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Dear Gramps, I would like to know about the blacks and the priesthood. I am reading the book, “One More River to Cross” from the series “Standing on the Promises” by Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aldan Gray. The book states that Elijah Able, who joined the church in the Kirtland days was given the priesthood as a Seventy by Joseph Smith and held it until he died. Were there others who also held the priesthood. If so why and when was it taken from them. Sincerely, Caletta |
Dear Caletta,
The following excerpt from Encyclopedia of Mormonism, should provide an answer to your question—
“Although several blacks were ordained to the priesthood in the 1830s, there is no evidence that Joseph Smith authorized new ordinations in the 1840s, and between 1847 and 1852 Church leaders maintained that blacks should be denied the priesthood because of their lineage. According to the book of Abraham (now part of the Pearl of Great Price), the descendants of Cain were to be denied the priesthood of God (Abr. 1:23‑26). Some Latter‑day Saints theorized that blacks would be restricted throughout mortality. As early as 1852, however, Brigham Young said that the “time will come when they will have the privilege of all we have the privilege of and more” (Brigham Young Papers, Church Archives, Feb. 5, 1852), and increasingly in the 1960s, Presidents of the Church taught that denial of entry to the priesthood was a current commandment of God, but would not prevent blacks from eventually possessing all eternal blessings.
—Gramps