Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality

Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality

On June 9, 1978, the phones at the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) were ringing nonstop. On that historic day, LDS church president Spencer W. Kimball announced a revelation lifting the church's 126-year-old ban barring Black people from the priesthood and Mormon temples. It was the most significant change in LDS doctrine since the end of polygamy almost 100 years earlier. Drawing on never-before-seen private papers of LDS apostles and church presidents, including Spencer W. Kimball, Matthew L. Harris probes the plot twists and turns, the near-misses and paths not taken, of this incredible story. While the notion that Kimball received a revelation might imply a sudden command from God, Harris shows that a variety of factors motivated Kimball and other church leaders to reconsider the ban, including the civil rights movement, which placed LDS racial policies and practices under a glaring spotlight, perceptions of racism that dogged the church and its leaders, and Kimball's own growing sense that the ban was morally wrong. Deeply informed, engagingly written, and grounded in deep archival research, Harris provides a compelling and detailed account of how Mormon leaders lifted the priesthood and temple ban, then came to reckon with the church's controversial racial heritage. Matthew L. Harris is professor of history at Colorado State University Pueblo, where he has taught since 2005. He specializes in race and religion, civil rights, Mormon history, African American history, legal history, and American religious history. Bill Andrew Quinn is a veteran in the voice-over world. In addition to hundreds of commercials and audiobooks, his many credits include work on The Sopranos , The Montel Williams Show , and Showtime at the Apollo, as well as characters for Grand Theft Auto IV and other video games. Totinos, Corona, Lincoln-Mercury, and McDonald's are among his many television campaign clients.