The last names Able and Ables in the context of Elijah Able or Ables, a historical figure in church history, are used interchangeably in this episode.

Scott Woodward:
Once people come to terms with the uncomfortable idea that Brigham Young committed an error in endorsing a priesthood ban on church members with black African ancestry, a puzzling question naturally follows: if the ban was an error, then why didn’t it get corrected earlier than 1978? There were nine church presidents between Brigham Young and Spencer W. Kimball, and 101 years between President Young’s death in 1877 and President Kimball’s revelation in 1978. So why did it take so long to correct this mistake and again offer full privileges to black Africans in the church, as they had enjoyed in Joseph Smith’s day? In today’s episode of Church History Matters we attempt to offer at least the beginning of an answer to this question by tracing the key moments and decisions in the leadership councils of the church when, instead of correcting this error, they came to conclusions that led to an unfortunate hardening in place of the priesthood ban. In this episode, the years 1879, 1904, 1907, and 1908 will, sadly, be added alongside the year 1852 as we piece together both the timeline and the reasoning behind this ban. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today we dive into our fourth episode in this series dealing with race and priesthood. Now, let’s get into it. Hi, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Hi. How are you, Scott?

Scott Woodward:
I’m so good. Excited to chat with you more today.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We’ve got a lot of things to talk about, don’t we?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. A lot to talk about, and so let’s dive right in and get right to it.

Scott Woodward:
Yes. So today we’re going to continue our series dedicated to exploring the important church history topic of black Africans and their participation in priesthood and temple privileges in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Casey, why are we talking about this difficult issue again? Why not just avoid it?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We’ve been given a commission by the president of the church to root out racism.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And though in my dealings with members of the church, I haven’t experienced a ton of racism, we also recognize that it’s existed in the past and sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We want to fully explore it so that we can understand it, and we want to do that thing that history is meant to do: keep us from making mistakes that have already been made.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so we recognize that this isn’t the funnest topic to discuss, but we feel like it’s a very necessary discussion—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—to help people understand the history, the context, and most importantly, how this changed and how revelation continues in the church today.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. President Nelson’s asked Latter-day Saints to “lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice,” he said, right? And we believe that discussing this history can actually play a part in helping us to do that, and so that’s why we’re here. So let’s do this today.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Let me recap from our last, episode three. If you didn’t have a chance to catch that one, let me hit on the salient points. Let me know if I missed anything here, Casey, but we dove into the question of the origins of the priesthood-temple ban on black Africans.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
We know there eventually was a racially exclusive policy in the church that was overturned by the 1978 revelation to President Kimball. And since we know that Joseph Smith didn’t institute any sort of racial priesthood or temple ban, we wanted to pinpoint exactly how that ban got put in place. And I guess the short of it is that the beginnings of what would later develop into an exclusionary policy, they trace back to 1852 with Brigham Young.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
The context was the Utah territorial legislative meetings, where Brigham Young as the governor and several apostles and church leaders as the legislative body were debating the passing of a bill that would essentially legalize a form of African slavery in the recently created Utah territory. In those meetings, Brigham Young argued that Utah should become a slave territory.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And his two-step argument for slavery was essentially this: he said, number one, God cursed Cain, saying that his descendants would not receive the priesthood until the last of Abel’s descendants received it. And then number two, he said, “consequently, I am firm in the belief that cane seed ought to dwell in servitude.” So that’s it. That’s his whole argument. And you know, we didn’t really talk about this last time, but it’s striking to me that a priesthood ban on Cain’s supposed descendants is already a foregone conclusion in Brigham Young’s mind here. Isn’t that interesting?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And notice he doesn’t argue that Cain’s seed should be banned from the priesthood, he simply argues that since they are banned from the priesthood, slavery is also something that he believes in. Aside from the oddness of the argument itself, what it tells us is that somewhere between this public moment of 1852 and five years earlier in 1847, Brigham Young’s mind had been changed on this issue somehow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
We talked about last time that in 1847, he’s on record praising Q. Walker Lewis, an ordained black man, as one of the best elders in the church, and saying that “we don’t care about the color.” So then here we are, fast forward 1852, five years later, and Brigham Young clearly cares about the color, and he’s on record in those legislative meetings firmly stating that “a man who has the African blood in him cannot hold one jot nor tittle of priesthood.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So we tried to explore what happened, right? What influenced this 180 mental shift in Brigham Young? We don’t know for sure. The historical record is scant. But there were two scandals of 1847 that we discussed that likely contributed to this. The first was this black member, William McCary, who started his own schism of Mormonism by polygamously marrying white women outside of Winter Quarters and trying to draw members of the church toward him. That infuriated church leaders.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And the second was when it was learned that a black member in Massachusetts named Enoch Lewis, son of Q. Walker Lewis, actually, he had married a white woman and that they had had a baby together. And so those two episodes particularly rattled some church leaders at that time, and Brigham Young specifically is on record about the Enoch Lewis episode, stating his discontent at what had happened there. So it seems like underneath it all, with our scant historical records notwithstanding, what we can see is that fear of race mixing is at the heart of Brigham Young’s concerns about black equality and likely accounts for what was underneath the reversal of his position on this issue. I say that because he brings up concerns about race mixing explicitly in those 1852 legislative meetings again. So that does appear to be at the heart of the concern here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm. And, I mean, the real heart of the concern for a modern Latter-day Saint is the question of infallibility.

Scott Woodward:
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s well known that in some iterations of Christianity, especially Catholicism, infallibility is the expectation for church leaders. We want to stress and emphasize that’s never been the expectation for Latter-day Saints. From section 3 of the Doctrine and Covenants onward, there’s always been this expectation that prophets are human, that they can make mistakes. I mention Section 3 because that is where the Lord deals with Joseph Smith losing the manuscript of the Book of Mormon, which is a huge mistake.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And sometimes mistakes are caused by situations like Joseph Smith where he made a bad decision, and sometimes mistakes are caused by environmental factors. Like you mentioned that Brigham Young doesn’t even—he just states that black people are descendants of Cain like it’s a fact.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It seems like that was so baked into the Christianity of his time that nobody really questioned that assumption, and they kind of built their worldview out from that.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We know, looking at the scriptures, that’s not the case. At least it’s not explicitly stated within the scriptures. It’s a big assumption to say that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so when we deal with this question, we’ve got to be comfortable with the idea that prophets can make mistakes, and sometimes they’re affected by the environment that they grew up in.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this is something that the current leaders of the church acknowledge. For instance, Dieter F․ Uchtdorf, member of the Quorum of the Twelve, member of the First Presidency, said, “To be perfectly frank, there have been times when leaders in this church have simply made mistakes. … God is perfect, … but he works through us—His imperfect children—and imperfect people make mistakes.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so we’ve got to extend a little bit of charity here and say, “They made a mistake. They’re products of their time,” but we also don’t have to defend the mistakes that they made. We can just say “It was a mistake,” and we can move on.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And by the way, Brigham Young himself taught this principle of fallibility. He said, “Can a prophet or an apostle be mistaken? I will acknowledge that all the time, but I do not acknowledge that I designedly lead this people astray one hair’s breadth from the truth, and I do not knowingly do a wrong, though I may commit many wrongs.” And so Brigham Young seems to make an important distinguishment between willfully misleading people and mistakenly misleading people.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the environment that he grew up in makes it frankly not surprising that he would hold some of these beliefs and that he would try to guide the church according to these beliefs, which are incorrect, but I don’t think this was done with malice or ill intent.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, I agree. And we shared that great quote from Elder Quentin L․ Cook, actually, to back that point up where, speaking directly about Brigham Young, he said, “Brigham Young said things about race that fall short of our standards today. Some of his beliefs and words reflected the culture of his time.” Exactly what you just said.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And sometimes we say that. Sometimes we say that, “You know, we’ve got to realize that prophets and apostles are products of their times.” And I think what we mean by that is that they are prone to the mistakes of the majority way of thinking in their day. And that’s true.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And I thought you did, Casey, a particularly great job last time of describing what those times were like in the 19th century America. You know, what were the dominant ways of thinking about race? What were the prevailing thoughts on interracial marriage? What was the dominant thinking on segregation and how people were deciding and debating in the U․ S․ of how to go about that? If any of our listeners missed last episode, I think it would be well worth your time to go back and listen to Casey’s masterful contextualization of the attitudes and beliefs of many in the U․ S․ at that time, including in the church, on these issues in the 19th century. I just thought you did a great job, Casey, so props, my friend.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Oh, thank you. And what this context really helps us do is understand the forces that are working against them and how God kind of slowly and subtly moves us into a better perspective. I like it in the Book of Mormon when Moroni says, “Condemn me not for my imperfections.” And it’s an interesting thing to go back and even read the scriptures with this lens of race and bias and context, when it comes to it. But he also goes on to say, “Learn to be more wise than we have been.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so part of our exploration here is “How can we do better?” And how can we identify maybe the same things that might affect us in our time and find a way to avoid them, but have charity for all people involved in the process here?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And I love that about Moroni, that he says, “Thank God that he has let you see our imperfections so that you may learn to be more wise than we have been.” And I agree. I think that’s the productive way forward in all of this, in my estimation. There’s no condemnation, but there is trying to learn to be more wise, hopefully, than those generations who’ve gone before us. I think that’s great.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so to sum it up, we would say that through the debates in 1852, Brigham Young won the debates. Utah becomes a slave territory, even though he was opposed by fellow apostle Orson Pratt. We went into all the details of that last time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But the short of it is Utah becomes a slave territory for the next 10 years until in 1862, the U. S. Congress passes a law freeing slaves in all U. S. territories. So slavery only lasts 10 years in Utah, but the discriminatory theology articulated in those 1852 debates eventually becomes very entrenched in the church and leads to what we call the priesthood and temple ban, a policy that is targeting specifically black Africans from participation in priesthood and temple.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so what we want to talk about today, I guess our burning question of the day is that if 1852 was the first public articulation of a ban, how and when and why did this become fully entrenched policy in the church? We talked about last time how 1852 was not when the policy was made. That was when the first theological idea was expressed publicly about the connection between Cain and black Africans and how there would be no black participation in priesthood. But it wasn’t, like, a policy, because the church wasn’t doing policies.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s right. I mean, it’s a real question as to whether or not it’s correct to call it a policy in the 19th century.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Because it doesn’t seem like it was universally applied. It was more of a belief floating around that sometimes acted as a guide in certain actions, but the history from this time period shows that it was really unevenly applied.

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
People of mixed race, people that had African ancestry were allowed to be ordained to the priesthood. Some weren’t. There were a number of different situations in which it happened, and it doesn’t seem like it was consistent really until the 20th century—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—when they sit down and they start to codify what the church teaches and believes in some of these more esoteric areas.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. 1907 is when we’re going to get our first statement of policy that I can find, and so let’s kind of build up between 1852 and 1907.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK.

Scott Woodward:
So I guess from the 10,000-foot view here, we could say in summary that what we see from the historical record is a gradual entrenchment of a priesthood ban supported by false doctrine and then false memories. The ban is then going to gain historical weight with each succeeding generation of church leaders who are unwilling to violate the precedent set by their predecessors. I think in a nutshell, that encapsulates what happens.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So now let’s zoom in, and let’s talk about that. So first, false doctrine; second, false memories; then generational entrenchment. So let’s talk about the false doctrine. What are the two doctrinal points that get bandied back and forth as the kind of vying doctrinal justifications for banning blacks? We’ve already talked about Brigham Young’s justification. Cain, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
That Cain’s descendants cannot have priesthood because their ancestor committed a murder.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
What’s the other false doctrine?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The second one is that something happened in premortality that caused so that certain groups would not receive the priesthood when they came here.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it seems like Orson Pratt was primarily the person behind this one. Explain a little bit about that for us.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. I find this just super interesting and ironic, since Orson Pratt was the one that was most vehemently opposed to Brigham Young’s rationale in the 1852 legislative meetings, citing Cain’s curse as the reason why blacks should be enslaved. He himself questioned that that was even real. He said, “We don’t even know the blacks are descendants of Cain. Show me in the scriptures. Show me where that is.” And, of course, you can’t show that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But what’s interesting is the very next year, 1853, he gives an alternate rationale for that, which is this premortality rationale: basically that blacks could not be punished for a murder that their ancestor committed, but they could be punished for some sort of action in premortality, right? He said, “If rewards and punishments are the results of good and evil actions, then it would seem that the good and evil circumstances under which the spirits enter this world must depend upon the good and evil actions which they had done in the previous world.” And so he says, “Blacks receive bodies among the African negroes in the lineage of Canaan, whose descendants were cursed pertaining to priesthood, because of something in the first estate.” So his rationale avoids endorsing the multi-generational curse of Cain while still giving a theological reason for a black restriction from priesthood participation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Now, by the way, the Church Gospel Topics essay explicitly is targeting both of these doctrines, right? Let me remind us, here’s what the Church Gospel Topics essay says on race and priesthood: it says, “Today the church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse,” that’s Brigham Young’s rationale, “or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life.” That’s Orson Pratt’s rationale. And both of those go against, again, Joseph Smith’s own teachings and precedent. Remember that Joseph had taught in the 1840s about blacks and whites in their environment. He said, “Change their situation with the whites, and the blacks would be like them.” And he insisted in 1844, “God created all men free and equal.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But now, fast forward a decade, and by the 1850s neither Brigham Young’s nor Orson Pratt’s rationales reflect Joseph’s view of equal standing in God’s eyes of the blacks. So, yeah, there’s been a decline in the last decade somehow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And can I add in something that is interesting but also frustrating? Orson Pratt seems to recognize the problems with Brigham Young’s argument by saying there’s no priesthood ban stated on the descendants of Cain. We’ve got two sources from the Joseph Smith papers that indicate that Brigham Young recognized the problems in Orson Pratt’s arguments.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In the Council of Fifty minutes, the question comes up of, “Are black people in servitude because they did something in premortality?” In the Council of Fifty minutes, this is April 1845. Brigham Young said, “The spirits of the children of men are pure and holy without transgression or any curse upon them. The differences you see is on account of the circumstances that surround them.” So in 1845, he’s got it right. And then in 1869 the question comes up again, and Brigham Young addresses it even more directly: he says, “There were no neutral spirits in heaven at the time of the rebellion. All took sides. If anyone said he heard the prophet Joseph say that the spirits of blacks were neutral in heaven, he would not believe them, for he heard Joseph say to the contrary, all spirits are pure. They come from the presence of God.” And he’s going off of what section 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants teaches here, which is that everybody comes to earth innocent, free from any stain that may have happened in premortality. You get to start over.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But it’s so tragic that these two couldn’t accept, basically, the arguments they used against each other to disprove what are the two most prominent theories for why this was put in place.

Scott Woodward:
And they’re totally both right in their arguments against each other.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And so that is frustrating.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That is frustrating.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And we want to emphasize, you know, the church has disavowed any of these arguments today, so.

Scott Woodward:
Like, directly. Explicitly.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. In their own gentle way the church has basically said, “Yeah, this was a mistake. This was wrong reasoning.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So that’s the first part, right? So the first part is there’s this false doctrine that sort of keeps feeding this.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And then, secondly, there’s—the entrenchment that’s going to happen is supported by a few episodes of false memory.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So let’s get into the two or three major memory slips—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
—all of which involve Elijah Ables.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Our listeners will remember we talked about him. He was the first black elder on record to be ordained, 1836 of January. He was ordained an elder. Later that year ordained a Seventy. He was washed and anointed in the temple in Kirtland, and in Nauvoo he’s part of the Seventies quorum there. A faithful elder. He served several missions. So Elijah Ables is awesome. He’s now old. It’s 1877. The same year that Brigham Young dies Elijah Ables’s wife, Mary Ann, dies. And there is some later recollection that Elijah Ables had asked Brigham Young if he could be sealed to his wife, but what we do know for sure is that he tried again, or he tried for the first time, in 1879, so—and his wife has now been deceased for two years, and he appeals to the new president of the church, John Taylor, to get permission to be endowed and then sealed to his recently deceased wife, Mary Ann.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
What happens next, Casey?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
John Taylor decides to investigate the question because Elijah Able has been ordained to the priesthood. He’s acting as a 70 and now he’s not sure—John Taylor, meaning, here—what to do about Elijah Able’s request to be sealed to his wife, so he does an investigation. This is another one of those things that clearly indicates there’s not a set policy in place—

Scott Woodward:
Right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—or John Taylor would’ve just said, “Sorry, we don’t do that.”

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, “There’s a policy. Brigham Young said in 1852 that we don’t do that.” Yeah. That’s not what he says.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
He’s unsure of how to proceed yet.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So there’s no policy, so John Taylor goes about it in an investigative sort of way. He tries to find people who were there when Elijah was ordained, what the circumstances were, and wants to figure out. And that leads him to Provo, Utah.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Where there are two people who have been tied to Elijah Able, and that’s Zebedee Coltrin and Abraham O. Smoot.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so John Taylor is going to ask an apostle, Joseph F. Smith, to carefully look at Elijah Able’s ordination and what the circumstances were surrounding it. And this is where we start to run into some problems that cause problems down the line.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So President Taylor goes to Abraham O. Smoot’s house in Provo, Utah. Zebedee Coltrin’s there, and he says, “You guys apparently have insider knowledge about Joseph Smith’s views on black people, so help me know what you know.” And yeah, this is where Abraham O. Smoot says to President Taylor that back in 1835-36, when he was on his mission in the Southern states, he said that he learned from some other missionaries that Joseph Smith had told them that slaves were not entitled to the priesthood, nor yet to be baptized without the consent of their masters. And then he says in 1838, Joseph Smith basically confirmed that to him personally. He said that “Joseph told me that I could baptize slaves by the consent of their masters, but not to confer the priesthood upon them.” Now, let’s say that Abraham O. Smoot is telling the truth here and that it’s a true memory. If that’s true, that does not say unilaterally that Joseph Smith believed that blacks should not be ordained to the priesthood. What that would say is slaves shouldn’t be ordained to the priesthood. What about all the blacks in the north?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
We don’t know what Joseph was thinking there, if that’s an accurate memory. Again, I’m questioning this because it’s 40-plus years old. But that one’s not the doozy. It’s whatever. That one’s whatever. But it’s when he talks to Zebedee Coltrin next right? Anything you want to say about Abraham O. Smoot?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s been some controversy with Smoot because he was a slave owner. In fact, the administration building on campus at BYU is the Abraham O. Smoot building. There were some people that felt like the building needed to be renamed. Smoot was an honorable man, but I do think he was mistaken here, or he misinterpreted what Joseph Smith said.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Placing this close to 1835-36 puts us smack dab in the middle of the church’s controversies in Missouri—

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—which we discussed were largely linked to slavery and the church’s views on the equality of the races.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There was maybe an overcompensation by leaders of the church during this time because they just basically wanted to say, “We’re not trying to ruffle anyone’s feathers here. If slavery is the law where you’re at, we’re not intending to interfere with that at all.” And that may have prompted Joseph Smith to make these statements.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We do have recorded instances of Joseph Smith taking a practical approach, where he’d say, “Yeah, you can teach a slave, but don’t do so without permission of their master,” because that’s what caused all those problems in Jackson County and continued during this time period to cause problems in Missouri generally, because Missouri was a slave state.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So I guess my interpretation would be that Smoot misunderstood Joseph Smith and what he was going for because there’s so much evidence from the Nauvoo period that Joseph Smith did not hold some of these views that Smoot is assuming he held.

Scott Woodward:
He’s clearly allowing Elijah Able and Q. Walker Lewis to be ordained. These are free black men—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
—who are being ordained to the priesthood, and so that clearly would contradict that—his actions would contradict that, unless he meant specifically slaves should not be ordained, but free blacks, that was fine, right? Yeah. There could be some layers of misinterpretation here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It could be, yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Then John Taylor interviews Zebedee Coltrin, the one who had actually ordained Elijah Able as Seventy back in 1836, and Coltran tells President Taylor that Joseph had told him back in 1834, just after Zion’s camp, that blacks, “Have no right nor cannot hold the priesthood.” And he also said that he heard Joseph teach that “No person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the priesthood.” Then as for Elijah Able’s being ordained a Seventy, which seems to contradict it, if Joseph had said that in 1834, why in the world would he let Elijah Able be ordained? Coltrin said that after Joseph learned of his lineage, he dropped Elijah from the Seventies quorum. So there you go.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
That’s what Zebedee Coltrin said happened, right? And that’s, again, a 40-plus-year-old memory. And, unfortunately, those two memories by those two men in 1879 are going to provide the foundation for a generations-long tradition within Mormonism that the priesthood ban originated with Joseph Smith.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So bookmark that. We’re going to come back to that. But now, here’s the interesting aftermath. So five days later—remember how Joseph F. Smith had been tasked with investigating the legitimacy of Elijah Able’s priesthood ordination at the same time?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In a meeting held five days after President Taylor interviewed Smoot and Coltrin, he met with the Twelve to discuss this issue and to relay what he had learned. And according to the minutes of the meeting, I’m just going to quote directly from the minutes here because this is good. This is as close as you get to the moment, it says this: “Brother Joseph F. Smith said he thought Brother Coltrin’s memory was incorrect as to Brother Able being dropped from the Quorum of Seventies to which he belonged, as Brother Able has in his possession his certificate as a Seventy given to him in 1841 and signed by Elder Joseph Young and A. P. Rockwood and a still later certificate given in this city.” Salt Lake. “Brother Able’s account of the persons who washed and anointed him in the Kirtland Temple also disagreed with the statement of Brother Coltrin.” I’m still quoting, “Whilst he stated that Brother Coltrin ordained him a Seventy, but Brother Able also states that the prophet Joseph told him that he was entitled to the priesthood.” So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, which evidence should we weigh more heavily here? On the one hand you have Zebedee Coltrin’s over a 40-plus-year-old memory recollecting that Elijah Able was dropped from the Quorum of the Seventy after Joseph learned about his lineage.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And on the other hand, we have Elijah Able personally showing Joseph F. Smith his original Seventy certificate from 1841, and then even a more recently documented one given him in Salt Lake City, which totally contradicts Zebedee Coltrin’s story. And then we also have Zebedee’s 40-plus-year-old memory that Joseph Smith said that blacks have no right to the priesthood. And yet we also now have Elijah Able himself saying, “Joseph told me that I’m entitled to the priesthood.” And then he actually has documentation in his patriarchal blessing from that time, where Joseph Smith, Sr. laid hands on his head, and it says this: “Thou hast been ordained an elder. I mean—Joseph F. Smith’s right here, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
All the historical documented evidence that we have contradicts Zebedee Coltrin’s memory on this one. And so it’s unfortunate that Zebedee Coltrin’s memory is going to play a role in having some weight in the causing people to believe that Joseph Smith starts this priesthood ban.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Now, the whole reason we’re dwelling on this 1879 episode here is because it’s the next key moment in our history leading toward the hardening in place of the restriction Brigham Young first articulated back in 1852. President Taylor’s decision here will have consequences.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So let’s review all the factors he’s weighing together and against each other as he decides on this case of Elijah Able’s request for temple ordinances.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK.

Scott Woodward:
So first are the testimonies that President Taylor personally heard as he interviewed Zebedee Coltrin and Abraham Smoot in Provo about what they recall Joseph Smith saying some 40 years earlier about black ordinations generally and Coltrin’s claim about Elijah Able specifically, where he remembered Joseph dropping him from the Seventies Quorum when he learned of his African ancestry.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In contrast, President Taylor had just heard Apostle Joseph F. Smith testify after his own personal and careful investigation that Elijah Able’s, priesthood ordination and membership in the Seventies Quorum was never questioned by Joseph Smith or any of his file leaders. Ever. Joseph F. Smith was fully convinced by all measures that Elijah’s priesthood ordination was sanctioned and legitimate.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
In fact, he’s so convinced after talking with Elijah and reviewing his priesthood certificates personally that he rather bluntly stated that Zebedee Coltrin’s memory about Joseph Smith dropping Elijah from his priesthood quorum is faulty and incorrect. And then the other factor sort of swirling opaquely in the background is, of course, Brigham Young’s teachings on race over the past 25 years, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Now, exactly to what extent President Taylor was influenced by Brigham Young’s precedent of priesthood exclusion and discriminatory theology that fueled it is unclear. But it’s difficult to imagine that his immediate predecessor didn’t have a significant influence on him, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So those are the factors. Now, what does President Taylor conclude after considering all the evidence in Elijah Able’s case? Well, the minor positive outcome was that President Taylor allowed Elijah Able’s priesthood ordination to stand. I guess that’s the consolation prize here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But the immediate negative outcome was that Elijah’s request for temple ordinances was denied. The exact reasoning behind this decision is recorded in the minutes of this meeting, which I will now quote from, it says that “President Taylor wondered if Able’s priesthood ordination was not, ‘probably like many other things done in the early days of the church that were done without proper knowledge,’ but ‘as the Lord gave further light and revelation, things were done with greater order.’ So you see President Taylor mulling this over and trying to find a justification for Joseph Smith allowing Elijah’s ordination over and against Brigham Young’s teachings of the last quarter century, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Maybe it was a rookie mistake on Joseph’s part, done “in the early days of the church,” before the Lord had given further light and before things were done with “greater order,” right? And notice that in John Taylor’s mind, he seems to think the greater order was the racial restriction.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So the meeting minutes state that he concluded that Elijah’s ordination, which “had been done through lack of knowledge that was not altogether correct in detail,” would be allowed to remain because it had been done “before the word of the Lord was fully understood.” So there you go. Elijah could retain his ordination, but there would be no temple ordinances because they wouldn’t want to repeat the same error Joseph Smith made through lack of knowledge, as they saw it, now, would they? Man. Isn’t this just an interesting and unfortunate line of reasoning? I say that because President Taylor’s conclusion could have easily gone the opposite way, given the same evidence, couldn’t it have?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Like, he could have concluded from Elijah Able’s situation that the “greater order” was the original order of black inclusion Joseph Smith had set in place and that the aberration from that greater order was what Brigham Young had begun in 1852. President Taylor could have concluded, in other words, what Elder McConkie concluded shortly after the 1978 revelation, when he said that Brigham Young was actually operating, “with a limited understanding” and under less light in restricting black participation in the church, rather than more understanding and more light.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But alas. Unfortunately that was not his conclusion, and with the precedent of the last 25 years of Brigham Young’s teachings on the issue looming in the background, we can perhaps see why it didn’t go that way.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So mark down President John Taylor’s conclusions at this 1879 meeting as the next step toward a hardening in place of the priesthood and temple restriction because he took Elijah Able’s priesthood ordination not as evidence of the greater order of full Black African inclusion established in Joseph Smith’s day, but as an exceptional mistake committed in the early days of the church before the word of the Lord was fully understood on this matter. Unfortunate indeed.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. It’s easy from our perspective to say they were wrong.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
From their perspective, they’re putting together this story and trying to do what’s right, and they probably went in the wrong direction, but again, there’s not Ill intent here.

Scott Woodward:
No.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s not a gut reaction, either, to basically say, “Well, he’s black. He can’t hold the priesthood.” They perform an investigation, which again indicates no policy—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—and also indicates them sincerely trying to get to the bottom of things and come up with the most equitable solution they can. We might not like the outcome, but we can respect the method.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And I think that investigation also shows that this wasn’t very common. There’s not very many black men in the church at the time, A, and there’s especially not very many black men in the church asking for temple ordinances. This is so rare.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Elijah Ables is this anomaly, right, this ordained black man who now wants temple ordinances. This is not, like, a frequent issue that they have to keep turning down people, right? This is, like, almost a one-off.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Where he doesn’t know what to do. And so, yeah, we’ve got to understand the culture of that time and the population of the church at the time, and the mix of black and whites in Utah at the time, and there’s several layers of factors here that just need to be considered.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So now fast forward 16 years from John Taylor’s 1879 decision. It’s 1895, and a faithful black woman named Jane Manning James has asked permission from now-church-president Wilford Woodruff to receive her endowments. He and his counselors initially had told Sister James that they could see no way by which they could grant her request, but at a council meeting in August 1895, President Woodruff “asked the brethren present if they had any ideas on the subject favorable to her race.” Do you brethren have anything to go on that is favorable to Sister James’ cause here? That’s the question.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And the first person to speak up in that meeting was Joseph F. Smith, who reminded them that Elijah Able, who had passed away back in 1884, had been “ordained a Seventy and afterwards a high priest at Kirtland under the direction of the prophet Joseph Smith.” So there you go. Joseph F. Smith in 1895 believed, A, that Elijah Able’s priesthood ordination was legit, and B, that it was favorable evidence that ought to be considered in light of Jane Manning James’ request.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Now, others in the meeting brought counter arguments against his point, particularly George Q. Cannon, and so Sister James‘ request was not granted, and maybe we can talk more about her in a minute, but the key thing I want to highlight here is the simple point that in 1895, Joseph F. Smith is still keeping Elijah Able’s legitimate priesthood ordination alive in the institutional memory of the leading councils of this church.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
But that all begins to change nine years later, in 1904, for reasons we cannot fully explain. And Joseph F. Smith’s memory of Elijah Able is at the center of it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
But before we go there, do you want to talk for a minute a little more about Jane Manning James?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And that’s a part of the story, too, is the two people that we maybe use to humanize some of this history are Elijah Able and—Jane Manning James, during this same time, asks permission to be sealed. And what’s interesting here is she asked permission to be sealed to Joseph Smith and Emma Smith.

Scott Woodward:
As a daughter, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
As a daughter, yeah. Jane, in her autobiography, which she dictates—you can go to the church history website and download this fairly easily.

Scott Woodward:
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
My wife and I read the whole thing together. It’s really quite interesting.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Jane dictated it. As far as we know, Jane was illiterate. She didn’t know how to write.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But one of the things she said was that Emma Smith, while they were living in Nauvoo, because Jane initially lives with Joseph and Emma when she first arrives there—was that Emma Smith approached her and said she asked if Jane was interested in be[ing] sealed to them as one of their children. Jane’s wording is, “I told her no,” and then Emma sort of backed off, which sounds a lot like Emma, where she was very tentative about temple ordinances and sealings and things. She said that Emma approached her two weeks later and asked, and Jane said, “No, ma’am,” and then Jane later admitted, “because I didn’t know what she was talking about,” and she says, “I didn’t know my own mind at that time.”

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so she comes to the First Presidency and asks if she can be sealed to Joseph and Emma as a daughter and we don’t know what happens. In 1884, she just makes the request. It’s in 1890 she requests temple blessings again. It seems like the person she talks to is Joseph F. Smith, who’s the second counselor in the first presidency at the time, and she asks if she can be sealed to Q. Walker Lewis, reminding him that he was ordained an elder, and she wants to receive her endowments. And as far as we know, the conversation goes like this: “Can I also be adopted to brother Joseph Smith the prophet’s family?” She explains that “Emma said Joseph told her to tell me,” so in this instance, she’s saying “Joseph Smith instructed Emma that I should be adopted to their family. She asked if I would like to. I did not understand the law of adoption then,” which, just to clarify, the law of adoption was that you could ask someone that you were close to, to be sealed to you as a child.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It actually seems like it was fairly common for a while in the early church, and so she makes this request and in 1894 a request is made to Joseph F. Smith by Zina Young on behalf of Jane Manning. She kind of persists with this as late as 1903 she’s asking Joseph F. Smith, “Can I receive my endowments? Can I receive the sealing?” So Jane is the opposite side, and an important part of her story is that we sometimes simplify this by saying it’s a priesthood ban; it only affected men. It was a priesthood and temple ban.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It affected men and women, and Jane personifies that part of the story.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So there’s these two figures, Elijah Able and Jane Manning, who are both saying, “We want to go to the temple, and this causes Joseph F. Smith to sit down and decide to finally codify things—to create a policy.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which it appears really hasn’t existed to this point. And let’s talk a little bit about that policy and how it’s announced.

Scott Woodward:
OK, so let’s circle back to 1904.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK.

Scott Woodward:
This is the year Joseph F. Smith, who is now church president, has a crucial memory slip regarding Elijah Able.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In a letter referencing Elijah’s priesthood ordination, Joseph F. Smith explained that it was simply a mistake that, “was never corrected,” and that “the rule of the church is that negroes cannot receive the priesthood.” Oy.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
What’s so troubling about this is that, remember, Joseph F. Smith is the one that performed the investigation on Elijah Able himself back in 1879, and he’s the one that defended the legitimacy of his priesthood ordination to President Taylor. He’s also the one nine years earlier, in 1895, who had reminded Wilford Woodruff and his council that Elijah was ordained in Kirtland under Joseph Smith’s direction. But now, here in 1904, he’s not remembering the conclusions of his own firsthand investigation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Instead, it seems he’s remembering or defaulting to John Taylor’s tentative conclusion at that 1879 council, where he said Elijah’s ordination was likely a mistake Joseph Smith made when things were less well understood, and so it hadn’t been corrected. That’s what it sounds like, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So that’s 1904.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
Fast forward only three more years to 1907, and this is where the church, under President Smith, officially adopts a “one-drop policy”—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
—which mirrored, in some ways, similar policies in the U. S. about segregation. Like, in Virginia, they have this one drop policy that if you have 99 white ancestors and one black ancestor, then you’re considered black and so you need to use the facilities of the blacks, not the whites.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So kind of mirroring that kind of a thought, the First Presidency decided that, “the descendants of Ham may receive baptism and confirmation, but no one known to have in his veins negro blood, it matters not how remote a degree, can either have the priesthood in any degree or the blessings of the temple of God, no matter how otherwise worthy he may be.” That’s a policy.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That’s the decision. And so notice here in 1907 priesthood and temple access is not based solely on one’s personal worthiness but also an additional factor is whether or not they have the slightest degree of “negro blood” that could disqualify you.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So by 1907, we’ve got a policy.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And it’s a hallmark of Joseph F. Smith’s presidency that he spends a lot of time trying to codify, put things into certain terms. We talked a little bit earlier about this, but one of the contextual elements is the Reed Smoot hearings.

Scott Woodward:
Mm. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which—the Reed Smoot hearings—Reed Smoot is a Latter-day Saint senator that’s elected to the U. S. Senate, and then they refuse to seat him. And the trials for Reed Smoot go on for several years, touch on every aspect of the church, and very much the enemies of the church attempt to paint the church as un-American, as outside the mainstream, and as dangerous and radical.

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And as weird as it seems for us today, we could, in context, say that this desire to codify the race policy reflects their desire to move closer to mainstream America.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is post-Civil War, but everybody that knows anything about American history is going to note that the Civil War ended slavery, but it did not solve racism.

Scott Woodward:
No.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In fact, in some ways, it intensified the problem to where you could argue that the feelings of segregation and racism are at their peak in the early 20th century when this policy is codified. And so it reflects the culture around them. You’ve noted that it actually borrows language from statutes passed in certain parts of America—

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—where they’re going to have this codified, systematic racial divide that exists, but that’s it. It’s not the church moving further from the mainstream. The mainstream was racism at this time, and it was the leaders of the church moving closer to that.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But some of this stuff is really hard to implement.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The not-one-drop policy—how does that actually work?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s tough.

Scott Woodward:
One year later, so 1908, President Joseph F. Smith and other leaders again gather to discuss matters of race because they’d gotten a letter from a recently returned mission president in South Africa, Ralph Badger, which prompted the meeting and he—his question was, “What shall be done where people tainted with negro blood embraced the gospel?” His missionaries had recently baptized a Zulu chief, and that chief wanted to take the gospel to the rest of his group. And so Badger is wondering if the gospel should be preached to all the native tribes of South Africa. Like, “What should we do?” right? Of course, the priesthood question is all swirling in there.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
In response to that inquiry, Joseph F. Smith recites for the gathered council the stories of Elijah Able and Jane Manning James and specifically recounts their appeals for temple blessings. He uses Able’s story as precedent, but he remembers it very differently than when he had personally interviewed Able back in 1879, 30 years earlier, almost.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
What he said is that he remembered that Able’s ordination was declared null and void by the prophet Joseph himself. Ah, oof. This is a key moment.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
A very unfortunate moment. By this misremembering of President Joseph F. Smith, he essentially solidifies the racial restrictions. Of course, that was in place already in 1907, but this delegitimizes the memory of Elijah Able as a legit priesthood man.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Paul Reeve, our favorite scholar on blacks and the priesthood and temple in the church. He said, “In that moment of historical forgetfulness, Joseph F. Smith created a new memory for the church moving forward. This new memory erased from collective Latter-day Saint history the black pioneers who complicated the racial story. In the new memory, priesthood and temples had always been white, and the racial restrictions had been in place from the beginning.” Ouch. So well-worded and so painful.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So going forward, this becomes the accepted story: that the prophet Joseph Smith was the precedent maker for the priesthood denial. This effectively removes black priesthood men from the collective memory of the church, and by 1912 George Q. Cannon, a member of the First Presidency, he’s going to give a secondhand account—he seems to be quoting Zebedee Coltrin—about the prophet’s views on race and priesthood. Nobody can ever find a firsthand account of Joseph saying anything against this, but Zebedee Coltrin remembers, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So George Q. Cannon’s now starting to state confidently that Zebedee Coltrin’s memory is correct: that Joseph Smith was the instigator of the policy. Then, slightly over a decade later, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, who’s the son of President Joseph F. Smith, he’s going to be able to write now, very definitively, “It is true that the negro race is barred from holding the priesthood.” And note this: “This has always been the case,” he said. “The prophet Joseph Smith taught this doctrine, and it was made known to him.” Of course, no footnote. Nothing that goes back to an original statement by Joseph. This isn’t Joseph Fielding Smith being dishonest. This is Joseph Fielding Smith accepting as the narrative that’s been passed down now for the last decade-plus that Joseph Smith was the precedent-maker here. So—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
That narrative is not questioned for decades. It’s going to get reinforced in each successive generation because each generation of church leaders is going to be more and more unwilling to violate the precedent of their predecessors. This is just kind of the unwritten order of things—or now it’s become, in 1907, the written order of things. This is how it is. The memory is that Joseph Smith started it, and so that’s that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And again, it’s unfortunate, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And in a lot of ways it’s untenable, too. You mentioned the mission president from South Africa. I actually have read journals of a missionary in South Africa named Wiley Sessions. And Wiley Sessions is the guy who comes back to the States and eventually starts the Institutes of Religion.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
While he’s on his mission in South Africa, he writes some poignant things about experiences he’s had with people of African ancestry and his own questions about the nature of the priesthood policy, and Wiley Sessions is a man of faith. He trusts the leaders of the church, but he also recognizes maybe the untenability of this whole idea. In fact, I think there’s a threat of untenability that goes back to Brigham Young. Brigham Young, when he introduces this idea, says, “the time will come when they will have all the blessings of the priesthood, and more.” So it’s going to have to eventually be resolved.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It gets to this point, and then the next generation is trying to defend the previous generation, trying to uphold what they’ve done, but also recognizing the issues with it, and that’s going to lead us to what we talk about in our next episode.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And I think what we’ve talked about today is helpful in answering another question that I sometimes get from very earnest people when we’re talking about this history. They’ll want to know: How is it possible that if Brigham Young’s introduction of this idea in 1852 was wrong, how did it not get corrected right away?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
How did the next president of the church not correct it, and then the next president of the church? We’re going to get what, nine presidents of the church between Brigham Young and President Spencer W. Kimball?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
How was this not corrected by one of them at some point if this was not somehow inspired of God?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And I think what we’ve been talking about today helps to answer that. There was false doctrine and then false memories. And the false memories are the kicker here, because that now creates a false precedent that traces back to Joseph Smith.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
And so at least one of the major reasons that subsequent presidents of the church don’t question this is because they didn’t have a question about it. Like, it wasn’t something that they needed to bring to God. Precedent is the key here.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
I don’t know that we can overstate this point.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It’s just never happened that a generation of church leaders have questioned the precedent of their predecessors, especially not Joseph Smith, without some strong reason to do so. And given the racial climate in America for the first half of the 20th century, there really just wasn’t reason to question what had become universally understood as a restrictive stance toward blacks that originated with Joseph Smith.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
That, in a nutshell, is essentially why this erroneous ban lasted so long.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
There just wasn’t a strong reason to question it until the racial environment changes in America in the second half of the 20th century. Then we get some deep scholarly investigation into the origins of this ban, and we get apostles who start asking more urgent questions, and we get a church president who begins to fiercely focus his faith on this issue, and who ultimately, in unity with his fellow apostles, approaches the Lord in 1978 and receives a revelation from heaven that overturns this ban. Now, we’re getting a little ahead of the story here, but the basic point we want to end today’s discussion with, to wrap this all up, is that it’s going to take a revelation from heaven to cut through the tangle of false doctrines and false memories introduced by the human element of God’s servants, as we’ve talked about today.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
The good news is that this revelation comes in 1978, but we have a few more things to talk about before we get there.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So hang in there. We know this is challenging history, but the resolution is coming. We’re going to resolve the plot, and it’s a great resolution that’s very uplifting.

Scott Woodward:
Stay tuned. Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. In our next episode, we continue this series by looking at what developments occurred relative to the priesthood-temple ban during the 70-year period from 1908 to 1978, including the challenges the ban presented to missionary work throughout the world, such as where to send missionaries and whether or not they should actively proselyte blacks at all. We’ll look at President David O. McKay’s innovations to move the work forward among blacks, despite the ban, as well as highlight the differing viewpoints and teachings of various apostles in the 1960s, which underscored a lack of unity among the brethren on this issue at that time. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.