Brigham Young, and the Church’s emergence in Africa

My wife and I met yesterday with Mark Goodman and Russell Richins, who are, respectively, the director and producer of the Interpreter Foundation’s current Six Days in August film project.  For the first time, we saw some of the footage from recent filming in Ontario and New York and at the LDS Motion Picture Studio.  It’s looking good, and Mark and Russ are very pleased with what they’ve gotten from the actors and the crew.

Slightly more than 82% of the filming is now done, measuring by allocated time, although some crucial scenes remain to be captured.  (One requires winter weather.)

Alas, though, a considerable amount of money still needs to be raised.  Not my favorite pastime, but unavoidably necessary.

One of the monthly reading groups to which my wife and I belong met (virtually) last night for a discussion of Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood, by W. Paul Reeve.  Happily, the author, Paul Reeve, was able to join us for the discussion, which I really enjoyed.  Unhappily, I was unable to read all of the book.  Having lately returned from nearly a month in the Near East and in England and still being afflicted with jet lag as well as with other obligations, I was only able to get through chapter seven.  But I really enjoyed what I read, and I commend the book to your attention.

The subject has been on my mind, though, and I would like to cite a couple of passages from an article on the topic by Peggy Fletcher Stack that appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune back on 10 June 2018.  The article mentions Billy Johnson, one of the most important early African converts to the Church, as well as my friend Richard Lambert, who reminded me of Billy Johnson’s story just a few weeks ago.  The background is that the current consensus among historians of the issue of blacks and the priesthood seems to be that the prohibition against ordaining blacks came from Brigham Young and that it was generated by his exposure to antebellum Protestant justifications of black slavery and of views of black racial inferiority — or (and I frankly don’t believe that this view is sustainable, given the evidence) by sheer, simple racism on Brigham’s part:

Some LDS historians, however, draw on different passages to come to alternative conclusions about Young’s role.

Ronald K. Esplin, a Young biographer and president of the Brigham Young Center Foundation, points to the leader’s remarks suggesting he may have had some kind of divine communication on that matter.

Clearly, Esplin says, Young believed the ban did not come from him and was not his to change.

“A man who has the African blood in him cannot hold one jot nor tittle of the priesthood. Why? Because they are the true eternal principles the Lord Almighty had ordained,” Young said in the same 1852 speech. “Who can help it — men cannot, the angels cannot, and all the powers of earth and hell cannot take it off, but thus saith the Eternal, ‘I am, what I am, I take it off at my pleasure,’ and not one particle of power can that posterity of Cain have, until the time comes he says he will have it taken away. That time will come when they will have the privilege of all we have the privilege of and more.”

The historical record is “ambiguous,” Esplin says. “Whether he learned these views from Joseph Smith or whether they came from his experience with [interracial marriage] or from God, I don’t think we know.” . . .

Young’s descendants, including Elggren, believe their prophet was prophesying a “temporary ban, and could foresee the future when it would be removed.”

“Brigham said the day would come when black members would receive all the blessings they were denied,” Elggren says, “ — ‘and more.’”

So when LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball reported receiving a “revelation” on June 1, 1978, ending the priesthood prohibition (it was announced a week later), Young’s descendants were not surprised. After all, June 1 was their ancestor’s birthday.

At least one descendant believes Young was working for the change from, well, heaven.

Some years ago, Marcy May Brown, who is a great-great-granddaughter of one of Young’s wives, went to Africa to film a documentary about the history of black Mormons.

In Ghana, Brown met some LDS converts who joined the Utah-based faith even before 1978. One of them, Billy Johnson, told the filmmaker the pioneer leader came to him in a vision and said, “Buck up, Billy. Help is coming.”

The African Latter-day Saint even named his first son “Brigham Young Johnson.”

Having introduced the subject of the history of the Church in Africa, I want to remind you yet again of the Interpreter Foundation’s film project on that subject:  Not by Bread Alone: Stories of the Saints in Africa, which, in order to more fully serve an African audience as well as the rest of us) will be made available in both English and French (as Pas par le Pain Seulement: Histoires des Saints en Afrique).  Again, your support would be appreciated.

We have entered into the final two months of the year, which, at least in the United States, are the two highest months for charitable giving.  We hope that, as you consider possible donations, you will keep the Interpreter Foundation in mind.  We are a volunteer organization with no salaried employees, but that doesn’t mean that we’re without expenses.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, ev’rywhere you go.  At least, I’m hearing Christmas music and seeing Christmas-themed commercials and Christmasy displays in store windows.  But, for good and for ill, we do a lot of our Christmas shopping online now, so I want to remind you of a place where you can get really good stuff and really reasonable prices.  Take a look at the books that have been published by the Interpreter Foundation.  Give somebody — or, even better, many somebodies — a gift of thoughtful, faithful scholarship.