Rethinking the Latter-day Saint Racial Story

W. Paul Reeve grounds his presentation in his book Let's Talk About Race and Priesthood, published by Deseret Book in 2023, with a foreword by Darius Gray. He explores the history of the racial priesthood and temple restrictions in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and argues that those restrictions are best understood as unfolding in three phases: Open priesthood and temples prevailed in the founding decades of the faith. Segregated priesthood and temples replaced that original universalism and developed in fits and starts across the course of the 19th century. The racial restrictions that began under Brigham Young were firmly solidified in place by 1908 under Joseph F. Smith. Finally, Spencer W. Kimball's revelation in June 1978 restored the faith to its universal roots and reconciled it with the scriptures of the restoration. Professor Reeve's presentation lays out this timeline with supporting evidence and illustrates each phase with examples from the lives of Black Latter-day Saint pioneers. 

BIO

W. Paul Reeve is the chair of the History Department and Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah where he teaches courses on Utah history, Mormon history, and the history of the U.S. West. His book, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, (Oxford, 2015) received three best book awards. He is the recipient of the Utah Council for the Social Studies’ University Teacher of the Year award, the University of Utah’s Early Career Teaching Award, and the College of Humanities’ Ramona W. Cannon Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities. He is author of Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood, published by Deseret Book in 2023 with a foreword by Darius Gray. He is Project Manager and General Editor of an award-winning digital database, Century of Black Mormons, designed to name and identify all known Black Latter-day Saints baptized into the faith between 1830 and 1930. The database is live at  www.CenturyofBlackMormons.org. With Christopher Rich Jr., and LaJean Purcell Carruth, he is the author of This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah recently published by Oxford University Press. The primary source documents upon which the narrative history is based are publicly available at www.ThisAbominableSlavery.org.