The priesthood ban on Black members: From “direct commandment” to “no clear insights”
A 1949 First Presidency statement called the restriction on Black members a “direct commandment from the Lord.” A 1969 First Presidency letter said Joseph Smith and every later Church president had taught it. The Church now says there is no reliable evidence any Black man was denied the priesthood in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, that its records give “no clear insights” into the practice’s origin, and it disavows the racial theories once used to defend it.
The short answer
Was the racial restriction presented as doctrine rather than merely policy?
Yes. A 1949 First Presidency text described the priesthood restriction as a direct commandment from the Lord and Church doctrine. A signed 1969 First Presidency letter, published in the Church’s Improvement Era, said Joseph Smith and all succeeding presidents taught it.
The contrast
Commandment asserted. Explanations rejected.
These records do not make identical claims. The earlier First Presidency text describes the restriction’s authority. The current essay addresses its uncertain origin and rejects the explanations that accumulated around it.
“It is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization, to the effect that Negroes may become members of the Church but that they are not entitled to the priesthood at the present time.”
“None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church.”“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 unrighteous actions in a premortal life.”
What the Church has not saidThe Church disavows the explanations but does not call the restriction itself a mistake. It treats the 1978 removal as revelation while saying its records cannot explain how the ban began—a ban two First Presidencies attributed to God.
The historical practice
Ordination and temple access
Calling this only a priesthood ban obscures part of its reach. The restriction also prevented Black women and men from receiving temple endowment and sealing ordinances.
Black men held priesthood office
The Church’s Gospel Topics essay says a few Black men were ordained during the Church’s first two decades. It names Elijah Abel and states that there is no reliable evidence any Black man was denied priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime.
The current official history does not locate a Churchwide restriction at the organization of the Church in 1830. The 1949 claim that the doctrine stood “from the days of its organization” contradicts the Church’s present historical account.
Brigham Young announces the policy
The essay says that “in 1852, President Brigham Young publicly announced that men of black African descent could no longer be ordained to the priesthood.” Later Church presidents also barred Black members from the temple endowment and marriage sealings.
Men were excluded from priesthood ordination. Black women as well as Black men were excluded from temple ordinances that the Church teaches are necessary for the highest degree of salvation and for eternal family sealings.
Two official origin stories
“From the beginning” became “no clear insights”
In 1969 the First Presidency told every bishop and stake president that the restriction went back to Joseph Smith. The Church’s current scripture and essay say the opposite.
“From the beginning of this dispensation, Joseph Smith and all succeeding Presidents of the Church have taught that Negroes, while spirit children of a common Father, and the progeny of our earthly parents Adam and Eve, were not yet to receive the priesthood, for reasons which we believe are known to God, but which he has not made fully known to man.”Improvement Era 73, no. 2 (February 1970), p. 70 ↗
“There is no reliable evidence that any black men were denied the priesthood during Joseph Smith’s lifetime.”“Church records offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice.”“Race and the Priesthood”; Official Declaration 2 introduction ↗
“The seeming discrimination by the Church toward the Negro is not something which originated with man; but goes back into the beginning with God.”Improvement Era, February 1970, p. 70
What was taught, and what remains
The explanations were disavowed; the texts behind them were not
The disavowed “theories” were not fringe speculation. A Church president taught them from the pulpit, and they drew on passages that remain in Latter-day Saint scripture today.
“The law of God in regard to the African race”
“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.”
Delivered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and reported by George D. Watt. The 2013 essay now disavows the idea “that mixed-race marriages are a sin.”
Journal of Discourses 10:110 · page scan ↗Skin, curse, and lineage remain in the standard works
- 2 Nephi 5:21: because the Lamanites “were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome,” the Lord “did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.” Verse 23: “cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed.”
- Moses 7:22: “the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them.”
- Abraham 1:27: Pharaoh was “of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood.”
The study aid was revised instead. The 1981 chapter heading for 2 Nephi 5 said the Lamanites “receive a skin of blackness”; the current heading says they are “cut off from the presence of the Lord, are cursed, and become a scourge unto the Nephites.” The verse itself is unchanged.
The institutional explanation
A new revelation removed the restriction
Official Declaration 2 records that Spencer W. Kimball prayed and meditated in the temple, then presented the revelation to his counselors and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The First Presidency announced on June 8, 1978 that every worthy man could be ordained without regard to race or color and could enjoy with his loved ones every blessing of the temple.
The current essay places that decision within a broader history: nineteenth-century American racial culture, the Church’s international growth, the planned São Paulo temple, the faithfulness of Black members, and leaders’ belief that revelation was required to change a long-standing restriction. In the Church’s account, those circumstances prompted sustained prayer; the change itself came from God.
What changed
Practice, access, and explanation
The record documents changes in ordination, temple access, and the explanations used to justify exclusion.
Priesthood practice
Before June 1978, men of Black African descent were excluded from ordination. Official Declaration 2 removed the racial restriction.
Temple access
Black women and men had been barred from endowment and sealing ordinances. The 1978 revelation extended temple blessings without the former racial limit.
Explanatory doctrine
The current essay rejects theories involving divine curses, premortal unrighteousness, sinful interracial marriage, or racial inferiority. It says none is official doctrine today.
Treatment of earlier claims
Bruce R. McConkie, then an apostle, said in August 1978 that earlier contrary statements came from “limited understanding” and should be forgotten in light of the new revelation.
“Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation.”“All Are Alike unto God,” BYU Religious Educator’s Symposium
Biblical context
No inherited curse, no partiality
The restriction rested on claims about lineage: a curse passed from Cain or Ham, or premortal conduct marked by race. The Bible addresses both inherited guilt and ethnic standing before God.
Ezekiel 18:20
Guilt is not inherited
“The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father.”
Ezekiel answers a proverb blaming children for their fathers’ sins: “The soul who sins shall die.” A rule that withheld priesthood and temple blessings because of descent from Cain or Ham assigned exactly the inherited penalty this chapter rejects. The Genesis curse in 9:25 falls on Canaan and says nothing about skin.
Ezekiel 18:19–20; Genesis 9:24–27, ESV ↗Acts 17:26; Revelation 7:9
One human family before one throne
“He made from one man every nation of mankind.”
Paul tells the Athenians that every nation shares a single origin. Revelation pictures worshipers “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” standing before the Lamb together—not a people barred from the sanctuary by lineage.
Acts 17:26; Revelation 7:9, ESV ↗Acts 10; Romans 2
God shows no partiality
“God shows no partiality.”
In Acts 10, Peter reaches this conclusion as the gospel crosses the boundary between Jew and Gentile. Romans 2 applies the same principle to God’s judgment. The Church’s current essay cites both passages—texts that were in its Bible throughout the 126 years of the restriction.
Acts 10:34–35; Romans 2:11, ESV ↗Galatians 3:26–29
One in Christ Jesus
“You are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Paul places ethnic, social, and sex distinctions within his argument that all who belong to Christ are Abraham’s offspring and heirs. Christians disagree about how this bears on some church offices, but the passage denies unequal standing in the covenant family on the basis of ancestry.
Galatians 3:26–29, ESV ↗Biblical quotations are from the English Standard Version. The Gospel Topics essay itself cites Acts 10:34–35, Romans 2:11, and Galatians 3:28 when presenting the Church’s current teaching.
Finding
A ban attributed to God now has no known origin
The restriction, its effects on priesthood and temple access, and its removal in 1978 are documented facts. Church leaders did not present it as an administrative policy. The 1949 First Presidency called it a direct commandment from the Lord. The 1969 First Presidency said Joseph Smith and every later president taught it, and quoted David O. McKay that it went back “into the beginning with God.”
The current Church account says Black men held the priesthood in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, that Church records offer “no clear insights” into the practice’s origin, and that the racial explanations once taught from the pulpit are disavowed. The scriptural passages on skin, curse, and lineage remain in the canon unchanged; the chapter heading that summarized one of them was rewritten.
Sources and limitations
Read the record
The current position, 1978 declaration, and McConkie address are available in complete official or institutional texts. The 1949 First Presidency wording survives online through an archival reproduction rather than an original signed document.
The core quotation is dated August 17, 1949 in an archived typescript. Edward L. Kimball reports that the George Albert Smith administration began sending this standardized response in 1949 and that David O. McKay’s First Presidency continued using it in 1951. Later books reproduced expanded versions under a 1951 date. Because an original signed 1951 document was not located, this article does not attribute those later expansions to a distinct 1951 First Presidency statement.