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Documentary Chronicles History of Blacks in Mormon Church
By JENNIFER DOBNER
Associated Press Writer
MURRAY, Utah (AP) _ Elijah Abel, Jane Manning James and Green
Flake hold a unique, but rather obscure place in Mormon history.
All three were members of their church in the mid-1800s and all
three were black.
They also stayed faithful when The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints denied blacks full membership in the
denomination.
Abel was the first black man ordained to the church priesthood
in 1832. James worked in the home of church founder Joseph Smith
and followed the faith's next president, Brigham Young, across the
frontier to Utah in 1848. Flake came to Utah as well, but as the
slave of white members. He was freed by Young in 1854.
Now, filmmakers Darius Gray and Margaret Young have chronicled
those stories and the struggles of other black Latter-day Saints in
a new documentary "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black
Mormons."
"To me it's parallel with the story of African-Americans
period," said Gray, who is black and has been a member of the
church since 1964. "We talk about the black history and
contributions being either lost, stolen or strayed generally and
it's the same within the LDS church."
Nearly six years in the making, the film is an extension of a
longtime partnership between Gray, a former broadcaster, and Young,
who is white and a writing teacher at the church-owned Brigham
Young University. Together, the pair have written three books on
black Mormons.
Wrapped in soulful, black spirituals, the 72-minute film takes
viewers on a journey from the days of Mormon pioneers to the 1960s
civil rights era, when some university athletics teams refused to
compete against Brigham Young teams because of the way blacks were
treated by the church. It ends with current black church members
sharing their own stories _ good and bad.
"We're not hiding anything, we're not sugarcoating anything,"
Young said. "We're telling a very difficult history, but the
people who are telling it have come through it."
Tamu Smith, of Provo, is one of those storytellers.
"It's liberating," Smith said of sharing her struggle to fit
in and find other people of color in her faith. "We don't talk
about black Mormon history and it's sad. Every person in the church
needs to see this."
Church history shows that founder Smith granted blacks full
membership in the faith not long after founding the church in 1830.
Brigham Young reversed the policy after the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints _ the formal name of the Mormon church _ came
to Utah.
Young said blacks bore the "mark of Cain" and implied they
were inferior to whites. Blacks were banned from church temples and
denied full church blessings, including the sacred ceremonies which
Mormons believe bind families for eternity. Black men were excluded
from the priesthood, which gives LDS men ecclesiastical authority.
Blacks remained marginalized until June 8, 1978, after a
revelation from then-president Spencer W. Kimball restored the
priesthood for black men.
Although the LDS church keeps no race-based membership
statistics, some critics have said Kimball's revelation was driven
by practical, not spiritual, concerns. Since 1978, the church
membership has grown significantly in Brazil, the Caribbean and
Africa, where the church now claims more than 250,000 Saints.
Worldwide the church has 13 million members.
An interview subject in the film in addition to his
behind-camera role, Gray said black Mormons needed to tell their
own story instead of letting others continue to interpret their
history.
"It's important to be validated and it's important to share it
with our white brothers and sisters so that can have an
appreciation for who we are and from whence we've come," he said.
"Part of it is sweet, part of it is bitter, but it's our story."
Young said a goal of the film, which was not produced in
conjunction with the church, is to build a bridge between blacks
and whites both in and out of the church.
Gray and Young have been shopping their project to film
festivals across the U.S. To date it's been shown in Dallas,
Detroit and San Diego, where so many turned out that festival
organizers had to move the showing to a larger theater. They hope
to find a distributor that will allow the film, which was funded
largely through a University of Utah grant, to be widely seen.
Earlier this month, the film drew a crowd of more than 100 at
the Foursite Film Festival, in Ogden, Utah.
"This was very impressive," schoolteacher Tamara Lei Peters
said. "There have been so many questions about black people in the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. It made me weep in a few places."
Peters said she knew nothing about black Mormon history before
seeing the film.
David Rowe, who teaches at the Salt Lake Theological Seminary,
knew the history, but said he was surprised by the film.
"I would say it was bracingly forthright about the black
Mormons' struggle," said the self-described evangelical. "I
didn't expect them to allow quite as much criticism along with the
commendation. I expected a bit more of PR gloss, but I didn't find
it overly romanticized."
Mormon Jeanette Lambert of Salt Lake City said perhaps the film
can begin to heal the divisiveness wrought by the past treatment of
black church members. Sadly, some old doctrines that support the
idea that blacks are less than full church members are still
taught, said Lambert, a hospice nurse.
"I think there needs to be a concerted effort made to
acknowledge that some things were wrong. It's a part of the
repentance process," said the mother of two teenagers.
Early Latter-day Saints like Abel, James and Flake, "should be
some of our heroes," she said.
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