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|L2=Gospel Topics, "Race and the Priesthood"
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{{:Question: Did Brigham Young say that race mixing was punishable by death?}}


=={{Criticism label}}==
{{ChurchResponseBar
"...Brigham Young said race mixing was punishable by death."
|link=http://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng
|title=Race and the Priesthood
|publication=Gospel Topics
|date=2013
|summary=Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.
<br>
Since that day in 1978, the Church has looked to the future, as membership among Africans, African Americans and others of African descent has continued to grow rapidly. While Church records for individual members do not indicate an individual’s race or ethnicity, the number of Church members of African descent is now in the hundreds of thousands.
<br>
The Church proclaims that redemption through Jesus Christ is available to the entire human family on the conditions God has prescribed. It affirms that God is “no respecter of persons”24 and emphatically declares that anyone who is righteous—regardless of race—is favored of Him. The teachings of the Church in relation to God’s children are epitomized by a verse in the second book of Nephi: “[The Lord] denieth none that cometh unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; . . . all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.
}}
</onlyinclude>


{{CriticalSources}}
{{Critical sources box:Mormonism and racial issues/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death/CriticalSources}}
=={{Conclusion label}}==
{{endnotes sources}}


Brigham Young's comments can be read as a condemnation of abuse and rape of helpless black women, and not necessarily as an overtly racist statement condemning interracial marriage in all times and places.
<!-- PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->
 
In 1863, couplings between black women and white men would virtually always be a relationship of a staggering power imbalance, with few rights for the woman, who was often forced into sexual activity.  Her children would have been automatic slaves if she was a slave, and the men under no legal responsibility to provide for her or the children.  (This failure to provide for offspring was a common Mormon criticism of Gentile non-marriage relationships when contrasted with plural marriage.)
 
Unlike contemporary 1860s fears for the virtue of ''white women'' when subjected to the predation of black men,{{ref|cott4}}.  Brigham was far more worried about white men abusing their position of political and cultural superiority.
 
This is not to say that Brigham did not share some ideas about the desirability of keeping races separate; virtually everyone of his era did.  American ethnologists taught that whites and blacks were separately created races, the mixture of which would corrupt both.{{ref|cott5}} 
 
But, when in the same speech Brigham Young condemns the whites for their treatment of blacks, and threatens punishment for white men who have what is likely forced intercourse with black women, it is not fair to portray him as a ravening racist with no concern for the downtrodden.  His fire and brimstone is all for the aggressor; his sympathy is for those who were mistreated.
 
=={{Subarticles label}}==
*[[Mormonism and racial issues/Brigham Young/Race mixing punishable by death/Master-slave race mixing|Master-slave race mixing]]
 
=={{Response label}}==
This criticism refers to a pair of statements, but more often the latter, made by Brigham Young:
 
*If they [a mixed race couple] were far away from the gentiles they would all [have] to be killed -- when they mingle seed it is death to all. If a black man & white woman come to you & demand baptism can you deny them? The law is their seed shall not be amalgamated. Mulattoes [are] like mules they can't have children, but if they will be eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, they may have a place in the temple.{{ref|sc1}}
 
*Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.{{ref|jd1}}
 
The "chosen seed," in LDS doctrine, are those who hold the Melchizedek priesthood (see {{s||DC|107|40}}).  So, Brigham is likely addressing his remarks particularly to those under the "oath and covenant" of the priesthood.  This is not surprising, since the rest of the United States was certainly not listening with any respect to the Mormons, whose polygamy and doctrines they regarded with abhorrence.
 
With the Civil War at full burn, Brigham went on to declare: "I say to all men and all women, submit to God, to his ordinances and to His rule; serve Him, and cease your quarrelling, and stay the shedding of each other's blood."  He is thus in the mode of condemning the United States and the "nations of the earth" for their sins, and he then says:
 
:If the Government of the United States, in Congress assembled, had the right to pass an anti-polygamy bill, they had also the right to pass a law that slaves should not be abused as they have been; they had also a right to make a law that negroes should be used like human beings, and not worse than dumb brutes. '''For their abuse of that race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent'''.{{ref|jd2}}
 
As governor of Utah Territory in 1852, Brigham Young had promoted legislation that he takes the US government to task for not passing. Positioning Utah to be strategically admitted to the Union as a slave state, Brigham Young nevertheless advocated humane treatment of slaves and provisions for their eventual release. Summarizing the 1852 legislation, Lester Bush wrote:
 
:Though Negro slaves could no longer choose to leave their masters, some elements of consent were included. Slaves brought into the Territory had to come "of their own free will and choice"; and they could not be sold or taken from the Territory against their will. Though a fixed period of servitude was not prescribed for Negroes, the law provided "that no contract shall bind the heirs of the servant ... for a longer period than will satisfy the debt due his [master] ..." Several unique '''provisions were included which terminated the owner's contract in the event that the master had sexual intercourse with a servant "of the African race,"''' neglected to feed, clothe, shelter, or otherwise abused the servant, or attempted to take him from the Territory against his will. Some schooling was also required for slaves between the ages of six and twenty.{{ref|bush1}}
 
In the 1863 context, Brigham Young did not sympathize with pro-abolitionist sentiments in the North or the pro-slavery sentiments in the South, but advocated a moderate, middle ground. His practical remedy for a master coercing sexual relations with a foreign slave was not the master's death as Old Testament styled retribution might require, but the slave's freedom.
 
==Brigham's Remarks in Historical Context==
 
Brigham made his remarks, then, in the context of a civil war over the issue of slavery.  Brigham condemned the ''white male'' (and perhaps priesthood holder) who "mixes" with black Africans.  Why?
 
When would a white person "mix their seed" with the blacks?  At the time, black slaves could not legally marry—this was a "human right," and the slave-holding states were very careful not to let blacks marry, since to do so implied that they had human rights (and, if they have one right, why not a right to be free?)  As a history of marriage in the United States noted:
 
:The slaveholder's callous lust&mdash;his moral violence as well as his physical cruelty&mdash;gave abolitionists their most effective theme.  Sexual abuse of female slaves by rape, incest, forced mating, and concubinage figured even more sensationally in abolitionist literature than the sale of slave family members..."No part of the dark and hidden iniquities of slavery" deserved revelation more than its travesty of the "nuptial covenant" with "odious lusts," the abolitionist George Bourne intoned, referring to the master's unchecked freedom to use the bodies of his female slaves.{{ref|cott1}}
 
Representative Justin Morrill, who would help write the first anti-polygamous legislation, thundered that "By the license of Slavery, a whole race is delivered over to prostitution and concubinage, without the protection of any law."{{ref|morrill1}}
 
So, under what conditions would a white priesthood holder (or any white) be mixing their seed with a black woman?  All too often, this was under the context of what was essentially rape and assault.  Many slave-holders kept their own children in slavery, as they sired children on black slaves who could not refuse.  By law, any child born to a slave was automatically a slave.  One southern woman wrote:
 
:God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system...the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children.  Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own.  Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.{{ref|cott2}}
 
Blacks created a variety of their own arrangements which formalized these "informal" marriages, but families were always at risk of being broken up and sold by their owners, with no recourse.  A major element of post-Civil War federal policy was the establishment of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, which had "the aim to reorient slaves' sexual and family behavior around legal marriage,"{{ref|cott3}} a goal which had been impossible under generations of slavery.
 
Intermarriage with blacks was either illegal or virtually unheard of, and for decades after the Civil War, courts repeatedly rebuffed efforts by mixed race couples to legalize their unions.{{ref|cott6}}
 
Thus, a good part of Brigham's objection likely rested on the circumstances which would attend most white male/black woman pairings in his day.  He would have likely known of no counter-examples&mdash;no relationships with blacks could be legal, and most resulted from duress.
 
Spiritual death seems an appropriate punishment for a priesthood holder who behaved in such a way, and literal capital punishment might not be too severe if "the law of God" could be administered by a genuine prophet.  There are few crimes more grievous than to treat others as subhuman, and rape the powerless.
 
=={{Endnotes label}}==
 
# {{note|jd1}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=110|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}}
# {{note|jd2}} {{JDfairwiki|vol=10|disc=25|start=111|author=Brigham Young|title=The Persecutions of the Saints, etc.|date=8 March 1863}} (emphasis added)
# {{note|cott1}} Nancy F. Cott, ''Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation'' (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000), 58. {{link|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jnh7ylcLaB4C&lpg=PP1&dq=public%20vows&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}}
# {{note|cott2}} Mary Boykin Chestnut, diary, from ''Root of Bitterness'', ed. Nancy F. Cott (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1972), 209; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 59. {{link|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jnh7ylcLaB4C&lpg=PP1&dq=public%20vows&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}}
# {{note|morril1}} Morrill (Vermont), 1860; cited in Cott, ''Public Vows'', 74. {{link|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jnh7ylcLaB4C&lpg=PP1&dq=public%20vows&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}}
# {{note|cott3}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 84. {{link|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jnh7ylcLaB4C&lpg=PP1&dq=public%20vows&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}}
# {{note|cott6}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 101&ndash;104. {{link|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jnh7ylcLaB4C&lpg=PP1&dq=public%20vows&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}}
# {{note|cott4}} See Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98&mdash;99. {{link|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jnh7ylcLaB4C&lpg=PP1&dq=public%20vows&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}}
# {{note|cott5}} Cott, ''Public Vows'', 98&ndash;99. {{link|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jnh7ylcLaB4C&lpg=PP1&dq=public%20vows&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false}}
 
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Latest revision as of 03:08, 28 May 2024

19th century Mormons on the subject of race mixing


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Russell W. Stevenson, "Shouldering the Cross: How to Condemn Racism and Still Call Brigham Young a Prophet"

Russell W. Stevenson,  Proceedings of the 2014 FairMormon Conference, (8 August 2014)

I’ve entitled this presentation, “Shouldering the Cross” and there is a reason for that that we are going to get into later on. But suffice it to say, there is a fairly long tradition of discussing the origins of the priesthood ban within the context of personal sacrifice; of a willingness to give up one’s dearest principles for what people tend to believe was doctrine or a fundamental part of the Church.[1] The subtitle is, “How to Condemn Racism While Still Calling Brigham Young a Prophet.” Obviously, we are going to be discussing both what racism is and is not and what it means to be a prophet and perhaps how we can, or perhaps should, redefine that term.

Click here to view the complete article

Was Brigham Young a racist?

Brigham Young made a number of statements which are now considered blatantly racist

Brigham Young made a number of statements which are now considered blatantly racist. [1]

Why did past prophets make racist statements? God had already revealed to Peter that he should not call anything "common" that God had cleansed (Acts 10:9-16), yet some modern-day prophets thought that blacks were inferior to whites; why is that?

Elder Neil L. Anderson said,

A few question their faith when they find a statement made by a Church leader decades ago that seems incongruent with our doctrine. There is an important principle that governs the doctrine of the Church. The doctrine is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk. True principles are taught frequently and by many. Our doctrine is not difficult to find.

The leaders of the Church are honest but imperfect men. Remember the words of Moroni: "Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father … ; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been" (Ether 12꞉6). [2]

We should be forgiving of past prophets who we today would perceive as being "racists," or otherwise unsophisticated when compared to the present day

We should be forgiving of past prophets who we today would perceive as being "racists," or otherwise unsophisticated when compared to the present day. Lest we judge harshly, we ought to consider that even the Savior himself spoke of "outsiders" using language that we today would consider grossly offensive (Matthew 15:26).

We are warned, however, that we will be judged in the same manner in which we judge others (Matthew 7:2, Mark 4:24). If we condemn those of the past for being imperfect or influenced by their culture, what can we expect for ourselves?

"On the day I arrived, students had seen the segment in which Governor Ross Barnett physically bars James Meredith from registering at Ole Miss. In the ensuing discussion, the teacher asked students why Barnett objected to Meredith’s enrollment. One boy raised his hand and volunteered, ‘Prejudice.’ The teacher nodded and the discussion moved on.

"That simple ‘prejudice’ unsettled me. Four hundred years of racial history reduced to a one-word response? This set me to wondering what would it take before we begin to think historically about such concepts as ‘prejudice,’ racism,’ ‘tolerance,’ fairness,’ and ‘equity.’ At what point do we come to see these abstractions not as transcendent truths soaring above time and place, but as patterns of thought that take root in particular historical moments, develop, grow, and emerge in new forms in successive generations while still bearing traces of their former selves?"

— Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts (Philadeliphia: temple University Press, 2001), 17.
See also: Official Church doctrine and statements by Church leaders and Understanding pre-1978 statements

The perception that past prophets were "just like us" is incorrect

In the Church we spend a lot of time "likening the scriptures unto ourselves," to use Nephi's phrase (1 Nephi 19꞉23).

This approach has the advantage of making the teachings of the scriptures and early Church leaders apply to us, so they become agents of change in our lives, rather than just artifacts to be studied in a detached way.

The disadvantage of this approach, though, is that it can build the perception that past prophets were "just like us" — having all the same assumptions, traditions, and beliefs. But this is not the case at all. Prophets in all dispensations have been "men of their times," who were raised with certain beliefs and interacted all their lives with others who shared those beliefs.

For example, the Old Testament peoples believed the earth was a flat expanse, with the sky a solid dome made out of a shiny, brass-like substance. But this was the way everyone understood things at that time, so we don't begrudge Isaiah and Ezekiel of speaking of the "four corners of the earth" (Isaiah 11:12; Ezekiel 7:2), or Job for thinking the sky was a mirror (Job 37:18), or the Psalmist for thinking the earth stood still while the sun went around it (Psalms 93:1; Psalms 19:4-6).

The same principle holds true when examining the beliefs of earlier prophets about people of different races. Most nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints were raised in a world where all Black people were either slaves or illiterate poor. At the time there was much debate among American Christians in general as to how Blacks fit into God's overall plan as described in the Bible. Many theories abounded, with virtually all of them justifying, in one way or another, slavery or relegation of Blacks to the role of second-class citizens. There was even debate as to whether or not Blacks were human beings with souls that could receive salvation. (In contrast to this general Christian view, Joseph Smith declared rather progressively that yes, Blacks did have souls and could be saved.[3]

Some LDS leaders were wary of the civil rights movement that started in the 1950s, and publicly stated their concerns

This continued into the twentieth century. Some LDS leaders were wary of the civil rights movement that started in the 1950s, and publicly stated their concerns. But there were differences of opinion among the brethren on this. At one end was Elder Ezra Taft Benson, who believed that the American civil rights movement was a front for communism; at the other was President Hugh B. Brown, who felt that the Church should publicly support the civil rights movement.[4]

From our perspective as "enlightened" people of the early twenty-first century, virtually everyone in America up until the last few decades — prophets and other LDS leaders included — held beliefs that we could now consider racist. But that was the culture of the times, and we, like the rest of society, have progressed (line upon line, precept upon precept, see 2 Nephi 28꞉30) to become better people in this respect, more tolerant, more accepting. Fifty years from now, people will probably look back at our time and say, "How could they have been so bigoted?" Or, "How could they have missed issue X, which seems so clear to us now, in retrospect?"

The key point here is that the Lord works with the people who are available

The key point here is that the Lord works with the people who are available. He does not make them into radicals; he gives them just enough light and understanding to lift the Saints a little and make them more fit for the kingdom. In his mercy, God works with people where they are, and does not wait for them to be perfect before he will deign to speak to them.

Non-LDS Biblical commentators have noted this same tendency is present with Biblical prophets:

Though purified and ennobled by the influence of His Holy Spirit; men each with his own peculiarities of manner and disposition—each with his own education or want of education—each with his own way of looking at things—each influenced differently from another by the different experiences and disciplines of his life. Their inspiration did not involve a suspension of their natural faculties; it did not even make them free from earthly passion; it did not make them into machines—it left them men. Therefore we find their knowledge sometimes no higher than that of their contemporaries.[5]

See also: Official Church doctrine and statements by Church leaders and Understanding pre-1978 statements

Did Brigham Young say that race mixing was punishable by death?

Brigham Young said that race mixing was punishable by death

Yes, Brigham Young did makes statements to this effect. One of the most well known is this one from March 8, 1863:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty. [6]

It was a complex issue. After all, laws against interracial marriage still existed in a number of states until June of 1967—with Utah making interracial marriage legal in 1963—when the Supreme Court finally argued that they were unconstitutional - a hundred years after some of Brigham Young's comments. At the time that the supreme court made interracial marriage legal in all states, 16 states still had laws banning interracial marriage. In 1958, the number was 24.

President Young's views were connected to his views on priesthood and sealings, they were affected by his own cultural upbringing, and they were affected by changes that happened in the late 1840s. Among these was this challenge posed to his and the other Saints' worldview of black men actually marrying white women in the Church.

While there were a couple of instances where violence actually happened (and several cases of interracial marriage), Brigham Young didn't ever actually try to have someone killed for doing this, and this was typical of Young's over the top rhetoric that he used from time to time at the pulpit.

While there were a couple of instances where violence actually happened (and several cases of interracial marriage), Brigham Young didn't ever actually try to have someone killed for doing this. There were, at the time, interracial marriages in Utah that were already solemnized and others that were solemnized after this statement was made and yet Brigham never ordered such an execution. Was he aware of these marriages? One would assume he that he likely did become aware of at least one during his ~30-year tenure as Prophet, President of the Church, and Governor of Utah. We may well assume that some of this (although based in racist attitudes that were prevalent in American society and held by Brigham Young) was typical of Young's over the top rhetoric that he used from time to time at the pulpit for effect--showing that often he had more bark than he did bite.

Learn more about racial issues
Key sources
  • Darius Gray, "No Johnny-Come-Lately: The 182-Year-Long BLACK Mormon Moment," Proceedings of the 2012 FAIR Conference (August 2012). link
  • Marvin Perkins, "Blacks in the Scriptures," Proceedings of the 2014 FAIR Conference (August 2014). link
  • Paul Reeve, "'From Not White Enough, to Too White: Rethinking the Mormon Racial Story'," Proceedings of the 2015 FAIR Conference (August 2015). link
  • Russell Stevenson, "'Shouldering the Cross, or How to Condemn Racism and Still Call Brigham Young a Prophet'," Proceedings of the 2014 FAIR Conference (August 2014). link
FAIR links
  • Alex Boyé, "International Perspectives of a Black Member in a 'White' Church," Proceedings of the 2004 FAIR Conference (August 2004). link
  • Darius Gray, "Blacks in the Bible," Proceedings of the 2005 FAIR Conference (August 2005). link
  • Marcus Martins, "A Black Man in Zion: Reflections on Race in the Restored Gospel," Proceedings of the 2006 FAIR Conference (August 2006). link
  • Armand L. Mauss, "The LDS Church and the Race Issue: A Study in Misplaced Apologetics," Proceedings of the 2003 FAIR Conference (August 2003). link
  • Renee Olson, "Dispelling the Black Myth," Proceedings of the 2002 FAIR Conference (August 2002). link
  • Marvin Perkins, "How to Reach African-Americans," Proceedings of the 2005 FAIR Conference (August 2005). link
LDS Church and the Race Issue: Study in Misplaced Apologetics, Armand Mauss, 2003 FAIR Conference
Video
Empathetic Imagination: Reading Between the Lines in 'Standing On the Promises' , Darius Gray, Margaret Young, 2004 FAIR Conference
Blacks in the Bible, Darius Gray, 2005 FAIR Conference
A Black Man in Zion: Reflections on Race in the Restored Gospel, Marcus Martins, 2006 FAIR Conference (YouTube Video)
Reaching Black Saints, Marvin Perkins, 2005 FAIR Conference
Navigators

Source(s) of the criticism
Critical sources


Notes

  1. ↑ John Dehlin, "Questions and Answers," Mormon Stories Podcast (25 June 2014).; Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson, Mormonism 101. Examining the Religion of the Latter-day Saints (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), Chapter 16. ( Index of claims ); Simon Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2004) 10–11. ( Index of claims ); Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)
  2. ↑ Neil L. Anderson, Trial of Your Faith, Ensign (November 2012)
  3. ↑ Joseph Smith, Jr., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, selected by Joseph Fielding Smith, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1976), 269. off-site
  4. ↑ See Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005), chapter 4. ISBN 0874808227.
  5. ↑ James R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible: Complete in one volume, with general articles (New York : Macmillan, 1984 [1904]), cxxxv.
  6. ↑ Brigham Young, (March 8, 1863.) Journal of Discourses 10:110.

Gospel Topics, "Race and the Priesthood"

Gospel Topics, (2013)

Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.


Since that day in 1978, the Church has looked to the future, as membership among Africans, African Americans and others of African descent has continued to grow rapidly. While Church records for individual members do not indicate an individual’s race or ethnicity, the number of Church members of African descent is now in the hundreds of thousands.

The Church proclaims that redemption through Jesus Christ is available to the entire human family on the conditions God has prescribed. It affirms that God is “no respecter of persons”24 and emphatically declares that anyone who is righteous—regardless of race—is favored of Him. The teachings of the Church in relation to God’s children are epitomized by a verse in the second book of Nephi: “[The Lord] denieth none that cometh unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; . . . all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.

Click here to view the complete article


Source(s) of the criticism
Critical sources

Notes



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