those with dark skin were not as righteous as those with light skin. This belief was also used to justify LDS social segregation and other skin-color-based policies within the church, such as denying Black women and men access to ordinances in the temple necessary for exaltation in the highest tier of heaven. The temple and priesthood restrictions were removed in 1978, with the top leaders stating that all priesthood ordination would be practiced "without regard for race or color." A 2023 survey of over 1,000 former church members in the Mormon corridor found race issues in the church to be one of the top three reported reasons why they had disaffiliated.[3]
Teachings on White people's skin color
Mormonism's founder Joseph Smith was White.
Early church leaders taught the belief that after death and resurrection everyone in the celestial kingdom (the highest tier of heaven) would be "white in eternity."[4][5] They often equated Whiteness with righteousness, and they also taught the belief that originally, God made his children White in his own image.[8] Smith reported that in his vision Jesus had a "white complexion" and "blue eyes", a description confirmed in another reported vision by follower Anson Call.[9][10] The church also taught that White apostates would have their skin darkened when they abandoned the faith.[11]: 28 A 1959 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that most Utah Mormons believed "by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become white and delightsome."[12] For decades church leaders taught ideas from British Israelism (and its secular counterpart Anglo-Saxon Triumphalism) such as teachings that people of northwest European descent were a chosen and favored people by God and were descendants of the lost Tribe of Ephraim.[16]
Jane Manning was an early church member and servant[17]: 223 in Smith's household and followed Young to Utah. She petitioned church leadership to allow her to receive the temple endowment, but was repeatedly denied because of her skin color.[18]: 154
Smith believed that dark skin marked people of Black African ancestry as cursed by God.[2]: 27 In his revisions of the King James Bible, and production of the Book of Abraham he traced their cursed state back to the curses placed on Cain and Ham, and linked the two curses within the Book of Abraham by positioning Ham's Canaanite cursed posterity as matrilinear descendants of the previously cursed Cain.[2]
Smith's canonized scripture the Pearl of Great Price described the mark of Cain as dark skin,[19]: 12 [20] and church president Brigham Young stated, "What is the mark [of Cain]? You will see it on the countenance of every African you ever did see".[21][22]
After Smith's death in 1844 and a six-month succession crisis, his most popular successor became Brigham Young. The Brighamite branch of Mormonism became the LDS Church. By 1844 one of the justifications top LDS church leaders used for discriminatory policies was the belief that some spirits were "fence sitters" when choosing between God or the devil, or were simply less virtuous in the premortal life, and thus, were born with Black skin as a punishment. Brigham Young rejected this pre-existence explanation, but the apostles Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, and John Taylor all supported the concept, and it gained widespread acceptance among LDS members.[25]
A 1959 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that most Utah Mormons believed "by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become white and delightsome."[12] Conversely, the church also taught that White apostates would have their skins darkened when they abandoned the faith, and until at least the 1960s in the temple endowment ceremony Satan was said to have black skin.[11]: 28 [26]
Several Black Mormons were told that they would become White. Hyrum Smith told Jane Manning James that God could give her a new lineage, and in her patriarchal blessing promised her that she would become "white and delightsome".[27]: 148 In 1836 Elijah Abel was similarly promised he would "be made ... white in eternity".[17]: 38 Darius Gray, a prominent Black Mormon, was told that his skin color would become lighter.[28] In 1978, apostle LeGrand Richards stated that the curse of dark skin for wickedness and promise of White skin through righteousness only applied to Native Americans, and not to Black people.[19]: 115
In 2013, the LDS Church published an essay officially refuting these ideas for the first time, describing prior official church teachings justifying the restriction as racial "folk beliefs".[29] It stated that Blackness in Latter-day Saint theology is a symbol of disobedience to God and not necessarily a skin color.[30] One youth Sunday School teacher was removed from their position for teaching from this essay in 2015.[31]
Several church leaders have stated that The Book of Mormon teaches that Native Americans have dark skin (or the "curse of redness") because their ancestors (the Lamanites) were cursed by God, but if Native Americans follow church teachings, their dark skin will be removed.[34] Not far into the narrative of The Book of Mormon God marks Lamanites (the presumed ancestors of Native Americans) with dark skin because of their iniquity, an act similar to the Bible'sCurse of Cain which some Christians interpreted as the beginning of the Black race.[35][36][37]The Book of Mormon passage states, "[God] had caused the cursing to come upon [the Lamanites] ... because of their iniquity ... wherefore, as they were White, and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people [the Nephites] the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."[38][39] During the century between 1835 and 1947 the official LDS hymnbook had lyrics discussing a lightening of Native American skin color stating, "Great spirit listen to the Red Man's wail! ... Not many moons shall pass away before/ the curse of darkness from your skins shall flee".[42] They taught that in the afterlife's highest degree of heaven Native American's skin would become "white in eternity" like everyone else.[4][5] They often equated Whiteness with righteousness, and taught that originally God made his children White in his own image.[44] A 1959 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that most Utah Mormons believed "by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become 'white and delightsome'."[12]
In 1953, President of the Quorum of the Twelve ApostlesJoseph Fielding Smith stated, "After the people again forgot the Lord ... the dark skin returned. When the Lamanites fully repent and sincerely receive the gospel, the Lord has promised to remove the dark skin.... Perhaps there are some Lamanites today who are losing the dark pigment. Many of the members of the Church among the Catawba Indians of the South could readily pass as of the White race; also in other parts of the South."[45][46] Additionally, in a 1960 LDS Church General Conference, apostleSpencer Kimball suggested that the skin of Latter-day Saint Native American was gradually turning lighter.[47] Mormons believed that through intermarriage, the skin color of Native Americans could be restored to a "white and delightsome" state.[48][15]: 64 Navajo general authority George Lee stated that he had seen some Native American members of the church upset over these teachings and that they did not want their skin color changed as they liked being brown, and so he generally avoided discussing the topic. Lee interpreted the teachings to mean everyone's skin would be changed to a dazzling white in the celestial kingdom.[38] Kimball, however, suggested that the skin lightening was a result of the care, feeding, and education given to Native American children in the home placement program.[38]
In 1981, church leaders changed a scriptural verse about Lamanites in The Book of Mormon from stating "they shall be a white and delightsome people" to stating "a pure and delightsome people".[40]: 71 [49] Thirty-five years later in 2016, the LDS Church made changes to its online version of The Book of Mormon in which phrases on the Lamanite's "skin of blackness" and them being a "dark, loathsome, and filthy" people were altered.[50][51] In 2020, controversy over the topic was ignited again when the LDS church's recently printed manuals stated that the dark skin was a sign of the curse and the Lord placed the dark skin upon the Lamanites to keep the Nephites from having children with them.[52] In recent decades, the LDS Church has condemned racism and increased its proselytization efforts and outreach in Native American communities, but it still faces accusations of perpetuating implicit racism by not acknowledging or apologizing for its prior discriminatory practices and beliefs.[citation needed]
Church leaders have taught that people of the Pacific Islands descend from people of The Book of Mormon, accounting for their darker skin.[57] Debate exists among LDS people scholars on whether they are descended from white Nephites or darker Lamanites.[58]: 42–43 Scholar Bruce Sutton wrote that though they were descended from white Nephites, Pacific Islanders developed darker skin from their ancestors having children with Lamanites and/or exposure to the tropical sun.[58]: 44–45 According to Marjorie Newton, LDS missionaries taught Pacific Islanders that they could once again become "white and delightsome".[59]: 360 Modern genetic testing has not established any connection between Pacific Islanders and purported peoples of The Book of Mormon.[59]: 358–359
Positions of other Mormon groups
RLDS – In 1920, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now called the Community of Christ), published "Whence Came the Red Man", a pamphlet which contained a summary of The Book of Mormon as well as the following statement, "two great camps ... began to quarrel bitterly among themselves. Part of them became the color of fine copper and the red brethren fought against the white."[60]: 65–66
AUB – The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) is a Utah-based, polygamous, fundamentalist group that separated itself from the LDS Church in 1929. As of 2018, it teaches the belief that people with Black skin are "Canaanites" who are under the curse of Cain.[63] The term Cainite is usually used to refer to a descendant of Cain. The term Canaanite can denote a descendant of Ham's son Canaan or people from the similarly named region of Canaan.
^ abcStuart Bingham, Ryan (July 2015). "Curses and Marks: Racial Dispensations and Dispensations of Race in Joseph Smith's Bible Revision and the Book of Abraham". Journal of Mormon History. 41 (3). Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press: 22, 29, 30–31, 43, 54–57. doi:10.5406/jmormhist.41.3.22. JSTOR10.5406/jmormhist.41.3.22. S2CID246574026 – via JSTOR. By preserving Cain's line through Canaan, proponents of the Cain-theory version of the curse of Ham myth were able to unite the mark of Cain with the curse of slavery. ... We shall see that in his scriptural works Joseph Smith, like others, employed matrilineal ancestry to position Cain as an ancestor of the Canaanites ... Lastly, Smith's explicit identification of African peoples with the cursed descendants of Cain, Ham, or Canaan outside of his scriptural texts is highly significant. ... Smith [referred] to blacks as 'the Negroes or Sons of Cain' in his personal journal ... Beyond the question of racial slavery, Smith consistently relied on the Cain-theory version of the curse of Ham myth as an account of racial origins. ... When he referred to the sons of Ham, Canaan, or Cain, he did so with the assumption that his audience understood who these sons were.
^Reynolds, George (October 15, 1868). "Man and His Varieties: The Negro Race". The Juvenile Instructor. 3 (20): 157 – via Internet Archive. We understand that when God made man in his own image and pronounced him very good, that he made him white. We have no record of any of God's favored servants being of a black race. All His prophets and apostles belonged to the most handsome race on the face of the earth .... In this race was born His Son Jesus, who, we are told was very lovely, and 'in the express image of his Father's person, and every angel who ever brought a message of God's mercy to man was beautiful to look upon, clad in the purest white and with a countenance bright as the noonday sun.
^Buerger, David John (Spring 2001). "The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony"(PDF). Dialogue. 34 (1): 113. doi:10.2307/45226771. JSTOR45226771. S2CID254298998. [In the] endowment procedures in the temple, several phrases used in ceremony film scripts were subsequently dubbed out in the mid-1970s. ... For example the preacher's reference to Satan having black skin was omitted in recent years ... another omission from the late 1960s ....
^Janan Graham-Russell (August 28, 2016). "Choosing to Stay in the Mormon Church Despite Its Racist Legacy". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on August 21, 2022 – via Internet Archive. [T]he LDS church quietly released an essay on race and the priesthood, attempting to explain the restriction's origin. It goes on to repudiate the racism and racist folklore that had been used to explain the restriction in the past. ... Additionally, church leaders have sought to clarify the meaning of the word 'blackness' in Mormon theology—it is often used not just as a reference to skin color, but also as a symbol of disobedience to God.
^Bushman, Richard (2005). Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York City: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. pp. 97–98. ISBN9780307426482. Not far into the story the Lamanites are marked with a dark skin ... This act resembles the curse of God on Cain in Genesis, the beginning, according to later Christian readings, of the Black race.
^Reynolds, George (October 15, 1868). "Man and His Varieties: The Negro Race". The Juvenile Instructor. 3 (20): 157. We understand that when God made man in his own image and pronounced him very good, that he made him white. We have no record of any of God's favored servants being of a black race. All His prophets and apostles belonged to the most handsome race on the face of the earth .... In this race was born His Son Jesus, who, we are told was very lovely, and 'in the express image of his Father's person, and every angel who ever brought a message of God's mercy to man was beautiful to look upon, clad in the purest white and with a countenance bright as the noonday sun.
^Turner, John G. (September 20, 2012). Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (1st ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. p. 210. ISBN978-0-674-04967-3. When [Brigham] Young first entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, he had emphasized that the Saints 'would ... take their squaws & ... raise up children by them.' After several generations, he predicted, 'they will become A white & delightsome people' ... However, intermarriage was forbidden when the roles were reversed, both in Mormon communities and throughout the West. Young observed that it was 'against law for a [white] woman to take an Indian husband.' 'The governing principle is in the husband,' he clarified, 'and by prayer they will bring forth white children.'
