Timeline
The story in date order. Each event links to the episode that covers it.
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March 1830
The Book of Mormon's "skin of blackness"
The Book of Mormon is published. In 2 Nephi 5:21 the Lamanites are cursed with "a skin of blackness" for their wickedness, and in 3 Nephi 2:15 the curse is lifted and their skin becomes white. The passages concern Native Americans, not Africans, but they teach that God marks lineages by skin color.
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June to December 1830
Joseph Smith writes the curse of Cain into scripture
In his revision of Genesis, now the Book of Moses, Smith dictates that God set a mark on Cain (Moses 5:40), that "the seed of Cain were black" (Moses 7:22), and that "a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan" (Moses 7:8). The chapters are printed in the church's newspaper in 1832 and 1833 and canonized in the Pearl of Great Price in 1880.
1 “Not One-Drop” of African Blood Rule2 Mormon Priesthood and Temple Ban: From Policy to “Doctrine”
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March 1836
Elijah Abel is ordained
A Black convert from Maryland is ordained an elder in Kirtland and, that December, a seventy. He serves missions, works on the Nauvoo Temple, and remains a priesthood holder until his death in 1884.
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1835 to 1842
The Book of Abraham ties the curse to the priesthood
Smith buys Egyptian papyri in July 1835 and publishes his translation in the Times and Seasons in March 1842. Abraham 1:21 to 27 says Pharaoh descended from Ham through Egyptus and was "cursed as pertaining to the Priesthood." Canonized in 1880, it becomes the proof text for the ban even though Smith ordained Black men.
1 “Not One-Drop” of African Blood Rule2 Mormon Priesthood and Temple Ban: From Policy to “Doctrine”
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1843 to 1844
Jane Manning James reaches Nauvoo
A free Black convert from Connecticut walks much of the way to Nauvoo and lives in Joseph Smith's household. She later petitions for decades to receive the temple endowment and is refused.
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February 1844
Joseph Smith's presidential platform
Running for president, Smith proposes buying the freedom of enslaved people with proceeds from the sale of public lands and ending slavery by 1850.
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1847
Brigham Young turns against Black priesthood holders
Learning that Black member Enoch Lewis has married a white woman, Young tells the Twelve that such a couple deserves death. Fear of interracial marriage, not scripture, is the seed of the ban.
1 “Not One-Drop” of African Blood Rule16 The End of the Priesthood and Temple Ban Came with a Catch
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February 5, 1852
The ban is declared
Addressing the Utah legislature as it legalizes slavery in the territory, Young announces that any man with "one drop" of the blood of Cain cannot hold the priesthood. No written revelation is ever produced.
1 “Not One-Drop” of African Blood Rule2 Mormon Priesthood and Temple Ban: From Policy to “Doctrine”
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1879
Abel's ordination is questioned
After Young's death, President John Taylor investigates Elijah Abel. Zebedee Coltrin claims Joseph Smith had ordered Black men dropped from the priesthood; Abel denies it and keeps his office.
2 Mormon Priesthood and Temple Ban: From Policy to “Doctrine”
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1908
Joseph F. Smith rewrites the history
Having earlier defended Abel's ordination, President Smith now tells the Twelve it was declared null by Joseph Smith. The ban hardens from practice into what leaders call doctrine.
2 Mormon Priesthood and Temple Ban: From Policy to “Doctrine”
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1947
Lowry Nelson challenges the First Presidency
A Utah State sociologist asked about missionary work in Cuba writes to the First Presidency questioning the ban. Their replies affirm it as doctrine. He publishes the exchange in The Nation in 1952.
3 The Professor Who Confronted Mormon Leaders on Racism – Lowry Nelson
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August 17, 1949
The First Presidency's 1949 statement
George Albert Smith's presidency declares the ban a "direct commandment from the Lord" rooted in premortal conduct, the fullest official defense the church ever issues.
2 Mormon Priesthood and Temple Ban: From Policy to “Doctrine”3 The Professor Who Confronted Mormon Leaders on Racism – Lowry Nelson
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1954
McKay in South Africa; the Bennion committee
President David O. McKay drops the rule that South African converts prove their ancestry before ordination, and appoints a committee under Adam S. Bennion to study the ban. Bennion's notes record leaders admitting it rests on no scripture.
5 Revealing The Secret Mormon Report That Shattered Racist “Doctrine” – The Bennion Report
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August 27, 1954
Mark E. Petersen's BYU address
Weeks after Brown v. Board of Education, Apostle Petersen tells religion teachers that segregation is God's plan and that Black members who prove worthy may enter heaven as servants.
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1950s
Segregation in Zion
Utah hotels, restaurants, swimming pools, and blood banks are segregated, and some Relief Societies exclude Black women. Church leaders decline to support state civil rights bills.
6 Top Mormon Leaders Blame God for Segregation9 Black Mormons React to Mormon Church Leaders Supporting Racial Segregation
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1950s to 1960s
The "Swearing Elders" and the firings
A circle of University of Utah intellectuals questions orthodoxy, including the ban. Joseph Fielding Smith seeks excommunications; President McKay shields Sterling McMurrin, but liberal church educators are pushed out.
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1958 to 1961
Hugh B. Brown joins the leadership
The Canadian attorney becomes an apostle in 1958 and a counselor in the First Presidency in 1961. He begins pressing McKay to lift the ban.
8 Renegade Apostle: Hugh B. Brown’s Early Attempts to Lift The Priesthood and Temple Ban
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1963
Brown tells the New York Times change is coming
Brown says the ban is under "serious consideration." That October he reads a First Presidency statement at general conference endorsing civil rights. Hardliners in the Twelve are furious.
8 Renegade Apostle: Hugh B. Brown’s Early Attempts to Lift The Priesthood and Temple Ban12 Mormon Apostle Tries to End the Priesthood and Temple Ban
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1962 to 1967
Romney, Benson, and the NAACP
Michigan Governor George Romney marches for civil rights while Apostle Ezra Taft Benson embraces the John Birch Society. In 1965 the NAACP pickets church headquarters until Utah passes a civil rights law. Stewart Udall's open letter calls the ban indefensible.
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October 1967
Snipers on the Tabernacle
Fed Birch Society rumors of Black militants, church security posts armed men on the Tabernacle roof for general conference. No attack comes.
13 Mormon Prophets Hired Snipers for the 1967 General Conference
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1968 to 1970
BYU and the athletic boycotts
Fourteen Black Wyoming football players are dismissed for planning an armband protest against BYU; Stanford and others cut athletic ties. A firebomb is thrown at a BYU basketball game. Federal officials press BYU on its near-total absence of Black students.
11 How BYU Kept Black Students Out13 Mormon Prophets Hired Snipers for the 1967 General Conference
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December 15, 1969
The 1969 statement
With McKay incapacitated, the First Presidency reaffirms the ban. Harold B. Lee forces Brown to sign it. Weeks later McKay dies, Joseph Fielding Smith becomes president, and Brown is dropped from the First Presidency.
12 Mormon Apostle Tries to End the Priesthood and Temple Ban
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October 1971
The Genesis Group
Three apostles, including Boyd K. Packer and Thomas S. Monson, help organize a support group for Black Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, an admission that they exist and are staying.
14 Revelation or Secret Meeting? How the Priesthood and Temple Bans Ended
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1973 to 1975
Kimball and the São Paulo Temple
Spencer W. Kimball becomes president at the end of 1973 and in 1975 announces a temple for Brazil, where the church cannot tell who is eligible to enter it. The ban becomes unworkable.
14 Revelation or Secret Meeting? How the Priesthood and Temple Bans Ended
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June 1, 1978
The ban is lifted
After months of private prayer and one-on-one conversations with each apostle, Kimball gathers the Twelve in the Salt Lake Temple. Their unanimous consent is announced to the world on June 8 as Official Declaration 2.
14 Revelation or Secret Meeting? How the Priesthood and Temple Bans Ended15 Mormon Prophet Slams Apostles for Fabricating Miracle Story
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1978 onward
The catch
The revelation ends the ban but leaders keep counseling against interracial marriage, and the warning lingers in manuals and on the church website for decades.
16 The End of the Priesthood and Temple Ban Came with a Catch
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August 18, 1978
McConkie's "forget everything I have said"
Bruce R. McConkie tells church educators to disregard his and others' earlier teachings on race. His embellished account of the temple meeting draws a rebuke from Kimball.
15 Mormon Prophet Slams Apostles for Fabricating Miracle Story
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1980s to 1990s
Birchers, King Day, and BYU purges
The church resists then accepts a Martin Luther King holiday in Utah. Mormon Doctrine stays in print after McConkie's death, while BYU pushes out professors Eugene England and Steven Epperson for their liberal views.
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2010 to 2012
Mormon Doctrine withdrawn; the Randy Bott affair
The church quietly takes McConkie's book out of print. In 2012 BYU professor Randy Bott defends the old ban to the Washington Post, and the church for the first time publicly disavows its racial explanations.
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December 6, 2013
The "Race and the Priesthood" essay
A Gospel Topics essay published without a signature disavows the theories behind the ban and sets it in the context of nineteenth-century American racism. It stops short of an apology.
18 Mormon Prophets’ Push to Erase Racist Past19 The Lasting Legacy of the LDS Priesthood Ban
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2018
"Be One" and the fake apology
The church marks forty years since the revelation with a celebration at the Conference Center. Weeks earlier a hoax press release announcing a church apology for the ban had circulated widely, and been repudiated.
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2020 to 2022
Nelson, Oaks, BYU, and Brad Wilcox
President Nelson calls on members to abandon prejudice; Dallin H. Oaks tells BYU that Black lives matter. BYU's Race, Equity, and Belonging report documents ongoing discrimination, and in 2022 Brad Wilcox apologizes for remarks belittling the ban.