The environment in which the early events of the Restoration took place was filled with racial division and strife. When the Church was organized in 1830, many people of African descent were still enslaved in different parts of the United States. Even in the parts of the United States where slavery was not allowed, most churches were segregated by race. From the beginning of the Church, membership was never determined based on race or ethnicity; all were invited to receive baptism and make covenants with God. During Joseph Smith’s ministry, several men of Black African ancestry received the priesthood, including Elijah Abel and Q. Walker Lewis.¹ Near the end of his lifetime, in 1844, Joseph Smith ran for president of the United States. As a presidential candidate, he proposed “to abolish slavery by the year 1850.”²

When Brigham Young became the President of the Church, he expressed complex views on race. At a public meeting held in 1845, President Young taught that “the Spirits of the Chil[dren] of men are pure & holy without transgress[io]n or any curse upon them—& the differences you see around you [are] on acc[oun]t of the circumstances that surround them.”³ In a meeting held in March 1847 with William McCrary, a Black member of the Church, President Young taught, “Of one blood God made all flesh.” He told McCrary, “We don’t care about the color.”⁴ In the same meeting, President Young referred to Q. Walker Lewis, a Black man who was ordained to the priesthood, as “one of the best Elders, an African.”⁵

In 1852, President Young announced the new priesthood policy. During the same address, he taught that “the time will come when they will have the privilege of all we have the privilege of and more.”⁶ In the years following the announcement of the policy, many Church members in various positions have offered explanations for why the policy was put in place. It is wise for those who study the history of this policy to use caution when using any of these explanations. An official essay published by the Church teaches, “Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church.”⁷

When the revelation to end the priesthood restriction came to President Kimball in 1978, Latter-day Saints of African descent throughout the world rejoiced at the opportunity to receive priesthood ordinations and temple blessings. On June 11, 1978, Joseph Freeman became the first man of African descent to be ordained as an elder. He and his wife were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple days later. In November 1978, the first missionaries were sent to Nigeria to establish the Church in Africa. At the time, there were fewer than one thousand African Americans among the world’s four million Latter-day Saints. By 1998—twenty years after the revelation—there were an estimated five hundred thousand members with African roots, with an estimated one hundred thousand in Africa and the Caribbean, and another three hundred thousand in Brazil.

Members of the Church around the world rejoiced over the revelation. Helvécio and Rudá Martins, both Black members of the Church in Brazil, were stunned at the news. Helvécio later recalled, “I could not contain my emotions. Rudá and I went into our bedroom, knelt down, and prayed. We wept as we thanked our Father in Heaven for an event we had only dreamed about. The day had actually arrived and in our mortal lives.”⁸ Two weeks later, Helvécio and his son Marcus both received the Aaronic Priesthood. A week later, Helvécio received the Melchizedek Priesthood and then was given the privilege of ordaining his son. Helvécio later said, “I felt I would explode with joy, happiness, and contentment. What an incredible experience for me and for Marcus.”⁹

In 1990, Helvécio was ordained as a General Authority Seventy, becoming the first person of Black African descent to receive a calling as a General Authority of the Church. After his call, Elder Martins commented, “I was not called by the Lord to represent any specific race, nationality, or ethnic group of His children. I was called by prophecy, revelation, and the laying on of hands to represent God’s children—be they white, black . . . or any other color—wherever they live on earth. . . . Less than thirteen years earlier [I] had been given the priesthood. Now I stood at a pulpit that some of the greatest men of all time had occupied, with the living prophets and apostles seated directly behind me.”¹⁰

The story of Helvécio and Rudá Martins was just one among hundreds of thousands of the lives affected by the 1978 revelation given to President Kimball. President Dallin H. Oaks later explained, “Whether we look on the revelation as the end of the beginning of the Restoration or as the beginning of the end of what it portends . . . it is difficult to overstate its importance in the fulfillment of divine command that the gospel must go to every nation, kindred and people.”¹¹

1. “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays, ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

2. General Smith’s Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, circa 26 January–7 February 1844, p. 9, JSP.

3. “Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846; Volume 2, 1 March–6 May 1845,” 2016, Administrative Records, p. 360, fn. 547, JSP.

4. Russell W. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 2014, 241–42.

5. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness, 241; “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays, ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

6. Stevenson, For the Cause of Righteousness, 263.

7. “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays, ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

8. Helvécio Martins and Mark Grover, Elder Helvécio Martins, 1994, 69–70, emphasis in original.

9. Martins and Grover, 70–71.

10. Martins and Grover, 117, 121–22.

11. Dallin H. Oaks, quoted in Kevin Stoker, LDS Church News, June 18, 1988, 4.