Is "white and delightsome" a racist scripture? Dr Matt Harris discusses the evolution of the priesthood/temple ban in the 19th century. He discusses black men who held the priesthood, and why Brigham Young removed their possibility of attending the temple. We'll also discuss the controversial passages "white & delightsome" vs "pure & delightsome" in the Book of Mormon. Check out our conversation with Matt Harris...

https://youtu.be/OK5AeAAvrIY

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GT  0:49  So what I'd like to first do, I remember when we spoke, in fact, this was our first interview, it was about this book.

Matt  0:58  Which hadn't been named yet.

GT  1:01  Yeah, it hadn't been named. But what I'd like to do, because you do, I think in chapter one, you spend a very short chapter on the priesthood ban in the 19th century, and you noted that there were some black men who held the priesthood. Could you just give us a thumbnail of 19th century policies within the Church and blacks?

Matt  1:27  Yes. For years and years and years, the Church narrative was that the ban began with the Prophet Joseph Smith. In 1922, Andrew Jensen, who was the Assistant Church Historian published, I think it was a four volume encyclopedia biography. And just what it is, you just go through alphabetically to different subjects you could look up. And there was one subject in there that came back to bite the Church, and that the subject was Elijah Abel.

GT  1:57  Yes.

Matt  1:58  And so this is the first time that the Saints are reading that there was an early black priesthood holder. Oh, let me tell you, they wrote letters to the First Presidency, to the Quorum of the Twelve. How could there be a ban with Joseph Smith and Elijah Abel. Joseph Fielding Smith said, who was then the Church Historian, Joseph Fielding Smith said that that question has come back to haunt us. I wish he never would have included it. [He wished] Jensen wouldn't have included Elijah Abel in the biography. So, they didn't know how to answer it. How can you say the ban began with the Prophet, the founding Prophet, if a black man's ordained to the priesthood. Joseph Fielding Smith was interesting in his responses. One Latter-day Saint inquisitor, he wrote back, and he said, "There were actually two Elijah Ables in Nauvoo, one was white and one was black.” I mean, there's no evidence for any of this stuff, but he's trying to work out this narrative. And then a little while later, he gave a different answer, and he said that it was a mistake. There's no evidence for that either.

GT  3:07  Right.

Matt  3:08  And I'm not here to pick on Joseph Fielding Smith. I'm just merely telling the story that the brethren are trying to understand this and comprehend it. And J. Reuben Clark of the First Presidency was scheduled to give a general conference talk in October of 1954 and it's the only time I've noticed where the brethren, where at least Clark had acknowledged that there were a few priesthood holders, black priesthood holders. Mostly Elijah Abel was known because of Andrew Jensen. But he acknowledges that there were a few priesthood holders of black African ancestry who held the priesthood. President McKay nixed the talk. "Don't give it."

GT  3:54  Really?

Matt  3:55  Yeah for two reasons. One, I think it was less about the acknowledgement of three black--well, that was part of it. That's not true. Part of it was, we don't want the Church [members] to know that there are three black priesthood holders. The other part was it, a lot of the talk talked about civil rights, which I'm sure we'll get into in a minute. But President McKay didn't want President Clark talking about civil rights and bringing attention to it when the civil rights movement was heating up, because it'll bring attention to the race ban. So the ban--the Church, for years, thought that the ban began with the Prophet Joseph Smith. We now know that at least three or four black men held the priesthood. A couple more probably did, but the evidence is inconclusive.

 

Joseph Ball

Matt  4:42  I think for your listeners, one thing that's really, really interesting is that you can't say that Joseph Smith started the ban and then had black men ordained under his tutelage. He didn't ordain them, personally, but other people did that he knew about. So, you can't really say exception, exception, exception, but he was the originator. It doesn't work that way. So Brigham Young, scholars today and the Church have acknowledged that Brigham Young is the founder of the ban. But what I want your listeners to know is Brigham Young accepted black priesthood holders at first. He knew about Joseph Ball, a black priesthood holder in Boston, also a branch president. I'll say that again. A black man was a branch president in Boston, Massachusetts.

GT  5:30  See, now this makes me--because I know Paul argues--so you're correct. Joseph Ball did hold the priesthood. He had black ancestry. But Paul Reeve argues that he was so light skinned he was listed as white on the census, that people didn't know he was black. Do you agree or disagree with that?

Matt  5:53 I don't know if I disagree with Paul on that. It's hard to know about racial passing is really interesting, and it's likely that he did pass, racially. Elijah Abel was light skinned, too. He was, I hate to say this, these fractions are ridiculous, but he was what they said at the time, 1/8 black.

GT  6:14  Yes, I know he's listed on census records as Mulatto or Quadroon.

Matt  6:19  Yes.

GT  6:20  Quadroon would be one fourth black.

Matt  6:23  Joseph F, Smith, as I recall, says that he's one eighth black. This is what they say in some documents. So, the brethren know that he's got African ancestry. It's less clear about Joseph Ball, and I think that that Paul's speculation could hold up that if he's listed as white on the census, it could mean that he was passing as white, but not necessarily. The real question is, how did the brethren view him? And so Joseph Ball, and there was a guy named William McCary who was a colorful character in history.

GT  6:59  Oh, very. I need you to help me get an interview with Angela Pulley Hudson.

 

Interracial Marriage Leads to Ban

Matt  7:03  Angela Pulley Hudson wrote a nice book about William McCary and his wife.[1] So William McCary has Indigenous ancestry [and] African ancestry.

GT  7:14  He also went by Warner McCary, I believe.

Matt  7:16  He also went by Warner McCary. Anyway, the upshot of the story is this is that Brigham Young was fine with Warner McCary. He was fine with Ball and and some others. And then they started taking polygamous, white wives. That's where it turned south.

GT  7:32  Yeah, Walker Lewis' son did, as well. Walker Lewis is interesting because—I think it was Wilford Woodruff, if I remember, called him a fine African, an elder.

Matt  7:44  Oh, yeah. They recognize that he has black African ancestry, and they even entrusted him with some ecclesiastical responsibilities.

GT  7:53  And he started the NAACP, a precursor.

Matt  7:59  He was involved in civil rights in and around Boston which is the hub of anti or abolitionist activity and folks pushing for racial equality.

GT  8:09  That’s another thing Benson would be upset about.

Matt  8:10  He would have been very upset at that. He did not believe in racial equality. So Brigham Young got word that a couple of these black men were marrying polygamous white wives. And in my opinion, it's not coincidental that just after, not too long after he learns this, he gives this territorial address in 1852 where he announces, for the first time, the ban. And he also, and this is going to be jarring for your listeners to hear, but he also announced that if a black and a white man marry, they should lose their lives. They should die. He's talking about blood atonement.

GT  8:51  I just had a conversation with Barbara Jones Brown, and she says that people don't understand blood atonement. She's talking in relation to Mountain Meadows, because she said you had to ask to be blood atoned, which clearly Warner McCary wouldn't have asked. But yeah. I mean, he did say, "We ought to kill them and their blood out to be spilt."

Matt  9:27  I mean, the idea about this is, of course, that interracial marriage is so grievous because there's a pure white race, and it would be sullied with an interracial relationship, whether it's black or brown or anybody else. But in this case, Brigham Young's racism was so intense, it was directed towards black people. And we can talk about pure lineages and all that stuff in just a minute, but that was the idea that you would sully a pure, a racially pure bloodline with the seed of Cain, as the Church and Protestant groups had called it.

 

White & Delightsome

GT  9:58  Is that how we make them white and delightsome?

Matt  10:04  Well...

GT  10:05  I mean, I say that as a joke, but isn't that why Joseph Smith specifically directed missionaries to go to the Lamanites, was so that they could intermarry with them and make them white and delightsome?

Matt  10:18  Yeah, which is not applied to black people. They were set apart for racism.

GT  10:23  But even Joseph Smith felt that way?

Matt  10:26  For Lamanites, for Native Americans.

GT  10:28  Beah, but he felt like blacks would not become white and delightsome?

Matt  10:32  No. Well, there's a difference here. So let's, let's just pause for a quick moment and talk about what the teaching is, the doctrine is. The teaching was that everybody in the human family was white. There was a raceless human family, and they were all white. Some people sinned, and because they sinned,