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Blacks & the Priesthood: Support for the Exclusionary Doctrine

Array ( [0] => HIST 3770 Spring 2018 [1] => no-show [2] => student exhibit )

Support for the Exclusionary Doctrine

Helaman 6- 27.png
Helaman 6:27
2 Nephi 5- 21.png
2 Nephi 5:21

Supremacy Since Cain

 

As mentioned earlier, the LDS Church believed that African descendants directly inherited the curse of Cain through primeval lineage. Various scriptures, including Helaman 6:271 and 2 Nephi 5:21,2 preach inferiority of the black race because of the actions taken by their ancient, religious forefathers.

Helaman 6 states that Cain was cursed after he killed his brother and then continued to plot with his followers form then on.3 The idea of supremacy is reinforced in 2 Nephi 5 when it says that blacks "might not be enticing unto my people [because] the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."4 These scriptures, among many others, were popularly used to support the argument that the LDS Church's policies were doctrine based and unchangeable, meaning that they were not a civil rights issue.

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Doctrine and Covenants 121:21

No Right to the Priesthood

Doctrine and Covenants 121:21 was a pivotal argument to support the doctrine excluding African Americans from receiving the priesthood.5 The section reprimands the transgressors, corrupted, and cursed.6 Race is never mentioned in the text, but that is how the verses were commonly interpreted.

References

1. John Fitzgerald, "Scriptures that LDS Leaders Say Support Their Discrimination Against Negroes of African Ancestry," MSS 102, Box 20, Folder 4, USUSCA. 

2. Yates Heywood, The Negro Question Resolved (1964), 10, MSS LJAHA 1, Series IX, Box 40, Folder 5, USUSCA.

3. Helaman 6:27.

4. 2 Nephi 5:21.

5. Heywood, The Negro Question Resolved, 11. 

6. Doctrine and Covenants 121:21.