Mormonism and White Supremacy: American Religion and The Problem of Racial Innocence

by Joanna Brooks

It was the first time since the end of the ban thirty-four years earlier that the Church had officially acknowledged and denounced the racist folklore the ban had engendered. It was also the first time the Church had acknowledged the historical periodicity of the ban: the “restriction” had not been given by God from time immemorial, as prior statements since 1949 had indicated;