LDS priesthood ban on Black members

The LDS priesthood ban on Black members barred Black men from priesthood ordination in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until 1978, when Spencer W. Kimball announced a revelation opening the priesthood to males of all races. The restriction mattered not only because priesthood brought religious responsibilities and privileges: it also conferred substantial status within the church. Its reversal marked a significant doctrinal change, though the book describes the resulting shift in attitudes as gradual rather than immediate.

Scope and operation

In the church, worthy males were inducted into the priesthood at age twelve. Ordination assigned them particular responsibilities and privileges and gave them considerable standing in the community. Before 1978, Black men were excluded from this system. The ban therefore denied them access to a central avenue of religious participation and status, while men of other races could qualify if deemed worthy. Women, regardless of race, continued to be barred from the priesthood.

The distinction between the racial restriction and the rule excluding women is important: the 1978 change concerned access for males of all races, not ordination for women. The account presents these restrictions as part of a broader structure in which ecclesiastical authority and priesthood offices were reserved for men, while the racial ban imposed an additional exclusion on Black members.

Historical development

The policy's history was not uniform. Joseph Smith opposed slavery on moral grounds and, in 1836, ordained Elijah Abel, an African-American man, as an elder in the Mormon priesthood. Under Brigham Young, however, the church's approach changed. Young was an unapologetic racist, and his interpretations of scripture institutionalized racism within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That change extended beyond priesthood eligibility. Under Young's leadership, Utah became a slave territory, and the church supported the aims of the Confederacy during the Civil War. The book connects this record to the enduring effects of Young's influence: Black people were made to feel unwelcome in the church, and the priesthood exclusion persisted long after his death. For much of the twentieth century, African Americans remained barred from priesthood, while Black-white marriages were treated as an outrage against God. The ban thus formed part of a wider racial order, not an isolated rule about ordination.

The 1978 reversal

In 1978, Church President and prophet Spencer W. Kimball announced a revelation in which the Lord commanded that the priesthood be opened to males of all races. This ended the restriction on Black men’s eligibility and initiated what the account calls a slow but profound shift in church attitudes about race. The change was presented as a revelation, placing the reversal within the same framework of prophetic authority through which church members understood doctrinal direction.

The policy change also appears in the account through Pamela Coronado’s experience. In 1978, when she was twenty-one and serving a mission in France, she found it difficult to testify that the church president was the Lord’s only true and living prophet: she did not believe in him or in the direction he was taking the church. The recent revision permitting Black men to enter the priesthood had sent shock waves through the faith. Her account does not make her doubts a direct response to the ban alone; rather, it shows how a major change in doctrine formed part of the unsettled religious context in which she questioned prophetic leadership.

Legacy and significance

The book describes the consequences of the restriction across generations. Before 1978, Black men were denied priesthood admission, women remained ineligible regardless of race, and Black-white marriages were stigmatized. The 1978 revelation altered the racial eligibility rule, but the text emphasizes that changing the formal rule began, rather than completed, a transformation in attitudes.

In 2002, Brigham Young University’s student body elected Rob Foster, a Black man, as its president. African-American students made up only 0.7 percent of the student body, and Foster was the first Black student president in the university’s history. The account treats his election as a particularly potent symbol in light of the racial views associated with Brigham Young, the university’s namesake. Set beside the earlier exclusion and the 1978 reversal, the election illustrates both the distance the institution had traveled and the continuing significance of its racial history.