Documentary chronicles little-known history of blacks in Mormon church
Posted By Jennifer Dobner
The Associated Press
March 22, 2008
Elijah Abel, Jane Manning James and Green Flake hold a unique, but
rather obscure place in Mormon history. All three were members of
their church in the mid-1800s and all three were black.
They also stayed faithful when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints denied blacks full membership in the denomination. Abel was
the first black man ordained to the church priesthood in 1832. James
worked in the home of church founder Joseph Smith and followed the
faith's next president, Brigham Young, across the frontier to Utah in
1848. Flake came to Utah as well, but as the slave of white members.
He was freed by Young in 1854.
Now, filmmakers Darius Gray and Margaret Young have chronicled those
stories and the struggles of other black Latter-day Saints in a new
documentary "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons."
"To me it's parallel with the story of African-Americans period," said
Gray, who is black and has been a member of the church since 1964. "We
talk about the black history and contributions being either lost,
stolen or strayed generally and it's the same within the LDS church."
Nearly six years in the making, the film is an extension of a longtime
partnership between Gray, a former broadcaster and Young, who is white
and a writing teacher at the church-owned Brigham Young University.
Together, the pair have written three books on black Mormons.
Wrapped in soulful, black spirituals, the 72-minute film takes viewers
on a journey from the days of Mormon pioneers to the 1960s civil-
rights era, when some university athletics teams refused to compete
against BYU because of the way blacks were treated by the church. It
ends with current black church members sharing their own stories -
good and bad.
"We're not hiding anything; we're not sugar-coating anything," Young
said. "We're telling a very difficult history, but the people who are
telling it have come through it."
Tamu Smith of Provo is one of those storytellers.
"It's liberating," Smith said of sharing her struggle to fit in and
find other people of colour in her faith. "We don't talk about black
Mormon history and it's sad. Every person in the church needs to see
this."
Church history shows that founder Smith granted blacks full membership
in the faith not long after founding the church in 1830. Brigham Young
reversed the policy after the Latter-day Saints came to Utah.
Young said blacks bore the "mark of Cain" and implied they were
inferior to whites. Blacks were banned from church temples and denied
full church blessings, including the sacred ceremonies that Mormons
believe bind families for eternity. Black men were excluded from the
priesthood, which gives LDS men ecclesiastical authority.
Blacks remained marginalized until June 8, 1978, after a revelation
from then-president Spencer W. Kimball restored the priesthood for
black men.
Although the LDS church keeps no race-based membership statistics,
some critics have said Kimball's revelation was driven by practical,
not spiritual, concerns. Since 1978, the church membership has grown
significantly in Brazil, the Caribbean and Africa, where the church
now claims more than 250,0000 saints. Worldwide the church has 13
million members.
An interview subject in the film in addition to his behind-camera
role, Gray said black Mormons needed to tell their own story instead
of letting others continue to interpret their history.
"It's important to be validated and it's important to share it with
our white brothers and sisters so they can have an appreciation for
who we are and from whence we've come," he said. "Part of it is sweet,
part of it is bitter, but it's our story."
Young said a goal of the film, which was not produced in conjunction
with the church, is to build a bridge between blacks and whites both
in and out of the church.
Gray and Young have been shopping their project to film festivals
across the U.S. To date it's been shown in Dallas, Detroit and San
Diego, where so many turned out that festival organizers had to move
the showing to a larger theatre. They hope to find a distributor that
will allow the film, that was funded largely through a University of
Utah grant, to be widely seen.
Earlier this month, the film drew a crowd of more than 100 at the
Foursite Film Festival, in Ogden, Utah.
"This was very impressive," schoolteacher Tamara Lei Peters said.
"There have been so many questions about black people in the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. It made me weep in a few places."
Peters said she knew nothing about black Mormon history before seeing
the film.
David Rowe, who teaches at the Salt Lake Theological Seminary, knew
the history, but said he was surprised by the film.
"I would say it was bracingly forthright about the black Mormons'
struggle," said the self-described evangelical. "I didn't expect them
to allow quite as much criticism along with the commendation. I
expected a bit more of PR gloss, but I didn't find it overly
romanticized."
On the Net:
http://www.untoldstoryofblackmormons.com/
http://www.truthandgrace.com/mormonnews.htm
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