"Certainly, one lesson from Latter-day Saint history is that it offers no room for Christian nationalism." A brief history on religious liberty among Latter-day Saints as members of the faith around the globe share in a fast on the subject. www.deseret.com/faith/2026/0...

Harriet (Hattie) Gertrude Church was born in 1881, in Deseret, Millard County, Utah, after her parents migrated from Tennessee and left their former involvement with slavery behind.

Mary Jane McElroy was over one hundred years old when she died. She had lived through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Native American colonization, the Jim Crow South, and both world wars by the time she passed away in 1948.

What does Juneteenth have to do with Utah history? Utah remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War so we might think that Juneteenth does not involve Utah but we'd be wrong.

Frank Perkins' maternal great-grandparents were Green & Martha Ann Morris Flake, both of whom were enslaved Latter-day Saints when they arrived in Utah Territory. In fact, Frank's great-grandfather, Green Flake, arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 22, 1847, two days ahead of Brigham Young.

Forty-eight years ago today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reintegrated its priesthood & temples & restored the Church to its universal roots. Today we remember some of those who slipped past the walls of exclusion to receive priesthood ordination or temple rituals before June 1978.

May 20, 2026, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Enoch Lovejoy Lewis. Century of Black Mormons commemorates his birth and remembers him on its 200th anniversary.

Today we remember David Samuel Sampson. In 1908, just five years after the CofJCofLDS again opened an evangelizing mission in South Africa, a newly married 36-year-old blacksmith named David Sampson had a chance encounter with one of the faith’s missionaries in Cape Town.

Today we remember Wesley Taylor who was described as a faithful African American member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lived in Utah towards the end of his life.

Today we remember Philida "Phyllis" Jacoba Elizabeth February Daniels Sampson who was baptized a Latter-day Saint in South Africa in 1909. Phyllis and her family were of mixed racial ancestry, or “coloured” in South African terminology.

Today we remember Mary Elizabeth "Polly" Bowdidge Berry Crowton. Polly's mother was a white convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the Isle of Guernsey in the Channel Islands.

Today we remember Grace Samantha Ritchie Gerhardt Searle Mann Ashton, the first documented woman born to a formerly enslaved parent to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Huron Perkins, born on Christmas Day in 1908, descended from Black Mormon pioneers on both sides of his family tree. His paternal grandparents (Frank and Esther Perkins) and maternal great-grandparents (Green and Martha Flake) had each traveled to the Great Basin enslaved.

After Ellen Susannah Hathaway, a white Latter-day Saint, fled her plural marriage to a much older man, she married Thomas F. Tanner, a Black migrant from Missouri who was not a Latter-day Saint.

In 1899, the notable Black journalist Julius F. Taylor interviewed an elderly Black couple in the small Utah County community of Spanish Fork for his newspaper, the Broad Ax.

Remember that time in 1856 when Latter-day Saint immigrants were denigrated as a "congregation of apes with tails"? Even though the video that President Donald Trump posted of the Obamas included other people also depicted as animals, superiority and inferiority are the point.

My thanks to Jana Riess and Religion News Service for publishing my opinion piece on the ICE incursions into Minnesota as an eerie echo from the past--the federal incursion into Utah Territory in 1857-58 known as the Utah War. religionnews.com/2026/02/02/w...

Annie May Ritchie died young, at age 25, just over a year after her marriage. She was the daughter of a formerly enslaved father and a white mother. Her parents were denied temple admission in 1909 because the family’s bishop

Ida Belle Leggroan Dixon's mother and father migrated to Utah from Mississippi in 1870 after being emancipated at the end of the Civil War.

Thomas Coleman’s life was marked by tragedy. He arrived in Salt Lake City in 1848, enslaved to John and Nancy Crosby Bankhead, converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Mississippi.

Henry Geboyle Church was around seven years old when he and his family crossed the United States from Tennessee to Utah Territory to join with other Latter-day Saints in their Rocky Mountain home.

In 1896, a Black man identified only as "Mr. Knox" was described as a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lived in Utah in his later years. That year, he attended a festival in Utah that celebrated its citizens who were over seventy years of age.

Alberta Mae Roberts is a third-generation member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her grandparents, Ned and Susan Leggroan, were formerly enslaved in the South and moved west after the Civil War in search of a new life and better opportunities.

Sarah Jett was an early Black Saint baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Kentucky. Sarah’s father, George Jett, converted first in 1898, & then Sarah & her sister Katie received baptism eleven years later, on the same day as their stepmother, Alwilda.

Nina Viola Stevenson Howell was the first wife of one of the better-known Black Mormons of the twentieth century, Abner Leonard Howell. She was born and raised in Michigan and met Abner during the time he studied law and played football at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Martha Ann Leggroan Roberts Stevens's parents, Ned and Susan Leggroan, were both born into slavery and both previously married. Martha was their first child together. Susan gave birth to Martha in Utah Territory on 5 December 1870, after migrating from Mississippi that spring.

Today we remember Mary Willson even though we know very little about her. The only surviving source to name her and describe her as a “colored woman” is a list of rebaptisms performed in Nashville, Lee County, Iowa. 1/7

Even though Mary Bowdidge Berry Smith was a white woman, she nonetheless ran afoul of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ racial policies. LDS leaders barred Mary from receiving the crowning rituals of her faith because she had married a Black man & had children with him.

Ethel Irene Wells Burdette and her husband William were two of three Black converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, baptized on the same day in 1914 in Chester County, Pennsylvania where William worked in the coal mines. 1/5

Alex James Brooks grew to adulthood in southwestern Georgia during federal Reconstruction when southern Black people enjoyed some of the rights promised in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, including citizenship and Black male voting rights. 1/4

Major Dorimus Church's mother was formerly enslaved to his father. Born in Tennessee in 1869, in the aftermath of the Civil War, he and his mother and his siblings were listed in the 1870 census as Black. 1/6

John & Laura Thorpe Fuller were both likely born into slavery in Granville County, North Carolina, before the Civil War began. After slavery was abolished, John worked on his father's farm from a young age & continued to do so well into adulthood, likely cultivating tobacco. 1/7

Lorah Jane Bowdidge Berry Barton’s life history illustrates the ramifications of the one-drop racial temple & priesthood ban that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enforced on members who appeared to be white, but who actually had limited Black African ancestry. 1/5

Sylvester James, along with his mother Jane Manning James, his half-brother Silas, and step father Isaac James, was an 1847 pioneer into the Salt Lake Valley. He labored to establish a new settlement in the valley and with his family worked in Brigham Young's household. 1/6

A new painting at LDS Church History Library by Casey Lynn Childs depicts a singular day in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On September 3, 1875, 8 African American Latter-day Saints attended the Endowment House to perform proxy baptisms for deceased friends & family.

Albert Webb had a short-lived membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Only a couple of weeks after his baptism in 1872 in Tennessee, he returned to his previous religion, the Disciples of Christ. 1/4

The Salt Lake Tribune Mormon Land podcast interviewed Professors Jenny Pulsipher and Paul Reeve about the new Century of Black Mormons bio of James Brown Jr., a captain in the Mormon Battalion and founder of Ogden, Utah. A link to the Mormon Land interview follows.

One public historian who wrote about Susannah Lucretia Tanner Christensen Stevens for a Las Vegas history project suggested that her long life embodied “much of western history.” 1/4

John Stewart Knight was beset by opposition for most of his life. As a mixed-race man & suspected homosexual, he faced considerable challenges. 1/3

2/2 More poignantly, these sources suggest a desire to fulfill the covenants she made on a spring evening in Texas, in which “many spoke by the spirit & prophesied” & the fervor of the event captivated the new converts until midnight. Meet Louisa here: exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

Without an 1853 journal entry from Texas and an 1857 entry in Latter-day Saint records in Utah, an enslaved woman named Louisa may have been lost to history. These two sources offer an intriguing glimpse into her life and her epic westward journey. 1/2

Something for Father's day: open.substack.com/pub/wayfare/...

Looking for a Father's day gift? Nothing says "I love you dad" like a history of slavery in Utah. This Abominable Slavery won the Mormon History Association's Best Book Award & Amazon has it on sale for 21% off. Fathers everywhere are hoping for a copy instead of that boring tie you picked out

47 years ago today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reintegrated its priesthood and temples and restored the Church to its universal roots. Today we remember some of those who slipped past the walls of exclusion to receive priesthood ordination or temple rituals before June 1978. 1/12

For those of you participating in Holy Week, here is a piece on Holy Saturdays, the day between the agony of the cross and the wonder of the empty tomb. Shout out to Matthew Wickman for introducing me to Holy Saturdays in his book, Life to the Whole Being. www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/holy-satur...

William Franklin Church was the first son born to his formerly enslaved mother following her emancipation at the end of the Civil War. Census records identified him as Black in Tennessee and white in Utah. 1/4

When Mary Church was born in 1863 in TN, her father was her enslaver. At age 16, she received LDS temple rituals & served as proxy when her father was vicariously sealed to his deceased first wife. Meet Mary here & learn the rest of her remarkable story: exhibits.lib.utah.edu/s/century-of...

Standing with Ukraine is the most America first approach we can adopt. What we saw in the White House on full public display is a Russia first policy that ignores the lessons of history and undermines our foundational values.

Grateful for these BYU law professors for speaking up. Worth a read. www.deseret.com/opinion/2025...