Black Intermarriage
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Mormon Quotes Index
Prophet Joseph
Smith, Jr. (1805-1844):
“Had I anything to do
with the negro, I would confine them by strict
law to their own species...”
-
Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., January 2, 1845, History
of the Church, v.
5, pp. 21-218
Prophet Brigham Young
(1801 -1877):
“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.”
-
Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses,
v. 10, p. 110
Prophet George Albert
Smith (1870 – 1951):
“Your ideas, as we
understand them, appear to contemplate the
intermarriage of the Negro and white races, a concept which has
heretofore been most repugnant to most normal-minded people from the
ancient patriarchs until now.... there is a growing tendency,
particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this area,
toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of
intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the
sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.”
-
LDS First Presidency (George Albert Smith), letter
to Virgil H. Sponberg (critic of the anti-black ban), May 5, 1947,
quoted in Lester E. Bush, Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine:
An Historical
Overview, p. 42
Apostle Mark E.
Peterson (1900 – 1984):
“We must not
inter-marry with the Negro. Why? If I were to
marry a Negro woman and have children by her, my children would oil be
cursed as to the priesthood. Do I want my children cursed as to
the priesthood? If there is one drop of Negro blood in my
children, as I have read to you, they receive the curse. There
isn’t any argument, therefore, as to inter-marriage with the Negro, is
there?”
-
Apostle Mark E. Peterson, “Race Problems – As They
Effect the Church,” Address given at the Convention of Teachers
of Religion on the College Level, delivered at BYU, August 27, 1954
Apostle Bruce R.
McConkie (1915 – 1985):
“However, in a broad
general sense, caste systems have their root and
origin in the gospel itself, and when they operate according to the
divine decree, the resultant restrictions and segregation are right and
proper and have the approval of the Lord. To illustrate: Cain,
Ham, and the whole negro race have been cursed with a black skin, the
mark of Cain, so they can be identified as a caste apart, a people with
whom the other descendants of Adam should not intermarry.”
-
Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine,
p. 114
Others:
“Brigham Young made a
very strong statement on this matter when he
said, ‘... 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.’ God has commanded
Israel not to intermarry. To go against this commandment of God
would be to sin. Those who willfully sin with their eyes open to
this wrong will not be surprised to find that they will be separated
from the presence of God in the world to come. This is spiritual
death.... It does not matter if they are one-sixth Negro or one-one
hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is still the same.... To
intermarry with a Negro is to forfeit a ‘Nation of Priesthood holders.’”
-
Elder John L. Lund, The Church and the Negro,
pp. 54-55, 1967
