This is a tough one without any satisfying answers. Ironically, Joseph Smith and other founding members of the Church brought strong abolitionist views into the Church. When one of the early black members of the Church arrived, destitute and orphaned, in the city in Illinois where the Church membership was gathered, Joseph and his wife Emma invited her to stay in their home – as an equal. After a time, Joseph and Emma wanted to adopt the teenager as a part of their family but she politely declined. Nevertheless, she continued living with the Smith family for a number of years.
Under Joseph Smith's leadership, people of African descent were ordained to the priesthood. Later, in 1844, when Smith declared his candidacy for US president, one of his central planks was the abolishment of slavery in the country.
Additionally, Mormon scripture does not support prejudice. The Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 26:33) states that the [Lord] “inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female…and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.” On the topic of prejudice, another Book of Mormon scripture commands “that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins.” So there appears to be clear injunctions against mistreating any people, regardless of skin color.
However, after Joseph Smith’s death in the 1840s, early Mormon leadership began to teach a doctrine borrowed from other Christian denominations at the time – that due to God’s cursing of Adam’s son Cain (Gen 4:11), and then Noah’s grandson Canaan (Gen 9:25), people of African ancestry were also cursed. Unfortunately, there is no clear record of how this doctrine entered the Mormon church.
Therefore, there may be several sources for it. First, Brigham Young and other early Church leaders obviously thought it was doctrinal. It may also have been deemed an appropriate response to the persecutions that resulted in the assassination of Joseph Smith and the expulsion of the Church first from the slave state of Missouri and then from Illinois.
Though the Book of Mormon does not discuss people of African descent, many past members of the Church interpreted some passages to support racial prejudice – which goes contrary to the Book of Mormon passages cited above. President David McKay, leader of the Church for much of the 1900s noted in various conversations that not extending the priesthood to blacks was a matter of policy that would some day be changed*. Sadly, changing a deeply in-grained policy took some time. Whether some of the timing of this change depended on the readiness of the Church membership, I don’t know. We can see from Moses’ experience with Israel at Mount Sinai that God does adapt His law to the readiness of the people.
Some recent commentators have wryly stated that the 1978 revelation extending the priesthood to all races came at a “convenient” time. However, the logic for this conclusion isn’t clear. From a public relations perspective, having such a revelation 15-20 years earlier would have been far more convenient. And from a financial perspective, the membership of the Church in Africa will not be able to cover the cost of building chapels and temples in Africa for many decades into the future. It would have been far more financially convenient for the revelation to have come after Africa was further developed economically.
Regardless of the timing of the change or the origins of the policy itself, we believe that the change opening the priesthood to all ethnicities was divinely inspired. As most people who know Mormons can readily witness, Mormons are as fallible as the rest of humanity. We make mistakes and struggle with our own weaknesses. Nevertheless, it is my hope that the extension of the priesthood to all races and ethnicities helps to erase any internal prejudices our own members may have.
(*See David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Greg Prince and Wm. Robert Wright).
