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From: "Perry L. Porter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ---> Information on OD2
Date: 15 Jan 1998 21:29:09 -0700

Theologically Grandfather [Hugh B.  Brown] had tried for years to effect a
change in the Mormon Policy that denied the priesthood to blacks.  As he
explained in his memoirs, he never believed this policy had the slightest
doctrinal justification, and he succeeded in initiating a number of
administrative changes to mitigate the effects of this ban.  He changed
the way racial heritage was determined, which smoothed the way to
priesthood ordination for thousands of people in nations such as Brazil.
With President McKay's support he also attempted to open an African
mission.  But this plan ultimately failed.

Grandfather was eventually able to get a proposal allowing full priesthood
for blacks approved by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Elder Harold B.  Lee was not present when this proposal was approved, and
because of the advanced age of Joseph Fielding Smith, then president of
the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Lee was the dominant senior voice among
the Twelve.  Convinced that the ban was doctrinally based, Elder Lee
sought to memorialize his belief by drafting a statement on the matter for
the First Presidency's consideration.  At the time, President McKay's
health was failing and he did not sign such documents.  Grandfather
managed to add language to Elder Lee's statement endorsing full civil
rights for all citizens, but he still resisted signing the statement.
However, he suffered from advanced age and the late stages of Parkinson's
disease and was ill with the Asian flu.  With Grandfather in this
condition, Elder Lee brought tremendous pressure to bear upon him, arguing
that with President McKay incapacitated Grandfather was obliged to join
the consensus within the Quorum of the Twelve.  Grandfather, being deeply
ill, wept as he related this story to me just before he signed the
statement that bore his and President Tanner's names.

Grandfather was dropped from the First Presidency when it was reorganized
under Joseph Fielding Smith in 1970.  Although his health was declining,
Grandfather did not believe this was the reason for his return to the
Quorum of Twelve Apostles.  I believe without the slightest doubt that his
position on blacks and the priesthood was the matter that led to his
removal from the new First Presidency.  This policy change on blacks - so
vital in freeing all our souls - would come several years later during the
presidency of Spencer W.  Kimball, a man Grandfather loved dearly.  By
then all the major protagonists in the earlier struggle would have already
died: Harold B.  Lee, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Grandfather.

From "The Memoirs of Hugh B.  Brown: An Abundant Life," edited by his
grandson, Edwin B.  Firmage, p.  142-143.  Note that the editor refers to
Hugh B.  Brown as "Grandfather."


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Statement by the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints on the Negro Question August 17, 1951

The attitude of the Church with reference to Negroes remains as it has
always stood.  It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of
direct commandment form the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the
Church since the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may
become members of the church but that they are not entitled to the
Priesthood at the present time.  The prophets of the Lord have made
several statements as to the operation of the principle.  President
Brigham Young said: "Why are so many of the inhabitants of the earth
cursed with a skin of blackness?  It comes in consequence of their fathers
rejecting the power of the Holy Priesthood, and the law of God.  They will
go down to death.  And when all the rest of the children have received
their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed
from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the
priesthood, and receive the blessings which we now are entitled to."
President Woodruff made the statement: "The day will come when all that
race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have."

The position of the Church regarding may be understood when another
doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of
spirits in the pre-mortal existence has some determining effect upon the
conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality,
and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the
principle itself indicates that the coming to this earth and taking on
mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintained their first
estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are
willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap
may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the
handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the
priesthood, is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order
that they might come to earth.  Under this principle there is no injustice
whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the
priesthood by the Negroes.

Why the Negro was denied the Priesthood from the days of Adam to our day
is not known.  The few known facts about our pre-earth life and our
entrance into mortality must be taken into account in any attempt at an
explanation.

1. Not all intelligences reached the same degree of attainment in the
pre-earth life.

And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two
spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another
more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent
than they all. The Lord thy God sent his angel to deliver thee from the
hands of the priest of Elkenah.  I dwell in the midst of them all; I now,
therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which
my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in
the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence,
over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came
down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast
seen.

Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were
organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the
noble and great ones;

And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of
them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those
that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me:
Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born.

And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things
whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their
first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate
shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first
estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon
their heads for ever and ever.(26)

2.  Man will be punished for his own sins and not for Adam's
transgression.

(2nd Article of Faith) If this is carried further, it would imply that the
Negro is punished or allotted to a certain position on this earth, not
because of Cain's transgression, but came to earth through the loins of
Cain because of his failure to achieve other stature in the spirit world.

3.  All spirits are born innocent into this world.  Every spirit of man
was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall,
men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.(27)

4.  The Negro was a follower of Jehovah in the pre-earth life.  (There
were no neutrals.)

One of the best explanations is that given by President David O. McKay:

November 3, 1947 Dear Brother,

In your letter to me of October 28, 1947, you say that you and some of
your fellow students "have been perturbed about the question of why the
Negroid race cannot hold the priesthood." In reply I send you the
following thoughts that I expressed to friend upon the same subject:

Stated briefly your problem is simply this: Since, as Paul states, the
Lord "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the
face of the earth," why is there shown in the Church of Christ
discrimination against the colored race?

This is a perplexing question, particularly in the light of the present
trend of civilization to grant equality to all men irrespective of race,
creed, or color. The answer, as I have sought it, cannot be found in
abstract reasoning, for, in this case, reason to the soul is "dim as the
borrowed rays of moon and stars to lonely, weary, wandering travelers."

I know of no scriptural basis for denying the Priesthood to Negroes other
than one verse in the Book of Abraham (1:26); however, I believe, as you
suggest, that the real reason dates back to our pre-existent life.

This means that the true answer to your question (and it is the only one
that has ever given me satisfaction) has its foundation in faith--(1)
Faith in a God of Justice, (2) Faith in the existence of an eternal plan
of salvation for all God's children.

Faith in a God of Justice Essential

I say faith in a god of Justice, because if we hold the Lord responsible
for the conditions of the Negro in his relationship to the Church, we must
acknowledge as an attribute of the Eternal, or conceive Him as a
discriminator and therefore unworthy of our worship.

In seeking our answer, then, to the problem wherein discrimination seems
apparent, we must accept the Lord as being upright, and that "Justice and
judgment are the habitation of His throne." (Psalm 89:14) , and we must
believe that he will "render to every man according to his work," and that
He "shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether
it be good, or whether it be evil." (Eccl. 12-14) Accepting the truth that
God is just and righteous, we may then set our minds at rest in the
assurance that "Whatsoever good thing any man doeth the same shall be
received of the Lord, whether he be bond or free." (Eph. 6:8)

I emphasize Justice as an attribute of Deity, because it is the Lord who,
though He made of one blood all nations," also "determined the bounds of
their habitation." In other words, the seeming discrimination by the
Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man, but
goes back into the Beginning with God.  It was the Lord who said that
Pharaoh, the first Governor of Egypt, though "a righteous man, blessed
with the blessings of the earth, with the blessings of wisdom . . . could
not have the Priesthood." Now if we have faith in the justice of God, we
are forced to the conclusion that this denial was not a deprivation of
merited right.  It may have been entirely in keeping with the eternal plan
of salvation for all of the children of God.

The Peopling of the Earth is in Accordance with a Great Plan

Revelation assures us that this plan antedates man's mortal existence,
extending back to man's pre-existent state.  In that pre-mortal state were
"intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all
these there were many of the noble and great ones; "And God saw these
souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said:
"These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits,
and he saw that they were good."

Manifestly, from this revelation, we may infer two things: first that
there were many among those spirits different degrees of intelligence,
varying grades of achievement, retarded and advanced spiritual attainment;
second, that there were no national distinctions among those spirits such
as Americans, Europeans, Asiatics, Australians, etc.  Such "bounds of
habitation" would have to be "determined" when the spirits entered upon
their earthly existence or second estate.

In the "Blue Bird" Materlinck pictures unborn children summoned to earth
life.  As one group approaches the earth, the voices of the children
earthward tending are heard to cry: "The earth! The earth! I can see it;
how beautiful it is!  How bright it is!" The following these cries of
ecstasy there issued from out of the depth of the abyss a sweet song of
gentleness and expectancy, in reference to which the author says: "It is
the song of the mothers coming out to meet them."

Materlinck's fairy play is not all fantasy or imagination, neither is
Worthword's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" wherein he says:

    Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
    The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
    Hath had elsewhere its setting
    And cometh from afar;
    Not in entire forgetfulness,
    And not in utter nakedness,
    But trailing clouds of glory do we come
    From God, who is our home;

For, as we have already quoted, it is given as a fact in revelation that
Abraham was chosen before he was born.  Songs of expectant parents come
from all parts of the earth, and each little spirit is attracted to the
spiritual and mortal parentage for which the spirit had prepared itself.

Now of none of these spirits was permitted to enter mortality until they
were all good and great and had become leaders, then the diversity of
conditions among the children of men as we see them today would certainly
indicate discrimination and injustice.  But if in their eagerness to take
upon themselves bodies, the spirits were willing to come through any
lineage for which they were worthy, or to which they were attracted, then
they were given the full reward of merit, and were satisfied, yes, and
even blessed.

Accepting this theory of life, we have a reasonable explanation of
existent conditions in the habitations of man.  How the law of spiritual
attraction works between the spirit and the expectant parents, has not
been revealed, neither can finite mind fully understand.  By analogy,
however, we can perhaps get a glimpse of what might take place in that
spirit world.  In physics we refer to the law of attraction wherein some
force acting mutually between particles of matter tends to draw them
together and to keep them from separating.

In chemistry, there is an attractive force exerted between atoms, which
causes them to enter into combination.  We know, too, that there is
affinity between persons--a spiritual relationship or attraction wherein
individuals are either drawn towards others or repelled by others.  Might
it not be so in the realm of spirit--each individual attracted to the
parentage for which it is prepared.  Our place in this world would then be
determined by our advancement or conditions in the pre-mortal state, just
as our pace in our future existence will be determined by what we do here
in mortality.

When, therefore, the Creator said to Abraham, and to others of his
attainment "You I will make my rulers," there could exist no feeling of
envy or of jealousy among the million other spirits, for those who were
"good and great" were but receiving their just reward, just as do members
of a graduation class who have successfully completed their prescribed
courses of study.  The thousands of other students who have not yet
attained that honor still have the privilege to seek it, or they may, if
they choose, remain in satisfaction down in the grades.

By the operation of some eternal law with which man is yet unfamiliar,
spirits come through parentages for which they are worthy--some as Bushmen
of Australia, some as Solomon Islanders, some as Americans, as Europeans,
as Asiatics, etc., etc., with all the varying degrees of mentality and
spirituality manifest in parents of the different races that inhabit the
earth.

Of this we may be sure, each was satisfied and happy to come through the
lineage to which he or she was attracted and for which, and only which, he
or she was prepared.

The Priesthood was given to those who were chosen as leaders.  There were
many who could not receive it, yet who knew that it was possible for them
at sometime in the eternal plan to achieve that honor.  Even those who
knew that they would not be prepared to receive it during their mortal
existence were content in the realization that they could attain every
earthly blessing--progress intellectually and spiritually, and possess to
limited degree the blessing of wisdom.

George Washington Carver was one of the noblest souls that ever came to
earth.  He held a close kinship with his heavenly Father, and rendered a
service to his fellowmen as few have ever excelled.  For every righteous
endeavor, for every noble impulse, for every good deed performed in his
useful life George Washington Carver will be rewarded, and so will every
other man be he red, white, black or yellow, for God is no respecter of
persons.

Sometime in God's eternal plan, the Negro will be given the right to hold
the Priesthood.  In the meantime, those of that race who receive a
testimony of the Restored Gospel may have their family ties protected and
other blessings made secure, for in the justice and mercy of the Lord they
will possess all the blessings to which they are entitled in the eternal
plan of Salvation and Exaltation.

Nephi 26:33, to which you refer, does not contradict what I have said
above, because the Negro is entitled to come unto the Lord by baptism,
confirmation, and to receive the assistance of the Church in living
righteously.

    Sincerely yours,

    Signed by David O. McKay


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Mark E. Petersen was an apostle when he spoke at BYU on Aug 27, 1954 on
civil rights.  "The discussion of civil rights, especially over the last
20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of
some of our own people, I believe. They have allowed their political
affiliations to color their thinking to some extent, and then, of course,
they have been persuaded by some of the arguments that have been put
forth . . .  We who teach in the Church certainly must have our feet on
the ground and not be led astray by the philosophies of men on this
subject . . . I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the
negro is after. He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in
a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same
streetcar or the same Pullman car with white people. It isn't that he just
 desires to go to the same theater as the white people.  From this, and
other interviews I have read, it appears that the negro seeks absorbtion
[sic] with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it
by intermarriage.  This is his objective and we must face it. We must not
allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for negroes
 that we will open our arms and embrace them with everything we have.
Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin, 'First we
pity, then endure, then embrace.' . . . Now we are generous with the
negro. We are willing that the negro have the highest kind of education. I
 would be willing to let every negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford
 it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out
 of life in the world. But let them enjoy these things among themselves. I
 think the Lord segregated the negro and who is man to change that
segregation? It reminds me of the scripture on marriage, 'What God hath
joined  together, let not man put asunder.' Only here we have the reverse
of the  thing - What God hath separated, let not man bring together
again."  (address to Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College
Level, "Race  Problems as They Affect the Church.")



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... In a meeting with the Quorum of the 12 in the late '60s, 1st counselor
Hugh B. Brown obtained approval for his proposal to end the LDS Church's
ban against African-Americans receiving the Priesthood.  Apostle Harold B.
Lee was absent during this vote and opposed it on his return.  He did not
believe LDS blacks should receive the Priesthood.  Apostle Lee managed to
convince the rest of the Quorum to rescind its previous vote.  Then in Dec
1969, a month before President McKay's death, Lee pressured 2nd Counciler,
Hugh B. Brown, to sign a statement which reaffirmed the Priesthood
restriction on the blacks.  Brown's grandson relates Brown surrendered his
deeply felt convictions to Lee's successful reversal of the 12's vote.
"Grandfather managed to add language to Elder Lee's statement endorsing
full civil rights for all citizens (which wasn't there in the original
statement that Elder Lee presented).  But he still resisted signing the
statement.  However President Brown suffered from advanced age and
advanced stages of Parkinson's disease and was ill with the Asian flu.
With grandfather in this condition, Elder Lee brought tremendous pressure
to bear upon him, arguing that with President McKay incapacitated,
grandfather was obligated to join the consensus within the 12.
Grandfather, deeply ill, wept as he related this story to me just before
he signed the statement that bore his and President Tanner's names." The
Church newspaper published this as a statement of the First Presidency
reaffirming the restriction of the Priesthood against blacks.  Five years
after President Lee's death, President Kimball announced a revelation in
1978 that gave the Priesthood to all African Americans and blacks
throughout the world.  President Kimball had been among the apostles who
had originally voted for this proposal a decade earlier, but reversed it
under Apostle Lee's influence.

Excerpts from Mike Quinn's presentation at the 1996 SLC Sunstone Symposium
entitled _Decision Making and Tension in the Mormon Hierarchy_



Ciao Perry     <[e-mail]>    http://pobox.com/~plporter

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