I’m happy to have Dr Paul Reeve back on the show! We’ll talk about the earliest black Mormons who did and did not hold the priesthood. Paul has a new book published by Deseret Book titled “Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood.” He will introduce the book and discuss his amazing website called “Century of Black Mormons.” It will include not only famous ones like Elijah Abel, but others you haven’t heard of like his son Moroni Abel. Check out our conversation…
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Earliest Black Mormons
GT 00:36 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have one of my favorite historians. It’s been a long time since he’s been on the show. Some of you new listeners may not have even known that Paul was my second interview ever. Paul, could you go ahead and tell us who you are and where we are?
Paul 00:52 I’m Paul Reeve and I’m a Simmons Chair of Mormon studies in the history department at the University of Utah.
GT 01:00 Perfect. I remember the last time I talked to you, you had just received a promotion. And this is not the same office that we were in last time.
Paul 01:12 That’s right.
GT 01:13 I think you’ve received a couple of promotions since then. Last time you were a full professor. What’s happened in the last seven years?
Paul 01:20 So I am now chair of the History Department at the University of Utah. It’s a three-year appointment. I’m in the first of three years as chair at the department.
GT 01:32 And that’s your favorite job?
Paul 01:35 Well, I’d probably rather be in the classroom.
GT 01:40 You know, it’s funny because Margaret Toscano, she’s been on a couple of times, and she was department chair. And she was like, “I can’t wait until I’m done with this.”
Paul 01:48 Yes.
GT 01:49 What’s the big deal about department chair? Why is it such a terrible job?
Paul 01:54 {Chuckles} Well, hopefully no one from my department listens to this. It’s a lot of bureaucratic work that just isn’t my favorite thing.
GT 02:05 Okay. I can see that. So, you’re just much more of a researcher.
Paul 02:10 Yeah, I’d rather be in the classroom and researching and writing.
GT 02:15 Well, very good. Okay. Well, you’ve got a new book. Now, why don’t you go ahead and show it to the audience? It’s a big book, you can see.
Paul 02:24 (Chuckling) It’s very small.
GT 02:25 What’s it called?
Paul 02:26 Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood. It’s a part of Deseret Book’s, “Let’s talk About” series. Darius Gray wrote the foreword and I’m really honored to have his story at the beginning of the book. He’s a remarkable Latter-day Saint and I’m really honored that he was willing to participate and write the foreword.
GT 02:57 Yeah, Darius is a great guy. I actually talked to him when I saw you last week at Writ & Vision. So, he’s going to be on the show. But for those people who don’t know who he is, could you just give a short blurb about Darius?
Paul 03:11 Yeah, Darius joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before the 1978 revelation and has been just an important black Latter-day Saint ever since. He was a part of the original Genesis group leadership and became president of Genesis, which is a support group for black Latter-day Saints officially organized by the Church. He was a counselor from 1971 to 1997. So, think about the tenure that he spent there. And then he became president of Genesis from 1997 to 2003.
GT 03:55 You know, they used to have 20-year callings. We didn’t think those still were around, but apparently, they are.
Paul 04:00 In Darius’ case, they were, yes. And he really became the face of Genesis and really made it what it is today. I think he’s lived through being a black Latter-day Saint and all of the changes that the 1978 Revelation brought about and is really remarkable.
GT 04:28 He’s a great guy. I’m looking forward to talking to him, so that’ll be a lot of fun. The other thing I want to mention, behind you, I’m going to scroll up a little bit. Tell us who is on the painting behind you here.
Paul 04:42 So this is Isaac Lewis Manning, Jane Manning James’s brother, who converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Connecticut, within a few months of Jane’s conversion. [He was] part of her family that embraced the gospel and he went to Nauvoo with Jane and the rest of the family. He became a cook for Joseph Smith and Nauvoo Mansion House. And then, at the murder of Joseph and Hyrum, Isaac dug four graves. He dug two graves that were decoy graves where caskets were filled with sand were buried because they were afraid that the mobs that killed Joseph and Hyrum would come back and desecrate the bodies.
Paul 05:35 Then he dug the actual graves where the bodies were buried at the Joseph Smith homestead. And so, Marlena Wilding is the artist who did this portrait of Isaac. She included the shovel as the symbol of Isaac’s service. And it’s such an important act of service to him, that in 1903, after he had arrived in Salt Lake, he swore out an affidavit that gave the details of his service in digging those graves. And so that affidavit is what is he’s holding in his other hand, so [he is holding] the two symbols of his service. He considered it his badge of honor that he provided this service for the slain bodies of Joseph and Hyrum.
GT 06:24 Everybody knows about Jane, but I don’t think anybody knows that story about Isaiah, her brother, so that’s pretty cool.
Paul 06:29 Yeah, he’s got his own remarkable story. I wrote an article on him in the Journal of Mormon History. So you can read more about that. And then there’s a shorter version at The Century of Black Mormons database.
Century of Black Mormons
GT 06:43 Okay. And I was glad you mentioned Century of Black Mormons. That was my next question. Tell us a little bit about that.
Paul 06:49 So I am manager and general editor for an online database. It’s a website. It’s just www.centuryofblackmormons.org. We are just attempting to identify all known people of black African descent, baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its first 100 years, between 1830 and 1930. We have 130 biographies completed and publicly available in the database, and 200 more under research. So, by the time we’re done, we’ll be somewhere between 300 and 400 in the database. We write biographies. We also load all primary source documents that we find and have permission to make publicly available, so that the general public can see the documents, but also read the biographies of these black Latter-day Saints.
GT 07:50 Now, that brings up another question, two questions. First of all, since Isaac is behind you, let’s talk about him first. Was he ordained to the priesthood, that you’ve been able to identify?
Paul 08:02 No, Isaac was not ordained to the priesthood. He stays in the Midwest when Jane migrates to Utah with her husband, Isaac James. Isaac Manning stays in the Midwest. Eventually, in 1876, he moved to Canada, and joins the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They allowed black priesthood ordination, but like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they didn’t practice universal priesthood ordination in the 19th century. Meaning that, in the 19th century, both churches basically ordained enough men to run a given branch or Ward but didn’t practice universal ordination. That’s true for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that doesn’t really change until they start to systematically ordain young men at age 12, around 1908. And then you have the almost universal male ordination that becomes systematic in the 20th century but wasn’t the case in the 19th century. So, the fact that there were black priesthood holders in the 19th century, when not all white men were ordained, makes it that much more remarkable. But Isaac was not ordained in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Reorganized Church did ordain black men to the priesthood in the 19th century, but only to support a branch structure and they eventually develop segregated congregations in the south, presided over by black priesthood holders but segregated from their white congregations.
GT 09:52 Oh, so, they kind of had a black church and a white church, essentially.
Paul 09:55 They did.
GT 09:56 That’s interesting. I didn’t know that.
Paul 09:57 Yeah.
Isaac Van Meter
GT 09:59 Another question that I want to ask, this is kind of a personal question. I’ve been trying to research a guy named Isaac Van Meter. Is he in your database? Does that name ring a bell?
Paul 10:11 That name sounds familiar, but we don’t have a biography on him.
GT 10:15 Okay. Here’s why he is important to me. I know there was a DVD done by Margaret Young and Darius Gray, “Nobody Knows.” And in the extras on that video, the Connell O’Donovan, had mentioned Isaac Van Meter. I think he said [Isaac] was a missionary companion to Wilford Woodruff, I think somebody like that, [Lorenzo] Snow, maybe. And he thought that Isaac Van Meter was an early black Mormon. I haven’t been able to get a second opinion on that. So, does that ring any bells?
Paul 10:30 No, it doesn’t. But we should certainly add him to our research list. We have a list of people who are potentially people to be included in the database, and then we do the research. And if the evidence bears it out, then we write the biography, and they’re included. But I don’t think he’s even on our research list.
GT 11:22 Oh, really?
Paul 11:23 Yeah.
GT 11:23 So I gave you a tip.
Paul 11:26 You gave us a tip. Yeah. Send us the information. And we’ll put him on the research list at least.
GT 11:32 Because he’s one of six–we were just having lunch. Maybe I will take you up on that. I want to write a book on this because it’s one of my favorite topics. Including Isaac Van Meter, I’ve been able to identify six-ish, but I’m not nearly as good of a researcher as you, Paul.
Paul 11:52 You’re probably better. I mean, it sounds like it. Yeah.
Joseph Ball
GT 11:55 But the six that I’ve identified, and I would like you to address them really quickly, Elijah Able, of course, everybody knows about him. Joseph Ball, you’ve actually found some information on him. Because in our first interview, I had said, “Well, Joseph Ball was the first black high priest in Boston.” You pushed back a little bit on that. And I know you’ve done some research since that interview. Can you share a little bit about Joseph Ball?
Paul 12:24 Sure. We didn’t find any evidence that those who associated with Joseph Ball knew him to be black. In other words, there is evidence that he was of black African descent, but that he and his sisters passed as white. And Jeffrey Mahas did the research and the biography for this entry of Black Mormons database, and I think did a really good job. But no contemporary sources that anyone in the Latter-day Saint community understood him to be black, that he had passed as white. So, people like Wilford Woodruff who were associating with him don’t ever mention him to be a person he understood to be black. But, in other situations, Woodruff does mention, for example, Q. Walker Lewis as a black elder, and he creates a membership record when he goes through Tennessee and 1835. Actually, in some of the branches, he draws a line and then says “Colored saints” and includes the names of five black Latter-day Saints in 1835, in Tennessee. So, it just feels improbable that he would be a companion with Joseph Ball and never mention in any sort of way that he understood him to be black.
GT 13:56 Because he did mention Walker Lewis, as you said.
Paul 13:58 He does, and he does single out these other black Latter-day Saints who are in the branches in Tennessee and identifies them specifically as colored. In the public records for Joseph Ball, none of them identify him as black after he passes as white into adulthood.
GT 14:23 So, it’s likely that he was ordained, assuming he was white.
Paul 14:28 Yeah, yeah. So that’s another thing we do in the database. We trace people who, because the church implemented what came to be called a one-drop policy, meaning trying to exclude anyone with what was considered, in the 19th century, one drop of African blood is how they described it. Right? We now have DNA. We don’t understand things the same way. But that’s how they described it, meaning you could have 99 White ancestors and one black ancestor, and you would still be qualified as black. Some states adopted one drop rules during the segregation period to legally define a person who was black. Well, the LDS Church does so in trying to define and ferret out temple admission and priesthood ordination. So, because they had that policy for inclusion in the database, we include anyone that we can verify of any African ancestry. And so, Joseph Ball is…
GT 15:24 Even if they passed as white in this case.
Paul 15:25 Even if they passed as white. If we can verify African ancestry, and Joseph Ball’s case, that’s easily done, because his father is of African ancestry.
GT 15:38 He’s from Jamaica, I believe.
Paul 15:39 Yeah, he may have been a mixed racial ancestry. So that it makes it easier to understand how, by Joseph’s generation, he and his sisters were able to pass as white, because probably the product of a couple of generations of interracial marriages, but nonetheless, African ancestry and therefore qualifies for the database. But we don’t have evidence that those who ordained him to the priesthood were aware that they were ordaining a black man to the priesthood, in other words.
GT 16:11 Yeah.
Paul 16:11 So it just illustrates, like several other cases in the database, the impossibility of policing racial boundaries.
GT 16:20 Okay. And I think that’s important. I’m really glad you did that research, because Connell, I think, is a great historian. And he was the one I had learned that from. I was always under the impression that he was an open black man and was openly ordained, but it sounds like that really wasn’t the case.
Paul 16:39 Yeah, we’ve had no evidence of that.
Walker Lewis
GT 16:41 But Walker Lewis was a barber, and I think it was Wilford Woodruff, mentioned him. He was openly ordained.
Paul 16:48 Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, incontrovertible evidence. A letter that that Wilford Woodruff writes, calls him a colored elder. And [he] does so as if there’s nothing unusual about this. And then other people who visit that branch–he’s hosting missionaries in his home, having potential investigators into his home for missionaries to have meetings with. He’s paying a really generous tithe. We found his tithing records. He, at one point, pays a trombone in a trombone box as tithing. He was a musician and had a variety of musical instruments. And at one point, I guess, the trombone became tithing, as well, but he must have done well in his barber shop in Lowell, Massachusetts, because he was paying a generous tithe in the 19th century. And [he’s] ordained, most likely by William Smith, who was an apostle at the time, Joseph Smith’s younger brother. Other apostles who visit the Lowell, Massachusetts branch, just acknowledge him as a black Elder.
GT 18:13 Do we know approximately when he was ordained?
Paul 18:15 Yeah, it’s 1843 or 44?
GT 18:18 Okay, so right before Joseph’s death.
Paul 18:20 Yeah, before Joseph’s death, but there’s no surviving document to know for sure. And so, it really depends on which visit to the Lowell branch that you count. William Smith, he’s there in 1843, so he [Walker Lewis] could have been ordained then. He’s there in 1844, he could have been ordained then. It’s later that William Appleby goes and says that he was ordained by William Smith. And it’s because there’s no surviving documentation, it’s likely 1843 or 1844.
GT 18:54 Well, it’s interesting, because I believe it was 1845 when Joseph Ball was made the branch president. Does that sound right?
Paul 19:02 That sounds about right, yeah.
GT 19:04 Because I’ve always wondered–there was a lot going on in that branch. That’s kind of a soap opera itself.
Enoch Lewis
GT 19:14 Okay, so we’ve identified, if we can’t Isaac Van Meter, Elijah Able, Walker Lewis. His son, Enoch Lewis, was also ordained. Right?
Paul 19:22 His son Moroni.
GT 19:23 Moroni, I thought it was Enoch.
Paul 19:25 Oh, oh, sorry. So Q. Walker Lewis,
GT 19:27 Right.
Paul 19:28 Sorry. We haven’t found evidence of his ordination. So, there’s supposition that maybe he was, but no concrete evidence for Enoch. And none of the letters describe–he was definitely baptized and married to Mary Matilda Webster, who’s a white member of the Lowell Massachusetts branch. But I haven’t found concrete evidence for his ordination.
GT 19:55 Oh, okay. I think Connell believed that there was some pretty good evidence for that, but maybe not.
Paul 20:01 Connell suggests that it’s a possibility. And you know, that may be true. We haven’t found concrete evidence to substantiate that. Jordan Watkins at BYU is the one that’s been doing the research. He did the bio at Century of Black Mormons for Q. Walker Lewis and is also working on his son Enoch. Enoch’s bio isn’t loaded to the database yet, but Jordan has been working on it.
Moroni Able
GT 20:23 Okay. Okay. Who’s this Moroni? That was somebody I hadn’t heard about?
Paul 20:28 Sorry. So I thought you were referring to Elijah Able’s son Moroni and he is ordained to the priesthood in 1871, in Ogden.
GT 20:37 Okay, way after the supposed ban, right?
Paul 20:40 Yes. And it’s a deathbed ordination. But, nonetheless, there’s no indication that his race is seen as a barrier. He falls ill, and I think it’s his sister, Annie Able, who writes this, and it’s published in the Ogden newspaper, that he falls ill. He’s sick for several weeks. And he calls for the elders to give him a blessing. And at the same time that they bless him for health, they ordain him an elder in the priesthood.
GT 21:14 Oh, wow.
Paul 21:14 And that was not atypical in the 19th century, to give deathbed ordinations for young kids. The notion was you want them to have the priesthood as they pass into the next life. The Church stops that practice by the end of the 19th century. But it was pretty common in the 19th century. It’s a last rite of sorts, that you want this person, a male person to have the priesthood as they go into the next life. And so, deathbed ordination was a thing. And Moroni Able, Elijah Able’s son receives a deathbed ordination and it’s published in the newspaper, and no one seems to have an issue with it.
GT 22:06 In 1871. That’s interesting.
Paul 22:08 In 1871, yeah.
Enoch & Elijah Able III
GT 22:09 Then Elijah’s grandson, who was also Elijah, right?
Paul 22:13 Correct.
GT 22:13 [He] was ordained.
Paul 22:14 [He was ordained] in 1935 in Logan.
GT 22:18 Okay. Not a deathbed ordination.
Paul 22:21 Not a deathbed, no. And he lives the rest of his life as a practicing Latter-day Saint, as a priesthood holder. He’s passed as white by that point.
GT 22:29 Okay,
Paul 22:30 His father, Enoch Able, has passed away. And the early census record, the 1900 census record, defines Elijah–so it would be Elijah, III, really, defines him as black in 1900, along with all the children in Enoch’s family. Enoch dies in 1901. And he had married a white woman. And so, time and distance really account for a person’s ability to pass as white. So, the black person in the family, the father, is now dead. The white mother is still alive. The kids grow to adulthood. The 1910 census, I believe, he’s described as mulatto, and then in 1920, white. In every subsequent census after that, [he’s] described as white. And the living memory of the black father is gone. Interracial marriages means that their skin was likely lighter than some African Americans and [he] moves away.
GT 23:44 Did he live in Utah, at this time?
Paul 23:46 In 1935, when he’s ordained, he’s in Logan. He’s baptized in Idaho, and then moves back to Logan, where he had grown up, and that’s where he’s ordained in 1935, and then moves to Montana. And that’s where he passes away. I think it’s in the 1960s. And his funeral is held at the LDS chapel in–I’m trying to remember the town, now. Anyway, his grave is there in Montana, and his whole funeral service is conducted by the bishop. I don’t think anyone knows that they are burying the grandson of the faith’s first black priesthood holder.
GT 24:32 Well, even Elijah was pretty light-skinned. Is that right?
Paul 24:35 Right.
GT 24:35 But didn’t everybody know he was black?
Paul 24:37 Correct. He never passed as white. So, his death record in Salt Lake, his burial record in Salt Lake, includes the word ‘colored’ in the column where normally you’re supposed to record the person’s next of kin, they wrote the word ‘colored.’ And every census record describes him as he either Mullato or Quadroon. So, always defining him as racially, not white, and some percentage of black African ancestry. So, he never passes [as white] and he’s understood in Church records, as well as public records, to be colored or black, or of black African ancestry, for his entire life. But his children, so his wife Mary Ann, Elijah Able’s wife, is also a mixed racial ancestry. Some of his children pass as white, some don’t. But grandchildren, in particular, pass as white.
GT 25:48 Elijah Able, III, was he able to get a temple marriage, or sealing?
Paul 25:54 I don’t know that he ever applied. He was married twice, and neither of those are temple marriages.
GT 26:01 Okay. Yeah. But we don’t know if he tried.
Paul 26:04 I don’t know that he tried. I have no evidence of that. We couldn’t find membership record for his second wife. I don’t think she was LDS.
GT 26:13 Okay.
Paul 26:13 But she’s living with him in Montana. And he’s a practicing Latter-day Saint, as far as we can tell, because, like I said, his funeral, everything’s published in the Montana newspaper. It’s held in the LDS chapel. His fellow ward members are participating, singing songs, all of those kinds of things. So, just a normal Latter-day Saint funeral.
GT 26:40 Wow. This is why we like to talk to Paul Reeve. He’s an encyclopedia. (Chuckling)
Paul 26:44 (Chuckling)
Warner McCary
GT 26:47 All right. Isaac Van Meter, Elijah Able, Walker Lewis, Enoch Lewis, Warner McCary. Can you talk about him?
Paul 26:57 Yeah. We I don’t believe he was ordained to the priesthood.
GT 27:02 Really? You’re killing me, Paul.
Paul 27:04 No, I don’t think there’s any evidence. In fact, I think there’s pretty strong evidence that he wasn’t, simply because of the interview that takes place with him and Brigham Young in March of 1847 at Winter Quarters. Basically, William [Warner] McCary says, “Look, I don’t have any position of authority here.” And he’s basically saying [that] it’s because I’m of a different color.
Paul 27:31 And that’s when Brigham Young responds to him by saying, “Look, we don’t even discriminate in distributing priesthood authority. We have one of the best elders, an African in Lowell, a barber,” referring to Q. Walker Lewis, who we already talked about. So, in other words, if William McCary had the priesthood, there’s no reason to point to Q. Walker Lewis. They would have said, “Well, yeah, you have the priesthood. See, we don’t discriminate. You’re ordained to the priesthood.” Instead, he cites Q. Walker Lewis, as his example, that the Church doesn’t discriminate in distributing priesthood authority. So, I think it’s a pretty strong indication that he wasn’t ordained. The only evidence is a belated remembrance back, in, I think it’s the Voree Herald. So, separated by time and distance from the actual events, and it’s a belated remembrance that suggested that Orson Hyde ordained him. And we’ve found no evidence that that’s the case. And in fact, I think the interview with him and Brigham Young strongly suggests otherwise.
GT 28:46 That’s what I had heard was that Orson Hyde had ordained him, but you think that’s not true?
GT 28:49 That’s not true. Like I said, the evidence for that is of a Voree Herald [article,] a Strangite publication and separated by several years from the events, and we’re not even sure who the author of that suggestion is. So, people had, I think, given that report too much credibility, and we found no evidence of ordination.
GT 29:25 Oh, Paul. You’re killing me. I was like, “Oh, there were six men ordained” and now you’ve just shot down, kind of Joseph Ball and Warner McCary. I’m trying to remember who the sixth one was.
…
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