*This article is presented for historical and educational purposes. I reject racism and do not endorse the beliefs quoted below.*
Infographic: The LDS Church’s Historical Teachings on Race
The historical record is uncomfortable, but it is not difficult to understand.
The Book of Mormon explicitly describes the Lamanites as receiving a “skin of blackness” because of their iniquity and so that they would not appear “enticing” to the Nephites. It then calls them “loathsome” and warns against mixing with their descendants. In another passage, Lamanites who joined the Nephites had their “curse” removed and “their skin became white like unto the Nephites.” These are not words supplied by hostile critics; they remain in the Church’s current official edition.
Historically, Latter-day Saints broadly connected the Lamanites with Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The Church’s own history acknowledges that most early Saints regarded Native Americans as heirs to Book of Mormon promises and that missionaries taught Indigenous peoples in the Americas and Pacific that they descended from the Nephites and Lamanites. The modern Church no longer claims complete knowledge regarding the ancestry of any particular Indigenous population.
The textual history is also revealing. Second Nephi 30:6 originally referred to a future “white and delightsome people.” Joseph Smith changed “white” to “pure” in the 1840 edition, but editions based on an earlier text continued using “white” until the 1981 LDS edition restored the 1840 correction. The current text therefore says “pure and delightsome,” but that alteration does not remove the explicit skin-color language still found in 2 Nephi 5 and 3 Nephi 2.
The issue eventually extended beyond scripture into institutional practice. The Church’s official essay acknowledges that several Black men received the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime and that there is no reliable evidence that Joseph denied priesthood ordination to a Black man. In 1852, however, Brigham Young publicly announced that men of Black African descent could no longer be ordained. Later Church presidents also prevented Black members from receiving the temple endowment or being sealed in the temple.
Young did not always present his racial claims as tentative personal opinions. In an 1859 sermon, he identified Black skin with the mark of Cain and said Black people could not hold the priesthood until the other descendants of Adam had received its blessings. In 1863, speaking against interracial marriage, he called his position “the law of God,” prescribed “death on the spot” and declared, “This will always be so.”
The restriction remained until 1978. Official Declaration 2 announced that worthy men could thereafter receive the priesthood “without regard for race or color,” while temple blessings were extended to worthy members regardless of race.
The modern LDS Church now disavows theories that Black skin represents a curse or divine disfavor, that Black people were less faithful before birth, that interracial marriage is sinful, or that any race is inherently inferior. It also states that its present leaders condemn racism in every form. That repudiation deserves to be represented honestly.
But the modern repudiation does not erase the historical problem. Teachings once defended through scripture, proclaimed by presidents as divine law and enforced through priesthood and temple restrictions are now rejected as false racial theories.
That is not merely a change in administrative policy. It raises a serious question about prophetic reliability: How can teachings proclaimed as God’s unchanging racial order later be disavowed by the same institution as products of racism and human culture?
The purpose of examining this history is not to attack ordinary Latter-day Saints. It is to insist that religious truth claims be judged by the documented record. No exaggeration is necessary. The sources are damaging enough on their own.
Principal sources
- The Book of Mormon: 2 Nephi 5:21–23; 2 Nephi 30:6; 3 Nephi 2:14–16.
- LDS Church History, “Changes to the Book of Mormon.”
- LDS Gospel Topics Essay, “Race and the Priesthood.”
- LDS Church History, “Lamanite Identity.”
- Doctrine and Covenants, Official Declaration 2.
- Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volumes 7 and 10.