For over a century, LDS leaders connected race, priesthood, temple access, and divine curse in ways the modern LDS Church now disavows — but the historical record shows these were not merely private opinions; they shaped real doctrine, policy, and human lives.
The history of racism in Latter-day Saint teaching is not a small footnote. It is one of the clearest examples of how a religious movement can take racial assumptions, attach them to scripture, defend them with prophetic authority, and then later attempt to distance itself from the consequences.
To be fair, the modern Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not officially teach that Black skin is a divine curse. Its own materials now say that dark skin is not a sign of divine disfavor, and that Book of Mormon or other scriptural passages should never be used to justify racial prejudice or discrimination. The church also states that it condemns racism “past and present.”
But the historical issue is deeper than whether LDS leaders today condemn racism. The question is whether racist teachings were once presented as part of God’s order, and whether those teachings produced actual institutional consequences. The answer is yes.
The Book of Mormon itself contains language that historically made this problem easier to justify. In 2 Nephi 5:21–23, the Lamanites are described with phrases such as “skin of blackness,” “loathsome,” and a curse upon those who “mixeth with their seed.” Whatever modern LDS interpreters may argue about symbolism or context, these words were historically read by many LDS leaders in racial terms.
Under Brigham Young, this racial theology became more than interpretation. In 1852, Young publicly announced that men of Black African descent could no longer be ordained to the LDS priesthood, according to the LDS Church’s own historical summary. That same church source acknowledges that, from the mid-1800s until 1978, Black men were denied priesthood ordination and Black men and women were barred from temple endowment and sealing ordinances.
Young did not treat this as a minor administrative policy. In 1859, he linked Black people to Cain, saying the mark placed on Cain was “the flat nose and black skin,” and taught that they could not hold the priesthood until others had first received its blessings. In 1863, he went further, calling racial mixing with the “seed of Cain” a violation of “the law of God” and attaching to it the phrase “death on the spot.”
This is why the infographic’s wording is strong but defensible: racism was not merely present among some early Latter-day Saints. It was preached by major LDS authorities as if it reflected divine order.
The rhetoric continued well into the twentieth century. In 1954, LDS apostle Mark E. Petersen gave an address at BYU titled Race Problems — As They Affect the Church. A University of Utah archival description identifies the speech as dealing with Petersen’s views on African Americans, “absorption with the white race,” and LDS policy regarding interracial marriage. In the text of that address, Petersen explicitly argued against interracial marriage with Black people, saying children from such a marriage would be “cursed as to the priesthood,” and he even said, “The Lord segregated the Negro.”
This was not abstract theology. It affected real people. Black Latter-day Saints could be baptized, attend meetings, and serve in limited ways, but for generations they were denied priesthood ordination and excluded from the highest temple rites. In a church where priesthood and temple ordinances are tied to exaltation, family sealing, and full covenant status, that exclusion carried enormous theological weight.
The restriction formally ended in 1978 through Official Declaration 2, when Spencer W. Kimball and other LDS leaders announced that priesthood and temple blessings would be extended without regard to race or color. The modern LDS Church now says the old explanations are not accepted as official doctrine and specifically disavows theories that Black skin represented divine curse, premortal unrighteousness, inferiority, or that mixed-race marriage was sinful.
That disavowal is welcome. But it also raises an unavoidable theological question: if earlier prophets and apostles taught these things as divine truth, and if generations of Black Saints suffered under those teachings, what does that say about LDS claims to restored prophetic authority?
Historic Christianity gives us a better foundation. Scripture teaches that all nations come from one blood or one man in Adam’s race (Acts 17:26), that God shows no partiality (Acts 10:34–35; Romans 2:11), that favoring people by outward status is sin (James 2:1–9), and that in Christ there is no ethnic hierarchy of salvation (Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11). Revelation’s picture of redemption is not racial separation, but worship from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation before God (Revelation 7:9).
The point is not to mock ordinary Latter-day Saints. Many are kind, sincere people who reject racism completely. The point is historical honesty. A church cannot simply call old teachings “theories” when those teachings were preached by prophets, defended by apostles, enforced institutionally, and tied to priesthood, temple access, marriage, and salvation.
The Christian response should be both firm and sober: racism is not a divine law. It is a corruption of the image of God in man, a denial of the catholicity of the gospel, and a tragic warning about what happens when alleged revelation is allowed to override the apostolic faith once delivered to the saints.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Race and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/race-and-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Priesthood and Temple Restriction”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/priesthood-and-temple-restriction?lang=eng
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Official Declaration 2”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/od/2?lang=eng
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “2 Nephi 5”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/5?lang=eng
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, pp. 290–291
https://jod.mrm.org/7/282/
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 10, p. 110
https://journalofdiscourses.com/10/25
Mark E. Petersen, “Race Problems — As They Affect the Church,” BYU Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, August 27, 1954
https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Primary_sources/Mark_E._Petersen/Race_Problems_-_As_They_Affect_the_Church
University of Utah Libraries, Archives West, “Mark E. Petersen speech [typescript], 1954”
https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv73999
Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History, University of Illinois Press, 2015.
W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness, Oxford University Press, 2015.
